I doubt now that I will ever be able to uncover the story behind the picture.
It comes from the collection of Bob Jones, and must date from the early years of the last century.
But there is no name or comment on the back to give us a clue and little in the picture to suggest a place or time.
The stone facing above the shop window makes me think we are not in Manchester and some of Bob’s family came from Yorkshire and the North East but that pretty much is that.
So far a search for S. J. Lowe has not brought up any promising leads and we are left with the shop itself.
I went looking for the magazine Fashion for All which are advertised below the window, but I drew another blank.
Now there may be someone who can date the picture from the style of advertising on the window or the chocolate box in the display but I doubt it.
So for the time being it is a photograph which stubbornly does not give up its secrets.
And yet it remains a wonderful record of what a newsagents would have been like when my grandfather was growing up.
And it seems I may have got the title of that magazine wrong. Both Angie and Ken Fish thought it might be Home Fashion.
Ken went on to do some digging and discovered that Home Fashion was published by Harmsworth in the 1920s.
All of which might place our picture later than I thought.
I just love the way these stories just run and run.
Picture; S. J. Lowe, Tobacconists, and Newsagents, date unknown, courtesy of Bob Jones
But there is no name or comment on the back to give us a clue and little in the picture to suggest a place or time.
The stone facing above the shop window makes me think we are not in Manchester and some of Bob’s family came from Yorkshire and the North East but that pretty much is that.
So far a search for S. J. Lowe has not brought up any promising leads and we are left with the shop itself.
I went looking for the magazine Fashion for All which are advertised below the window, but I drew another blank.
Now there may be someone who can date the picture from the style of advertising on the window or the chocolate box in the display but I doubt it.
And yet it remains a wonderful record of what a newsagents would have been like when my grandfather was growing up.
And it seems I may have got the title of that magazine wrong. Both Angie and Ken Fish thought it might be Home Fashion.
Ken went on to do some digging and discovered that Home Fashion was published by Harmsworth in the 1920s.
All of which might place our picture later than I thought.
I just love the way these stories just run and run.
Picture; S. J. Lowe, Tobacconists, and Newsagents, date unknown, courtesy of Bob Jones
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