The latest makeover on Beech Road ……..

Now with every bit of change there is a lot of continuity.

2023

So today I spotted the latest bit of makeover to Etchells the newsagent which has done the business of selling comics, magazines, newspapers, and a heap of other things since the 1960s.

1979

They are one of the Beech Road institutions and leaving aside the two pubs can lay claim to being the oldest continuous commercial property on the road where I live.

Not only that but the shop has always been a newsagent stretching back into the early 20th century.

At one time it was also a private lending library, and one part of the shop was originally a cobbler.

So, there you have it a bit of change to set against a continuity of retail service.

2000

And for those that remember it here is the poster on the wall celebrating the Beech Road shops at the turn of the century.

Circa 1900

Leaving me just to reflect on that wonderful Radio 4 comedy about a Scottish newsagent, but that is a blog for another time. *

Location; Beech Road,

Pictures, Etchells on Beech Road, 2023, 2000, & 1979, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and circa 1900. 

*Fags, Mags and Bags, Radio 4 BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fbnb7