The price of customer loyalty ……. down the ages

So, I wonder what a future archaeologist will make of my Costa loyalty card.

Costa Gift Card, 2021

I say mine but I found it in the house and it could have been mislaid by anyone of the family, not that its owner heeded the message on the back ….. “PLEASE TAKE CARE OF THIS CARD AND TREAT IT LIKE CASH”.

And that got me thinking of loyalty cards down the ages.

Today, they are usually plastic, which are swiped at the cash till and instantly record the purchase and clock up the points.

I grew up with the Co-op divi, although unlike everyone I know I have long ago forgotten the number which I was ordered by mother to offer up at the RACS store on Well Hall Road.  

2d token issued by the R.A.C.S.

The divi was a more old-fashioned way of recording customer loyalty, but still an advance on the bit of paper which the cashier stamped at the Hanbury’s store or the one from Barbakan which when full entitled you to a free loaf of your choice.

Not that these loyalty cards should be confused with the far older tokens, which were issued as substitute money by some mill owners which could only be redeemed in the company grocery stores, which was really a double whammy.  

For having already paid out low wages the employers went one better because  their workforce had to use the stores where the produce might be more expensive and of a lower quality than could be bought in a conventional shop.

And then there were those other tokens in the form of half pennies. These were not strictly coinage but tokens which were only redeemable at the warehouse of the merchant who issued them.  

Half penny, 1791

But during the 17th and 18th century there was little low denomination coinage issued and so enterprising businessmen here in Manchester and in Liverpool and other Lancashire towns made their own.  

Our coin was issued in 1791 in Liverpool as part of a very large series by Thomas Clarke who produced ten tons of these copper coins between 1791 and ‘94.   Clarke was a Liverpool merchant. The coin itself although common remains a beautiful piece of work.  The obverse side shows a ship under canvas with crossed laurel branches beneath and the inscription Liverpool Half penny.  The reverse bears the motto and arms of Liverpool. 

Ours had not fared so well and part of the upper mast and rigging from the ship had worn away.  

I have no idea how it ended up in the parish churchyard or whether it had been used or was just a keepsake, but its Manchester equivalents may well have circulated in the township and there may even have been a reciprocal agreement between the merchants of Manchester and Liverpool.

It was found in the graveyard of the old St Clement’s church beside the village green and came to light during an archaeological dig led by Angus Batemen in the late 1970s and early 80s.

Of course, Angus knew what the half penny was, but I wonder what his successor might make of that Costa Gift Card.  

I doubt she might instantly recognise it as a means  to a cup of coffee.  

Perhaps she might instead assume it was some how connected to that great divide between the tea drinkers and the coffee drinkers, or maybe a love token with that swirling heart image.

Co-op stamps, circa 1969

Leaving me to reflect that loyalty is always being upgraded, so the divi number became the Co-op blue stamps and is now that bit of card or the App on the phone, which still works on that simple level of rewarding you for what you have bought and acting as a way of getting you back again, and again and again.

Silly history I know …. but history.

Location; our house

Pictures; Costa Gift Card, 2021, 2d token issued by the R.A.C.S., date unknown,and book of Co-op stamps, circa 1969,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Half Penny, 1791, detail from the report on the Archaeological dig conducted by Dr Angus Bateman during 1980-81

All sensible shoes and summer smiles ………

I am looking at one of those pictures which would have been all too familiar in the middle decades of the last century

We are on a private coach tour and the 31 passengers have gathered for the customary photograph outside one of the obligatory stops which in this case offered up “Souvenirs, Novelties & Postcards” along with “Ices & Minerals”.

I have no idea where we are or for that matter when.  But judging by the coaches and the clothes I think we will be in the early 1930s.

And this I think is confirmed by the figure of our dad standing sixth from the left as he would have looked in his mid-20s.

It may even have been before he moved to London to work for Glenton Tours which was in 1932.

If so, he might have been a passenger rather than driver and that may place the day out somewhere in the Northeast.

During the interwar years and into the 1950s the day out to some beauty spot or work’s outing were a popular way to see a bit of the countryside, escape from the city and enjoy an excursion with family and friends.

They predate the motor coach and there are plenty of pictures of horse drawn wagons and later charabancs plying the rural lanes, or parked up outside a pub.

Back in the 1960s to fill up the coach Dad took me and three friends on the firm’s  “Beano” to Brighton which consisted of several stops along the way, a fish and chip dinner, and a crate of beer on the coach.

Three decades earlier Nana regularly went on trips to historic and scenic places in the Midlands, for which we still have postcards bought at the destination and never sent.

Nor can we miss out the “mystery tours” which were still being advertised in the early 1980s in travel agents across the country.

The ones I remember were on display in Simpson’s travels agents on Wilbraham Road.  

The trick was to work out how far the coach could go from leaving Chorlton to return by 6 in the evening.

Not that I am knocking them.  The coach excursions, Beano’s, and mystery tours were an important recreational opportunity for people on limited means and especially before the introduction of paid holidays in the 1930s.

Our picture comes from a collection Dad had, but most are undated, and unnamed.

So there you are …. A little bit of how we had fun sometime before now.

Location; unknown

Picture; All sensible shoes and summer smiles, undated, from the Simpson collection

When Granby Street and Humberstone Gate offer up a heap of surprises …

In Leicester we are tourists.

Granby Street and the Grand Hotel, 1926

We started going about four years ago to see the kids and now we have added the grandchildren to the reason we travel down from Manchester to Knighton.

But when they are at work and school we revert to being tourists, which is how we got to properly explore the city centre last January.

The Airbnb on Charles Street was perfect for forays out to see the sights, take in a meal, and discover Richard 111, the old Town Hall, and the museum.

In between there were all those tiny little streets which offer up a heap of surprises.

Reverse of Granby Street card, 1926

Not that Granby Street or Humberstone Gate can be said to be little, although they did both yield up some surprises.

The first was that the Grand Hotel was still there and still impossible to photograph, for which I took a tad bit of pleasure given that the photographer for Tuck and Son’s postcard did no better than me.

It is of course a big building, and the street is quite narrow making a decent shot which gets in all the detail a challenge.  At which point I am aware someone will contradict me and send one over.

And that is the challenge should anyone choose to attempt to pull off a photographic coup.

Knowing we were going to do the city centre tourist adventure I had brought along a selection of my Tuck picture postcards.  

Tuck and Son were a major postcard company with offices across the world and a huge catalogue of British and international locations.

Humberstone Gate and Bell Hotel, 1943

And amongst their Leicester collection are a series which appear to date from 1926, although the actual photograph might be older, and the usage date might stretch way beyond their first issue.

So, in the case of the Humberstone Gate card, it was posted in 1943, and was sent from the Bell Hotel which was located at number 26 Humberstone Gate.

Part of the surprise for this one was that the message records a Mr and Mrs Clayton were spending part of their honeymoon at the Bell, and “were having a grand old time there”.

Alas, the hotel and the rest of the buildings are now under the Haymarket.  Well I say so, but I am but a tourist so I shall wait confirmation.

Reverse of Humberstone Gate card, 1943

Location; Granby Street or Humberstone Gate, Leicester

Picture;  Granby Street or Humberstone Gate, Leicester, 1926, from Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/ 

When we had a piano shop on Beech Road

Sometimes a picture captures a moment which with hindsight allows you to see that things were just about to change.

Here is another of those photographs taken by Tom McGrath in the middle 1980s.

I don’t suppose any of us could have realized that as we walked past the old closed up off license that within a couple of years two out of these three shops would be part of the transformation of Beech Road.

For as long as I can remember Muriel and Richard had run the green grocers in the centre of the parade.

On one side had been the off license which had sold bottled beer since the early years of the 20th century, while on the other the shop had been many things, including in the 50s a grocery store and by the time I washed up here was selling pianos.

But all of that was about to change and Tom’s pictures captures that point of change.  The off license which had struggled on into the 1980s became the Italian deli while the piano shop became a cafe before becoming a series of wine bars and growing its extension.

Only Richard and Muriel’s stayed the course, but were about to have a new and very impressive sign put above the door announcing that they were the Purveyors of fine fruit and vegetables, which they were.  But back in the mid 80s such things just didn’t seem to be done in the same way.

If you wanted fruit and veg, then that is where on Beech Road you went.  Just like if you needed paraffin or the odd nail or screw you went to the ironmongers next to Wilkinson’s the butchers.  Everyone knew them and knew what they sold.

Of course within a few years the old council offices had become the Lead Station, the grocers' beside the barbers' had become Primavera and the Wool Shop was to become Truth.  All of which makes Tom’s picture such a wonderful record of the old Beech Road some of us still remember.  And as if on cue as I was standing outside one of the new shops a couple went past telling their friend about “trendy Beech Road.”

What a lot has changed.

Picture, Beech Road circa 1980s, from the collection of Tom McGrath

When you never quite lose that love of the River

Now I miss the river, which given that I never lived that far away from it is not surprising. 

In the park, 1907

Like many I saw its transformation from working waterway to a river bordered by new developments that seemed to reach to the sky.

I don’t have a rosy nostalgic view of the Thames.  For those who worked on and lived by it, the river was a hard and at times capricious companion.

But sitting on the concrete wall across the road from the Cutty Sark pub on a warm summer’s evening was magic.

As dusk turned to night the conversations around us were interrupted by the occasional banging together of the moored barges caught in the wake of a passing pleasure craft.

And over the water you could just catch the noise of a party going on with snatches of music which were lost as the vessel disappeared into the dark.

Looking out across the river, 1907

Even now that smell of ozone takes me right back to games on the beech outside the Tower of London in the shadow of Tower Bridge and that stretch of sand in front of the Naval College.

These combine with more grown up ones of sitting watching the traffic in the dinner hour during the time I worked for Glenvilles Food near the tunnel.

Leaving me only to remember the moment, me, Jimmy O’Donnell and John Cox sank in the oozy, oily Thames mud, just beyond the steps that led down from the foot tunnel at Greenwich.

It was sometime around 1959 and we had the long walk home and the thought of the difficult set of explanations needed to cover the ruined shoes and socks.  To my eternal shame I blamed the other two, something which got me off the hook but which the passage of time has never let me apologise for.

So that just leaves me to comment on the picture dated 1907.  We are in the gardens by the river on the noth side.

Location; the River Thames

Picture; the Embankment, North Woolwich Gardens, circa 1907 courtesy of Kritina Bedford from her book Woolwich Through Time, 2014

Far away places ……..

I collect hotel luggage labels, which I know marks me off as odd, especially as I have never visited any of the hotels in the collection.

But then as most of them date from the 1950s and 60s, and given that I was born in 1949 it’s unlikely that I would have ever ordered a meal in the Semiramis in Cairo or the Palm Beach in Beirut.

Move on a decade and it just possible that I might have scrapped up enough to sit in the hotel lounge sipping a G&T and people watching.

That said the Lebanon was sliding into civil war and Beirut was fast becoming a battleground.

The surprise is that both these “luxury” hotels are still doing the business in the 21st century, with the Semiramis announcing that it is “located 0.9 km from Egyptian Antiquities Museum, guests of 5-star Intercontinental Cairo Semiramis Hotel may find a night club and loungers on-site. This venue is just 550 metres from Garden City.

The accommodation is placed in the centre of Cairo, a stroll away from Tahrir Square. It is set in the shopping area, a few steps from Downtown Cairo. Intercontinental Cairo Semiramis Hotel is a short drive from Mosque of Ibn Tulun.

The hotel offers luxurious rooms furnished with ironing facilities, direct dial phone and smoke detectors. Enjoy the magnificent view over the sunset. Showers, a bidet and slippers, as well as a kettle, a microwave and kitchenware are featured.

A bar serves a buffet breakfast. Thai meals are supplied at the gastronomic restaurant. At the on-site Poolside bar guests can relax and enjoy cold drinks. Nile Terrace offers a rich choice of Middle Eastern, Arabic and Egyptian dishes daily. The nearest underground station, Sadat, is about 400 metres away. The property has a rooftop swimming pool as well as steam baths, various massages and facials. A gym area and fitness are also part of the sport facilities available”.

While the Palm Beach informs possible clientele that it “is located on the famous Corniche. Overlooking the Mediterranean Sea it is only 10 minutes from Beirut International Airport & few minutes walking distance from the Downtown”.

So that is it.

I am not sure hotels still do luggage labels, so I am grateful to Ann Scot Cooks who collected these in the 1960s and donated them to the collection, as a timely reminder of how travel used to be.

Location; Cairo and Beirut, circa 1960s

Pictures; the Semiramis, and Palm Beech Hotels, circa 1960s, from the collection of Ann Scot Cooks

Lost in Kibworth ….. ten miles from Leicester ……..

Now I am not surprised that I have no idea where I am.

The picture postcard just says Leicester Road Kibworth, and despite wandering up and down the road today, I can’t get a fix on just where the picture was taken.

To be fair it comes from a series that Tuck and Son marketed in 1926 which gives plenty of scope for change.

But once I have located the row of houses, I have the census returns for 1901 through to 1921 and street directories lined up to help tell a story.

And Kibworth has come to fascinate me since I came across it a few days ago.

It was and still is a small village just 10 miles south of Leicester, with a population of 990, which has only doubled in a century.

Back in 1916 there were just 446 people with the usual list of tradesmen, and those linked to the land, but also a number who were engaged in the hosiery trade.  

To these can be added the 15 “posh people” who got their own listing in Kelly’s directory for 1916 including Col. Worthy Chaplain C.B., V.C., at Kibworth hall, and Major George Travers in the Old house.

It boasted three pubs and a beer seller and those hosiery frame knitters one of whom also ran the Admiral Nelson.

So, lots to find out and while the purists will point out it ain’t Leicester, its close enough to draw me in.

All I need to do is found out where I am. 

And that has been supplied by Ben who wrote, "Hi Andrew. My folks live just round the corner on Main St in Kibworth. This is the area around 63 Leicester Rd facing north towards the city of Leicester".

Location; somewhere in Kibworth

Picture; Leicester Road, 1926, from Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://tuckdbpostcards.org/, and Kelly’s Directory for Leicestershire, 1916