Archive Info Re Neg Reference B212201

A Memory of Bristol.

The street shown in your photograph is Small Street. The shop with the blinds on the extreme right was rented by my father about 1942/3 (The fact that the shop blinds are drawn suggests the photo' may have been taken on a Sunday.) My father owned and managed the boot and shoe retailing business at the corner of Stokes Croft and Jamaica Street from about 1924 until the building was destroyed during the first major German rain on Bristol around November 1940. After a year or two my father rented the little two fronted shop in the photograph and recommenced his shoe business on a smaller scale in these premises from roughly 1942/3 until about 1952.
This means your present Archive info' (19 June 2010) is not strictly correct as the photograph must have been taken between 1942 and 1952 at which time the contract to rent came to an end.
The sign above the shop reads "Holdcroft and Company".
For the record I attended the Bristol Cathedral School, later held a commision in "The Black Watch", After being "demobed" I returned to take the National Diploma in Design at the West of England College of Art.

Congratulations to Francis Frith Collection web site.

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