Chelmsford, High Street 1955.

A Memory of Chelmsford.

This photo shows the view from the bottom end of the High Street leading up to the Shire Hall in the very far distance. One can clearly see the blinds on the shop on the corner of Springfield Road, and the Boots logos and sign on the wall of the building. To the left side between the two parked cars, hanging from the wall of a building is a sign. This was in fact the Queens Head public house, now long since gone. Just beyond here there used to be a Currys shop, though not for electrical goods like to-day. It was here that I purchased my first new bike. I was doing a paper round for Smiths the newsagents in the railway station, and it was my wages that I paid in weekly until the bike was finally mine. Just past Currys was The Singer Seweing Machine shop. I was a young man straight from school and this was my first job. There was a manageress and about five young lady assistants; it really was one glorious place to work in. They sold the machines from demonstration stock in the shop, and afterwards I had to assemble whatever model had been purchased. I was up on the top floor; then the machine was brought down to the first floor where one of the young ladies would check that the tension and stitching was correct before it was delivered to the customer. To an impressionable young man so close to young ladies, smelling their perfume, whenever I brought a machine down to them, this was an experience worth enjoying. They stocked the treadle machines, hand operated ones; but top of the range were the electrical models. The treadle machines were assembled downstairs out at the back of the showroom as they would have been too heavy to take downstairs once assembled.