Continuing with the theme of Bold Street stories below is the story of Agnes Curnow (nee Smith) who remembers the Bold Street of Cripps, T.S Bacon and her own shop Drinkwaters.
In 1943 I started work at a high-class dressmakers in Bold Street. I was 14 years old and it was my second job. My first one had been for about eight months, in a printers in Wrexham, having been evacuated there on the 3rd September 1939 - the day that the war started.
When most of the bombing had stopped we return to Liverpool in 1943 and thats how I arrived at my second job of apprentice dressmaker, at the tender age of 14.
The dressmakers was very exclusive and called ‘Drinkwaters’ making top quality ladies’ wear and outfits for ladies who were going to be ‘Present at Court’ known in those days as ‘coming out.’
The name of G W Drinkwater was spread across the front window for all to see. The shop and workroom was on the first floor and was reached by a set of wide stone steps leading from the pavement.
Looking up Bold Street from the Hanover Street end it was not very far up on the left hand side. Next door to Waring and Gillow who sold quality furniture and almost opposite the Kardomah Cafe which specialised in coffee - the fragrance was very nice and seemed to travel the full length of the street.
Also on the first floor was a milliners, with the Elliott Clarke School of Dance and Drama on the floor above. It was all very posh to me in those days.
I was the youngest of the workers as most of the other were a lot older than I was except for a girl of about 19 who started about three years later. The others were what I thought of at the time as middle aged women.
The were probably the good-old-days of Bold Street and the high class feel of the area may well be gone now. I worked there until 1947 and when I left I joined the land army and was posted to Cornwall, where I have lived ever since.
Thank you so much to Agnes for sharing her memories with us.
In the 1930s my parents owned a “high class” soft furnishings shop at No.118 Bold St, but by 1941 all they had available for sale was blackout material. At a lecture a few years ago in Liverpool the lecturer stated that Bold St was one of the only city centre streets which had not been bombed. I gently pointed out the (awful) modern buildings covering No’s 118 and the adjoining property upon which he commented that he had always wondered why these seemed so poorly constructed compared with older shops. Of course they wwere rebuilt after the war but much had happened in the meantime so my parents never renewed the lease which was owned by Cheshire Lines Railways. The destruction was not through a direct hit but was set alight by flames and sparks from St Lukes church. At 80 years of age there are many more memories of my upbringing in Liverpool (I left in 1956) which would be boring to others.
In my original comment I forgot to mention that my parent’s shop at 118 Bold St,traded under the name of “Hawker Owen”. It is interesting to read the comments of younger bloggers (i.e under 60!) who think that the street hasn’t changed. They perhaps don’t realise that in pre-war days Bold St really did only have high class shops, of the kind that are rarely seen in the city today (by comparison with Manchester that is!) and that was why it was known as the Bond St of the north. The downward trend in quality started after Blacklers was destroyed by bombing and relocated to Bold St. Nothing wrong with Blacklers of course except that it was definitely not an upmarket store and didn’t try to be.The decline of the street followed the pattern set by the city , meaning the emigration of a high proportion of the middle classes, a pattern which now thankfully appears to be going into reverse.