I thought I’d have a go at a new feature here on HoylakeJunction.com entitled Shopkeepers Stories.
I’ve had the idea of publishing articles about the shops and businesses along Market Street and in Hoylake more generally for some time. The aim is to publish behind-the-counter articles about different Hoylake businesses on a regular’ish basis. What I’m not looking to do though is to compile a directory of Hoylake businesses – there’s umpteen sites that do that already, it’s time consuming and it’s a market that Google will come dominate before too long anyways.
Whilst we may not have an Arkwright’s Open All Hour’s type shop in Hoylake (did we ever?) we do have quite a selection of both national brands and local independent traders, all offering goods and services for a local and sometimes wider audience. I’ll be hoping to find out information, photos, stories, etc about them that you’ll find interesting.
The first in the series will hopefully be published tomorrow (Tuesday). It might take a couple of articles before I get into the swing of things but let’s give it a bash and see where we end up 🙂
And if you’re a shopkeeper and want to tell your very own Shopkeepers Story then please get in touch via email or the contact form and I’ll see what I can do! And if you’re a reader and have always wanted to know something about a particular Hoylake shop then feel free to let me know!
We did. It was called Owen and Lammie and was on same side as the TSB, just about opposite The Ship, and next to Mr + Mrs Hawthorn’s wool shop I think – Mr Hawthorn was a keen knitter,and used to knit his own ties and could give knitting advice as well as his wife. I knitted my first jumper using their Emu wool when it was 2/- ie 10p an ounce – my mother wanted to enter a competition but didn’t want to do any knitting. I did as I was told, and knitted…..
The men who served behind the counter in Owen and Lammie wore brown coats, and nothing was too much trouble. It had that most wonderful typical ironmonger’s smell – a mix of linseed oil for putty, brass polish, floor polish, furniture polish, string, sealing wax, paraffin etc.
My late father, Norman Thompson, was part of the Mens’ Group from the parish of Hoylake who worked on the restoration of the Parish Hall. The brass plaque spent some time in our back garden, while I painted oxalic acid on the brass and scrubbed to remove the tarnish. The oxalic acid crystals came from Owen + Lammie, in the days before HSE and girls were allowed to scrub brass clean with dangerous chemicals. Once cleaned, the letters were repainted and the plaque was put back outside the entrance to the main hall.
This would have been between 1966 and 1970 at the latest. I’m sorry, but I can’t remember when Owen and Lammie closed. Probably around the same time that Houghs moved from Market Street to Carr Lane.