Bristol_and_Somerset-L Archives

Archiver > Bristol_and_Somerset > 1999-02 > 0919270995


From: "Carole Botwright" <>
Subject: Re: EMPORIUM?
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 17:03:15 -0000


I was born in 1961 and I went often to Joyes Emporium in New Road, Grays,
Essex as a child. It would perhaps now be compared to a department store.
It did not sell food. It sold clothing, underwear, material, hats and
gloves, trim and haberdashery and just anything you could think of. There
was one cash office - a sort of cubicle with frosted glass. You would be
served by an assistant, who would write a receipt with the items and amounts
of your purchases. All this plus your payment would be put in a small
black bag, attached to an overhead wire. The assistant would pull a kind
of chain and it would whizz off to the cash office, with small bells ringing
as it went through each small department. Then you would hear it coming
back, sometimes with change in the bag. I loved it.

It must have closed some time after 1972 because I remember going there to
choose material for a dress then.

Now that's an Emporium!

Carole Botwright
West Tilbury
Essex UK

Researching: Essex - GLADWIN, HANSON, BOTWRIGHT, TUTTON, LARGE, FRY
Suffolk- BOTWRIGHT, CARR, GODBOLD,CRISP, FAIRWEATHER
Middlesex - FRY, JACKSON, WALTER, DAVIS
Isle of Wight- TUTTON, COOPER
Wandering HANSONs in : Leeds, Gosport, Bristol, Newbury

This thread: