Christine Fisher-Lathwell – Memories of Woods and Wilkins

Christine: If I remember rightly, there was one very long counter with lots of drawers at the back. It may have changed but the floorboards squeaked when you went in so I think it was floorboards. And then there was an upstairs Department. I think downstairs sold … I think the Do-It-Yourself Department was upstairs, so Wood and Wilkins had all kinds of things. I remember going up the stairs which creaked to the next floor.

I don’t think the top floor was anywhere you could go, and that’s where I got my nylon thread in the middle floor and hammers and things like that. I’m trying to think what they sold downstairs and I’ve got the feeling it may have been things like there were lots of little drawers with nails and things in, so I’m not sure. My recalls not … there was definitely an area out the back.

I think you could buy wood and planks and sorts of things that Carpenters would use ‘cos I’m pretty certain we bought hardboard to make things out of out there so I’m pretty certain we did because it would wobble as the wind took you across the crossing from Woods and Wilkins to here and the wind would take it and … like Rolf Harris you know with the wobble board. Yes, so I’m pretty certain they sold all sorts of things for Carpenters. I just remember the guys there seemed to be very old.

Simon: You mentioned earlier the sort of smell in the air of Woods and Wilkins.

Christine: Yes, it was like wood and leather. I don’t know what they sold that was leather but it was polish, leather, wood and I suppose there would have been a slight smell of metal.

Simon: So, they sold tools as well in there?

Christine: Yes, absolutely. I just seem to remember having to go upstairs to get my nylon thread and hammers and our Haberdashery Department sold pins, so I didn’t need to get them from Woods and Wilkins but I think we may have got spray paints and silvers and gold for Christmas in there, yes so they probably would have sold, even sold, don’t know if they were invented then, car paints, I would imagine.

They definitely seemed to move with the times even though when you walked in it was the era of a sort of Victorian shop, and the chaps there were quite elderly, or at least they seemed like that to a 16-year-old, but they were there for a long time because they definitely were there when I came back.