Marlene Tolley – The travelling traders

Simon: I was really interested that you said that each section had a Buyer. I’d assumed that Elizabeth Pack would be the one buying everything, or whoever ran the shop at the time.

Marlene: The Traders used to come.

Simon: The Representatives.

Marlene: Yes, they used to come and they used to take their stuff out their cases and show it to you and you know. All the Departments had somebody that came. What did they used to call them? Travellers, I think that’s what they were called, and they went to each Department. ‘Cos you had Haberdashery and you also had the Hosiery Department. They used to buy what they thought people would want, and then it used to come I suppose by Post, I don’t know if there was Post then (laughs).

Simon: It’s quite a skill to make sure that you’re …

Marlene: That what you bought was what people wanted. But the Buyer from the Children’s Department, she knew if he showed her something, if it was full of smocking and … you probably don’t know what smocking is, but it was like embroidery all across the top of a lovely dress, quality dress, she knew who would buy that. Mrs So-and-so, but they only bought one of anything, they wouldn’t buy two.

That was quite interesting really, and you saw, when you got those things in or she’d say, “Somethings coming in that you might like.”