50 YEARS OF RETAIL


Hair has become more mixed too with most salons of the nine salons cutting both men’s and women’s hair. In fact two are men only now and there were two barbers back in 1965. In the 1960s men’s barbers were often combined with tobacconists. In the 1960s, the town was pretty much self sufficient. There was a Woolworths and three or four good grocery shops – the International Stores on the Quay and the Home and Colonial Stores on Duke street, the shop which is now Bookends. The business of many of the food shops is now taken over by supermarkets – M & S and the Coop in town, Sainsburys and Lidl up in Townstal. There used to be 8 bakers but


Street. Tozer, the stationer on Flavel Place would have been another survivor, except that it closed in 2014 (and in the 1960s it was in Lake street). Lloyd Attree has moved around but the shop still sells jewellery. And of course, Boots the Chemist although it no longer has a lending library. The biggest single change is the growth in art


While there i


now only one. But as far as food is concerned, the town is as self sufficient as it was fifty years ago. You can buy everything at supermarkets – but there are still small individual shops and market stalls selling fresh food. In any case, the type of business has changed, but not the ability to buy your food in Dartmouth. It is in large scale items that the pattern has changed


most. In the 1960s you bought your car at Couch and Stoneman or Philip Head and Co (Austin Morris dealers on the embankment) or Dennings on Mayor’s Avenue if you wanted a Vauxhall; white goods came from the SW Electricity Board showroom in Fairfax Place, and televisions from the Rediffusion at the end of Foss Street or Gibsons TV and Radios on Newcomen Road. For these, you now have to go to Torquay, Newton Abbot or Plymouth – or online. While there is continuity in type of business, only


a few specific businesses have survived : Hawkes in Duke street, unchanged emporium of sheets, carpets, beds, with a window display which has changed little; and Pillars, beloved haven for children, a newsagent and toyshop in a rabbit warren of rooms in Lower


continuity in tye of busines, only a few specific businese have survived


galleries, from nothing in the 1960s, to 16 today. There are many more gift shops too; reflecting the growth in tourism in Dartmouth over the 50 years. The yachtiness shows in the types of clothes shops – Musto, Henri Lloyd, and Quba all sell sailing gear. some businesses – like the food


stores – have not disappeared but have moved from the town up to Townstall, which is where builders’ merchants and building companies


are based. For my family, Dartmouth has been


a much loved place for all generations. My father-in-law, Bill Rudd Prynn had a drapery


and outfitters business, which he ran from the Old Market after his shop in Duke street had been bombed towards the end of the war (the shop is now the Midland bank); my mother-in-law Agnes was born and bred in Dartmouth and taught at the primary school – people still remember her. The children have all loved Dartmouth (it is a family belief that my step son Jonathan’s first word was ‘ivver’ – he somehow missed the r) and it was my great fortune to marry into Dartmouth folk and we have visited many times over the years. We have all loved the town and its charm – and somehow, in an age when the heart of small market towns is lamented and given up as lost, Dartmouth has retained her heart despite the changes of fifty years. It still has its charm and draw.


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