IT was the time when the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor, the West India Hurricane Fund and the strangely named Public Benefit Cigarette Supply Company all had premises in Southampton’s Above Bar.

The date was 1936 and most of the names above the shops or on doors outside offices have now long been consigned to history for many decades. Among the many individual and local shopkeepers proudly displaying their wares was a George Gillett, who owned a combined butcher, florist and greengrocer store that used to be next door to the old Sussex public house run by one of the best-known Southampton landlords of his time, Arthur Trestrail.

Gillett’s used to stand approximately opposite the former Odeon cinema, now redeveloped into shops, and according to the history books was one of the casualties of the Second World War blitz seventy-five years ago in 1940. In the 1936 edition of Kelly’s street directory for Southampton Gillett’s is listed as occupying number 84 Above Bar. However, it is known that three years earlier, the butcher also had premises in St Mary Street, near to Kingsland Market.

How many local Southampton people can remember some of the other names that appeared in Above Bar in those far off days? At 40 and 42 Above Bar was the chemist Timothy White’s, while just along the road was Claude Faulkiner’s Billiards Club and Butter Creams, the sweet shop. Price Brothers, bakers and confectioners, were at number 98, the Grosvenor Café was open for business next door to Spa Road, and the Maypole Dairy and the Royal Southampton Yacht Club, together with the dental practice People’s Teeth Association, could all be found in Above Bar. The local diplomatic corps was also represented in Above Bar with Uruguay and Brazil having consulates next door to each other. At the northern end of the street the Fifty Shilling Tailors, the Forum cinema and the Bungalow Café were all attracting customers.