Inside Coventry's Owen Owen store which was city's version of 'Are You Being Served?'
Owen Owen was the Coventry department story which sold everything. From high fashion to hardware and haberdashery, for over 50 years, it had a distinct 'Are You Being Served?' feel in the heart of Broadgate.
The 1970s television sitcom seemed to mirror life in the four-floor department store owned by Duncan Norman and his son "Mr John." Interestingly, there was indeed an original Mr Owen Owen - a Welshman whose daughter married into the Norman family from Liverpool. Despite being part of a small chain, the up-market store became a local favourite.
This was partly because the first Owen Owen, located on the corner of the Burges and Trinity Street, was bombed along with the rest of the city centre during the 1940 Coventry Blitz. The shop, which opened in 1937, offered households of the 1930s the unique opportunity to buy everything they needed under one roof.
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However, this new shopping experience was short-lived as the store had only been open for two years when the Second World War started in 1939. A year later, like the nearby old Cathedral, it was left as an empty smoking shell with intact outer walls but a destroyed roof.
The replacement store, which officially opened amid great excitement on October 1, 1954, was just a few yards up the road, in Broadgate. The new manager was a woman, Miss Pinnock, who managed 400 staff working in 100 departments, selling everything from basement brooms and buckets to luxurious jewellery, perfume, bedding and baby linen.
Then there were the 12 assistants solely dedicated to serving ladies stockings. Allders took over the shop in 1996, and a decade later, Primark moved in.
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Since the turn of the century, department stores have struggled on the high street with a number of high profile casualties going by the wayside. Without a massive change in shopping habits, it's unlikely Coventry will see the like of Owen Owen in the heart of the city centre again.
