Jacksons
(The theme tune for this post, which I suggest you click and listen to while you read, is available here.)
Every day I walk past a shop which I have become unnaturally, possibly unhealthily, fascinated with.
Jacksons of Reading is a proper, old-fashioned outfitters and department store - and it is properly old fashioned. Brown wooden floors, glass-top counters, the 1970s fonts on the sale tickets, the ancient salespeople with tape-measures round their neck - it's 2006 and the place still has a hosiery department.
Anyway, Jackson's window displays are absolute fascinating. Rather haughty looking dummies - probably made in Corby in 1963 - wear the winter of discontent's latest fashions, topped off with a range of deeply unconvincing nylon wigs:
The alert Dr Who fans among you will spot that last picture is actually taken from Jon Pertwee's 1970 adventure Spearhead from Space, where showroom dummies (actually the Nestene-controlled Autons snort snort) "smash" through a department store window and start mowing down shoppers and Dixon of Dock Green style policemen. The scene was re-shot in the new series but it wasn't as scary as those original 1970 camel coats and wigs - and that is perhaps part of the reason I have become so fascinated with Jacksons. That, and the little dummy boy with the inexplicable plaster on his cheek:
Why? Why the plaster? Does the window dresser want to suggest the rough-and-tumble of childhood - the glancing blow from a fast bowl perhaps? Is the dummy so old it is has to be held together by elastoplasts? Or does the boy, a la Kim Cattrall in 1987 man shags doll rom-com Mannequin, come awake at night and get up to mischief - perhaps trying to half-inch Bazooka Bars from the tuck shop or some such?
I am tempted to go and ask the history of the little boy's injury, but that might make me look weird. Almost as weird as standing outside the shop in broad daylight taking photos of child dummies with my phone. Anyway, my love affair with Jackson's remains rather unrequited for the moment, as I have yet to properly set foot in the store. I ran in for two minutes once, but was glared at by their version of Captain Peacock, no doubt for my modern "jeans" and "training shoes", so I hopped out again. Perhaps this week I will give it a go - they apparently have a substantial hand-knitting and craft department in the basement.
(Postscript - perhaps Jacksons are not in such a time warp as I have made out - check out their website - where they declare, rather boastfully, "We have supplied, personalised rowing blazers to a school in New England in the US of A." Plus I am excited to discover that they still use a fully operational Lamson pneumatic tube system. I'm so there, as they probably wouldn't say in Jacksons.)
Every day I walk past a shop which I have become unnaturally, possibly unhealthily, fascinated with.
Jacksons of Reading is a proper, old-fashioned outfitters and department store - and it is properly old fashioned. Brown wooden floors, glass-top counters, the 1970s fonts on the sale tickets, the ancient salespeople with tape-measures round their neck - it's 2006 and the place still has a hosiery department.
Anyway, Jackson's window displays are absolute fascinating. Rather haughty looking dummies - probably made in Corby in 1963 - wear the winter of discontent's latest fashions, topped off with a range of deeply unconvincing nylon wigs:
The alert Dr Who fans among you will spot that last picture is actually taken from Jon Pertwee's 1970 adventure Spearhead from Space, where showroom dummies (actually the Nestene-controlled Autons snort snort) "smash" through a department store window and start mowing down shoppers and Dixon of Dock Green style policemen. The scene was re-shot in the new series but it wasn't as scary as those original 1970 camel coats and wigs - and that is perhaps part of the reason I have become so fascinated with Jacksons. That, and the little dummy boy with the inexplicable plaster on his cheek:
Why? Why the plaster? Does the window dresser want to suggest the rough-and-tumble of childhood - the glancing blow from a fast bowl perhaps? Is the dummy so old it is has to be held together by elastoplasts? Or does the boy, a la Kim Cattrall in 1987 man shags doll rom-com Mannequin, come awake at night and get up to mischief - perhaps trying to half-inch Bazooka Bars from the tuck shop or some such?
I am tempted to go and ask the history of the little boy's injury, but that might make me look weird. Almost as weird as standing outside the shop in broad daylight taking photos of child dummies with my phone. Anyway, my love affair with Jackson's remains rather unrequited for the moment, as I have yet to properly set foot in the store. I ran in for two minutes once, but was glared at by their version of Captain Peacock, no doubt for my modern "jeans" and "training shoes", so I hopped out again. Perhaps this week I will give it a go - they apparently have a substantial hand-knitting and craft department in the basement.
(Postscript - perhaps Jacksons are not in such a time warp as I have made out - check out their website - where they declare, rather boastfully, "We have supplied, personalised rowing blazers to a school in New England in the US of A." Plus I am excited to discover that they still use a fully operational Lamson pneumatic tube system. I'm so there, as they probably wouldn't say in Jacksons.)
posted by Nick at 7:37 PM
5 Comments:
There used to be one just like that in West Ealing: Daniels. Shiny lino tiles on the floor, and polystyrene / asbestos tiles on the ceiling. Scuffed carpetting, and a knitting department, with brass buttons for cardigans available individually.
Naturally they tore it down last year, to build more hastily erected yuppie flats (just what Ealing needs - put a smeg fridge in the place, and you can double the price apparently, even if it does overlook the bus depot) Rrrraaaahhh!
Ah, I feel better now.
I remember that store. I think I bought some wool there for some prop or other for a Fit To Burst show in 1604. Sigh.
I assume the plaster on the kids cheek is Jackson's way of being down with the Reading hip hop scene. Recall that other dummy called Nelly who thought it was cool to wear plasters even though he possessed no facial injuries, whilst singing about bitching his girlfriends mother blah blah. The mannequins all appear to be very Portuguese looking!
Good point anonymous. And that's a pleasing specific ethnicity you've chosen there. I'd go in and ask tomorrow, if I were brave enough.
Ah, the wonders of a quality underground haberdashery.
Unfortunately, Nottingham lost its last shop like this many years ago with the demise of the GNCS department store, however my in-laws reside in Morpeth which still boasts 'Smails'. Peopled entirely by ancient extras from 'Cocoon', Smails is legendary in local circles. It sells everything, and I mean everything.
'I'm looking for a 10 pack of blue table tennis balls',
'Certainly Sir, you'll be wanting the blue table tennis ball department then'
'Where's that?'
(the following response comes accompanied by a condescending sneer and raised eyebrows)
'You don't know Sir? Why, it's where it's always been. Right next to the Three Legged Milking Stool Department on the 2nd Floor...'
With the staff all apparently having worked there continously since before the Great War, Ma Smail runs a tight ship and still insists on taking payment personally for everything purchased anywhere in the store lest her long serving staff diddle her out of the proceeds of a 20p sale of a shiny button.
Bring back the good old days!!!
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