Brylcreem and Broken Biscuits Exhibition
Bradford on Avon Museum’s summer exhibition, Brylcreem and Broken Biscuits, shows what the shops of Bradford looked like in the 1950s
Saturday 21st July until Sunday 2nd September
1950s Britain was very different from the country we know now.
In Bradford as in every other town people shopped locally and had a huge variety of goods to choose from. Before the advent of supermarkets and mass car ownership housewives bought meat from the local butcher, bread from the baker and fruit and vegetables from the greengrocer, who might also sell wet fish.
Small towns supported all manner of traders, from those selling food items to those who provided the other necessities of life like shoes and clothing, books, furniture and medicines. Everything a family could possibly need was available somewhere in the town.
Brylcreem and Broken Biscuits is a trail which takes us right back to those quiet and sedate times when roads were so empty children could play games in them, the likes of fish fingers and teabags were novelty items and, until 1954, some food was still rationed.
Every shop window will display a panel of historic photographs showing which trade was in business in that location in the 1950s. Alongside the photographs will be local people’s memories detailing their experiences of living at the time.
These memories form part of the Museum’s oral history archive which is also known as the Bradford Hundred Memory Bank. The Memory Bank would love to hear from people with memories of the past. Please contact stephanie.laslett@gmail.com for more information, or visit the Museum’s website.
The exhibition is free, so be sure to visit it! Every shop has its own panel. For children we’ve devised a trail called Spot the Sweets. Forms are available from Piha and the Doghouse in Lamb’s Yard.