does any one remember Robbs department store in Grange rd in the 60s I worked they for 4yrs all the girla were great and I made some great friends there
I certainly do! Had the big staircase didn't they? I remember buying an olive green and an orange skinny rib polo neck jumper there at the start of the 70s. I loved those jumpers! I think my mum used to get my school uniform there too.
I remember it in the 1940's. My mother used to take me there sometimes for lunch. The cafe was called the Oak Room & we went up in the lift, which had the attendant with white gloves.
White gloves.?... My, how standards have fallen these days! It looks like I'm going to have difficulty purchasing my next silk smoking jacket and telescopic cigarette holder now that such genteel establishments have gone. Dreadful !
Yes, Chris, I was talking late '40s, too. I think I also ate in the Co-op Restaurant. Must have been cheaper! We were taught manners, wore ties, passed ladies on the road side of the pavement and raised our caps to ladies. How times have changed!
I started at Robbs on the sweets and tobacco department, then moved to the front office accounts and enquires, I remember when you needed change for the till it went down a tube by air and came back up to you same way,and a remember a local group the valkyries putting on the christmas lights and playing on Robbs roof one christmas, and there was a resident housekeeper called sally, And you had to call everyone Sir and Madam and the customer had to be always right bring back those big department stores they were great.
I went to school (Moorland House in Heswall, now demolished) with Andrew Robb of the family. Thought it must be great to own a shop like that. What happened to it, and to Andrew, I wonder...
I think I also ate in the Co-op Restaurant. Must have been cheaper! We were taught manners, wore ties, passed ladies on the road side of the pavement and raised our caps to ladies. How times have changed!
The Co-op restaurant had self service in one part of the dining room and silver service in the other didn't it? With the waitresses in their black uniform, white aprons and caps in the silver service part. I remember my grandma taking me there for tea and an assortment of cakes arriving on tiered plates.
In my first job in the early 70s one of the men in the office next to ours always raised his hat as he passed any female. It made us all feel really special.
Robbs had the booths for listening to records didn't they? I always wanted to do that, it seemed so grown up!
They're a blast from my past too! I used to work near to their shop in Whitechapel, Liverpool. Did they have a shop in Grange Road too or am I just imagining their Liverpool shop front?
I Googled them and see they went into liquidation in 2002. The last bit of the article in Wikipedia said "GENERATIONS of pop-pickers will remember the sound-proofed booths in Rushworth's shops, where you could listen to a record before deciding whether to buy it."
Yes, the shop was near Charing Cross. On the map is a red X which is roughly where it was. When I worked at the Ritz, one of my jobs was to go to Rushworth & Dreaper & borrow some records to play in the intervals. I think they got a free advert in exchange. The shop was next to a gents outfitters, Bibby & Perkins I think. They had a barbers in the basement. From memory, it was one of the few (maybe the only) shop which sold my school uniform.
Bloomin' heck! I remember Bibby & Perkins and Hyman Jacobs too! My brother got his school uniform at Bibby & Perkins, I think. He went to Birkenhead Institute and my other one went to Park High.
I think my mum used to get my school uniform there too. 
The last bit of the article in Wikipedia said "GENERATIONS of pop-pickers will remember the sound-proofed booths in Rushworth's shops, where you could listen to a record before deciding whether to buy it."
