And so it begins!

I met up with Lorraine, Brian, June and Gail this morning at Utopia coffee shop to start putting together the timeline of Southend shops. As it was the first meeting it was a case of talking and swapping pictures and memories of Southend’s shops in bygone years. We started by making a list of all the shops we could remember and where they were on the high street. I’d done some research using the Kelly’s directories in the library but they only go up to 1973 so we’ve got lots of gaps to fill, so if anyone out there has any names and addresses of old Southend shops – or any pictures of the shop fronts that would be fantastic. Our next meeting is in two weeks because Gail is off to Paris (we’re not jealous) and that’ll give me some time to get researching and collating all this info. Next I’m off to Lakeside and Bluewater to nab some copies of their layout maps for some inspiration! Au revoir!