VISITS

Monday, 25 March 2013

The Pop Shop.

In 1978 the owners of the Pop Shop snack bar in West Street, Les Harris and his wife Alice, retired after 30 years in the catering business. Mr. Harris attended Park School as a boy and for ten years before World War Two he had worked for Fisher Clark's. During the war he joined the Royal Marines and served on H.M.S. Victorious. The couple took over the premises, which had previously been a pawn shop, in 1948. It was a very popular cafe not only for snacks, meals and tea and coffee but as a meeting place too.


The building before it was the Pop Shop, the pawnbrokers three balled sign clearly visible centre right.
The new owner was Mr. Shelton Goonewardena (a Sri Lankan who married a Boston girl) who had previously worked for Boston Corporation as a clerical officer and said at the time that he planned to run it on the same lines as the previous owners.


The building which was nearly opposite the Regal Cinema, along with many others, was demolished (above) and replaced (below) with a beautiful piece of architecture that is Wickes D.I.Y. store (sarcasm)!!!

2 comments:

  1. goonawardena's son went to grammar school &represented England at youth level in the javelin.If was bloody good too

    ReplyDelete
  2. used to go in the pop shop a lot in my teenage years, Les and Alice were lovely people and always made customers feel welcome,what good days they were

    ReplyDelete