Looking round a thread that Alf linked one day I found this page with pictures of Callers, a store that used to be on Northumberland Street. Only a few days before, I’d stopped to look at the clock outside Haymarket Metro station and noticed that it was put there by ‘Callers the home of good furnishings’.
If you click through to this page and scroll about halfway down you’ll see the clock outside Marks and Spencers on Northumberland Street as it originally was. Thanks to Alf for making me take notice of this little bit of history.
Callers was a great store, one of the “famous” NEWCASTLE stores, along with ‘Fenwicks’ and ‘Mawson Swann & Morgan’ and ‘Farnons. Shops that everyone identified with Newcastle, and you knew they would ALWAYS BE THERE, all your life.
Sadly not!
You can read a lot about CALLERS here . . .
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=982536
Peter - that’s exactly the same page as I have linked above - great minds!
Isn’t it strange that the main business closed in the 80s but the offshoot - Callers Pegasus has survived. I don’t know how many stores they had in total but I can remember their furniture store on Wallsend High Street in the late 70s and early 80s. When I googled Callers most of the hits were about cold callers, funny old thing the internet.
I love the juxtoposition of modern clock (well it was back then) and my beloved ‘copper nob’
Ta Beth
My main memory of Callers is that they had a great record department - second only to JG WIndows.
Ha ha . . . Sorry Beth, I hadn’t read what you had written properly, so I hadn’t realised you had read my ‘Callers’ post on Skyscraper City already!! The Callers post was the first post on a new thread (at the time) called “Remembering HISTORIC NEWCASTLE - Old Photos, Maps, even Stories” which has turned out to be one of our most popular threads on the Newcastle Forum of SSC.
That first post itself (on ‘Callers’) I have been back to amend and expand so many times since, as I have come across new information and photos etc.
I remember, sadly, standing there with my mate (he had taken us down in his Dads car) and watching that fire in December that year.
The new Callers was very good, but ‘not quite’ as good as the one burnt down.
It is such a shame it eventually closed, a real ICON of Newcastle shopping, no longer there.
Glad you showed the ‘Callers Clock’ on here Beth, it is a nice reminder still there in the City Centre today!
Regards,
Peter (aka Newcastle Historian).
Ah the memories… but I never knew that clock was a gift from Callers.
What a great store - anyone remember their record department too? I used to go in the mid- to late-seventies, and buy a single or two on a Saturday - for about 75p each.
Sorry - I see PJF remembers that record dept too! It was a good one.
Dave - that was my era too. I had a Saturday job in town close to Callers and used to spend lunchtimes looking at the albums there.
How strange Alf, I had no idea that place was related! At least some small parts of the business have remained along with the clock.
Thanks Mrs K, you’re welcome as always! :)
PJF, Dave, glad you have fond memories :)
Peter/Newcastle Historian, welcome! I had no idea it was you! Thank you SO MUCH for sharing your memories, both here and on skyscrapercity. I LOVE reading about the recent history of Newcastle - I’ve been here since 2000 (and three years prior to that from 1994-1997) and I just love living here. It’s home in a way nowhere else is.
My husband’s geordie (born in the Princess Mary hospital and all!) and I can’t ever imagine living anywhere else.
Your welcome Beth.
I really enjoy this site, I look forward to the surprise of finding out what each days photo is going to be!!
Glad you enjoy the Newcastle Forum on Skyscraper City too. This has developed greatly since its formation in October last year. We now have 135 threads (covering so many different topics) growing from the “single thread” that we used to have before we set up the forum.
PS, don’t tell anyone, but I was born in North Yorkshire!
Peter/ NH
Aw thanks Peter, I’m glad you like it. I try not to drop into the Newcastle forum too often as to be perfectly honest i could spend all day reading! But I always love what I read and the old pictures that I see, and I always find it hard to tear myself away.
North Yorkshire is lovely. Second to Newcastle in my mind, but still lovely! :)