White "paint" writing on shop windows,

[pitsmoorboy]

I remember growing up in pitsmoor in the 50's / 60's before we had supermarkets. Most of the shops in the district were either, butchers, fruit & veg, sweets, newspaper shop, or grocers. and most of them used to write special offers on the shop window in White "paint" and as soon as the shop closed for the evening we would go round and alter the words by rubbing out certain letters or altering some by rubbing out part of the letters. Then stand in front of the window pi$$ing ourselves with laughter. I am sure we were not the only ones. It's just something else you don't see these days.

[soft ayperth]

Used to do the same thing. I remember doing it in broad daylight to the shop windows in the little stores on duke St before the Park Hill Flats were built. The shop owners would come out and chase after us. Such fun.

[kidley]

Gowers was my favorite shop for doing this after they were closed. Mr Topps 'Manager' used to come the next morning and do it all again/ Gowers bottom Nottingham St and Spital St.

[Daven]

Then they got wise to it and got very good at writing back to front on the INSIDE of the windows

[pitsmoorboy]

Gowers was my favorite shop for doing this after they were closed. Mr Topps 'Manager' used to come the next morning and do it all again/ Gowers bottom Nottingham St and Spital St.

 

Yes done theirs many a time, and Ken Green, the butcher just round the corner from Gowers.

[trastrick]

One thing that always interested me was that everybody used a certain slanting artistic "font" to write prices e.g. 7/6, whether it was on the windows or on the little white cards on sticks placed among the produce.

 

How did they all learn the same writing style?

 

Certainly not in school. I learned to do it as a kid, from my Aunt.

[Robbiet]

Then they got wise to it and got very good at writing back to front on the INSIDE of the windows

 

except some got the"s" the wrong way round

[Draggletail]

I think the 'white paint' used to do the lettering was the original 'Windowlene' glass cleaner.

 

It dried like thin matte white paint then you rubbed it off with a dry cloth and it disappeared like magic.

[cookingfat50]

lots of shop keepers did it especially butchers fruit shops with thick white wash like arkwright did in open all hours very popular in those days

[TWhits]

They used to train women (before equality) in the RAF to write in a similar way on see-through screens so that the commanders could use the info to help conduct the exercise or battle.