Jacksons of Reading is one of those places that are so uncool that they are the epitome of cool.
Reading has a reputation as a shopping capital. It has a soulless though clean mall, called The Oracle (named, ironically enough, after a now-demolished workhouse for people stricken by poverty); it has a pedestrianised street full of chain stores and crowds of teenagers bunking school. Shoppers flock to Reading and cause traffic jams and fill up the car parks, though I am not sure why because every shop here is exactly and repeatedly the same as every shop everywhere else in Great Britain. There are three Burger Kings and three McDonald’s, two Starbuck’s and two Pret A Mangers, two Gaps and two H&Ms and no such thing as an independent book shop.* I hate shopping in central Reading.
There are, however, four places to shop in Reading that do have a soul. The first is the market, which runs from Wednesday to Saturday and sells fruit, veg, and general tat. The second is Smelly Alley, which is so called because of the fish shop and the butchers at one end. It stinks and it isn’t another Sainsbury’s (there are two of those, too). The art deco Harris Arcade looks cool, though shops open and close there at an alarming rate. The last place is Jacksons of Reading.
It was established in 1875 as a gentleman’s outfitters by Edward Jackson, and is still run by his descendants. As I wrote in One Night Stand:
It inhabited a corner (known as Jacksons Corner) between the library and Market Square, just out of orbit of the frenzy of capitalism that was jostling and bumping up Broad Street. The shoppers here were local and had been patronising Jacksons for years, buying wool and embroidery floss, school uniforms, and clothes that knew not the vagaries of fashion…
Jacksons’ departments were laid out on different levels, each one a small microcosm of shoes or workwear or towels. I visited Men’s fashion, made my purchases, admired the system of overhead tubes that delivered my change, and wandered up and down steps, browsing.
I like Jacksons. I like the way it smells, like linoleum and gently folded clothes. I like the people who work there, who ask you what you would like. I like the stiff window mannequins, some of which wear plasters to cover chips and scratches. I wish I could have written more about it, but by the time I came to write this scene, I had had the Fecklet and I couldn’t explore the shop properly because it’s impossible to haul a pushchair up and down the steps that separate every department.
*The nearest independent bookshop is over the river in Caversham.
Love Jacksons too.
Just stopped by to say what a fab achievement – a baby boy and a book in one year. You make it sound easy but having had two – boys that is, not books , I know it’s not.
I do have a publishing contract now – hurrah. It’s for a non fiction book though – boo.
Old steampunks like me think Jacksons is where we will shop in heaven!
The Wind in the Willows is set in Reading, of course. As is part of Jude the Obscure. And a bit of Bleak House. And, of course, the investigatory adventures of DI Verity Blanchard!
Jackson’s sounds great..was talking with husband the other day about how shops used to be, Leicester had an old COOP deparment store and i loved it…i loved different floors and being able to shop for anything within one shop…and i used to love trying to find the till!
Thank you Fin. It’s hard to recall writing in the early days of the Fecklet, but I know I did because the book is here before me.
HOORAY for your publishing contract!
I think Jackson’s will definitely have a place in heaven, Rosie. And yes I remember Verity’s Reading very well!
Fran, I think it is sad how all shops are gradually becoming the same.
My grandmother used to go to Reading market late on Saturday evening when the stallholders were selling stuff off cheap — no refrigeration in those days. And the lighting was with gas flares. I never knew her, she died when my Dad was seven years old, but the stories are straight out of saga-land.
Smelly alley used to have a fabulous cheese shop, too. Don’t tell me it’s gone!
They still sell off stuff cheap in the market on Saturday, around five-ish.
There’s no cheese shop in Smelly Alley. There is, among other things, a milkshake shop where it seems that the entire teenage population of Reading congregates on a weekend. And a shop selling bongs.
I didn’t know your grandmother lived here, Liz.
Jacksons sounds great, Julie. Is it anything like the department store on the 70s TV show, “Are You Being Served?”
I can just imagine old man Mr Grace being pushed through the men’s department in his bath chair and Mrs Slocombe asking, “Are you free, Mr Humphries?”