Montrose Street Buildings
In the photograph, taken on 04 November 1997, looking from left to right, the downstairs building with red surrounds was built as a public house and bar in the 1920s, but opened as a grocer/wine & spirit merchant by Walter Reoch.
I was message/grocery delivery boy there during WWII (after school hours) with a grand wage of 20p per week. All foodstuffs were rationed.
In the 1970s it opened as a public bar, the 'Victoria & Albert' (after Queen Victoria & Prince Albert : 1840 - 1902) and was later changed to 'Tarantino's Bar' in the 1980s, closed for a few years, and is now opening again.
The shop to the right with the blue sign was a general merchants shop owned by John Swilinski, a former WWII polish soldier who died earlier this year, as indeed were all the buildings in the picture.
During and after WWII the shops were, from left to right,
Walter Reoch - Grocer, Wine & Spirits;
half of the blue shop was ' Vetteses' - Italian, Fish & Chip Shop;
the other half was Bob Webster's - Newspaper & Radio Battery Charging Shop.
Batteries at that time had to be recharged every week. The first thing I recall hearing on the radio was the great Joe Louis, 'The Brown Bomber', beating Max Schmelling, the German world heavyweight champion, at Madison Square Gardens, New York at 2 am (GMT). Schmelling suffered a broken jaw and ribs. Great days!