Stick-ons: 3
I’ve been away for just over a week, hence the recent posts of pictures from my archives. Now I’m back, he’s a third stick-on sign, this time from the town where I live, to symbolize my return to the land where cups of tea are a way of life. These signs are on a window that until a while ago fronted a small grocery shop. The building is now used residentially, but the tea signs remain and add some colour to the rather sober window frame. They advertise two brands of tea that have been part of British life for over a century.
The Typhoo brand began in 1905 and was successful partly as a result of astute marketing – even in the 1900s the company produced teapots with the Typhoo name emblazoned across them and included collectable picture cards in packets of tea. In the early days the company also claimed their tea was health-giving, and the curious name derives from the Chinese for “doctor”.
Brooke Bond is even older. The company was founded by Arthur Brooke in 1869 and launched its famous P G Tips brand of tea in the 1930s. Brooke Bond tea was very successful from the 1950s onwards, when packets contained collectors’ cards that were probably even more popular than those given away with Typhoo tea earlier in the century. Brooke Bond tea is not widely sold in Britain now but the brand is still widely available in India and Pakistan.
I’m pleased these colourful signs are still adorning this former shop window. Whereas the Brooke Bond one sits quite neatly in its rectangle, the Typhoo sign has been cut up to fit – but in spite of the interrupting glazing bars its bold letters shout the message loud and clear.
6 comments:
Sadly the term 'a small grocery shop' is now almost an oxymoron. When I was a child the grocers next to my father's shop sold tea (and raisins, sugar, etc) loose in brown bags. My favourite was the loose broken biscuits!
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So nice to read about teas, I buy a lot when I am in Britain, for me and my family and friends.
Sigrun
Bazza: That was a real grocer! Here in the Cotswolds, the milkman puts out a Christmas leaflet with seasonal offers (clotted cream, Yule logs...). Curiously, this listing also includes broken biscuits.
Sigrun: I too have been a tea courier, carrying the stuff to friends living overseas.
I love seeing these signs and always keep an eye open for them. Here's some of my finds to share with you; although you may know of them already:
1) Procea bread stick-ons in the windows of the Linc charity shop on the Bath Road in Chelt; and
2) Brooke-Bond tea ones on the lovely village stores windows in Lea, Herefordshire.
VK: Thank you so much. I don't know the Lea one – I've driven through Lea a few times but not stopped: must do so.
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