Turn Back Time: The High Street - 100 Years of British Life Through the Shop Window

Philip Wilkinson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1849164207 ISBN 13: 9781849164207

Publisher: Quercus Publishing Plc, 2010

Written to accompany BBC TV's living history experiment Turn Back Time, and illustrated with both vintage and modern photographs, this book charts the development of shops and high street shopping over the last 140 years, and describes the experiences of the seven shopkeepers who took up the programme's challenge of spending six weeks running shops exactly as they would have during six different periods - from making sausages in the 1890s to selling 12-inch vinyl singles in 1977.

From the Back Cover:

How did the Victorians make their daily bread? Why were Edwardian shopkeepers so much more polite than today's? Just how tough was rationing? How many Green Shield Stamps did you need to buy a colour television? And when could one pound feed the whole family for a week?
From the boom years of the Victorian High Street to the 1970s supermarket, discover what life was really like on the great British High Street and how shopkeepers and their customers have adapted to both good times and bad. Written to accompany BBC One's living history experiment, Turn Back Time... The High Street charts the extraordinary journey of a group of modern day butchers, bakers, caterers and retailers who run their shops using exactly the same foods, fashions and shopkeeping skills as yesteryear.

About the Author:

Philip Wilkinson has written many books across a range of subjects including history and architecture. His books include the award-winning Amazing Buildings, the ground-breaking English Buildings Book and several TV tie-ins, including three for the BBC's major series, Restoration.