744 The Pharmaceutical Journal
christmas miscellany
How we kept spirits up during the war
Lily Brown, at the age of 14, began to work in a pharmacy in Eastham in 1938. She gives an
account of what life was like and how the pharmacy dealt with supply shortages
I WAS brought up at Mayfield in Ferry Road,
Eastham, Wirral, the eldest of a family of nine
children. I had left the little school in Eastham
Village aged 14 years and four days, with an
ambition to become a nurse. I soon found a
job with Mr Holman who ran The Pharmacy,
a chemist shop located on what we called “the
square”, but which is now the row of shops on
the A41 between Eastham Rake and Bridle
Road.
I learnt so much, both about medicines, the
dispensing of them, weights and measures
from Mr Holman, who supervised everything.
All medicine bottles had to be wrapped in
white paper and sealed at both ends with wax.
My first job each morning was to fill the lamp
with methylated spirit — the wick burned all
day.
The other side of my education was
provided by Mrs Holman, who always looked
immaculate in twin set and pearls, with hair
beautifully styled and a sweet, lady-like
manner. She went to London once or twice a
year to order supplies of French perfume, cut
glass scent bottles, Lalique powder bowls,
compacts (enamelled and marcasite) and
lovely swansdown puffs in large georgette
squares. I had never seen the like! We were
agents for the top firms, which included
Yardley, Innoxa, Max Factor and Coty. It was
all so exciting to me — mum only used Pond’s
vanishing cream and we had Lifebuoy and
Sunlight soap, except when a new baby came
and then “it” would have the luxury of
Palmolive.
Bedpans to cooling powders
We hired out bedpans and oxygen cylinders,
and sold a variety of surgical goods such as
enemas and porcelain inhalers. There were
medicated wines, such as Wincarnis and
Buckfast Abbey, and a large selection of
cameras, plus Pathé cine and Kodak films. We
weighed babies in a basket scale and sold
every make of baby food and rusks
(Bickiepegs). We sold dill water, kept in a large
Winchester bottle, and our own teething
powder, which I packed in small white papers,
as well as a grey “cooling powder”, which was
basically a mixture of mercury and chalk, for
sore gums. We also made benzyl benzoate
lotion for scabies and gallons of cough and
indigestion mixtures. Another job of mine
included stamping 1d (one penny) in the £1
cards (medical insurance cards, which were
pre National Health).
Mr Holman did a lot of prescribing for
minor ills and I spent hours cleaning endless
shelves on which stood bottles of tinctures and
syrups. Throat pastilles were sold loose and I
would sample these as I moved along the
shelves.
24/31 December 2011 (Vol 287)
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Medicine bottles by the score were returned
to the shop and 1d was paid for each. I spent a
lot of time washing these, refilling them and
labelling the contents.
Many things were supplied in small
quantities. For example, I would count
out saccharine tablets in tens and
pack them into small manilla
envelopes, to be sold for 6d.
Twice weekly I cycled all
over Eastham, and up to
Hooton Cross Roads
collecting customers’
orders which were to be
delivered by a boy after
school. I prepared
afternoon tea at 4pm
each day for the
Holmans and served it
in their dining room (I
learnt to cut very thin
bread and butter at this
time!) and I had to “hold
the fort” while the
Holmans had their tea. All
the shops stayed open until
8pm in those days but this was
altered to 6pm by an Act of
Parliament just before the war started.
As the war became imminent many things
had to be done in preparation. The
shopkeepers in the square excavated a large
air raid shelter in front of their shops and most
of them became wardens. Mr Holman joined
the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers, later to
become the Home Guard). All the windows
were criss-crossed with brown sticky papertape and black out material was made ready.
The ceiling had opaque glass squares and the
material had to be stretched across in case it
shattered.
Keeping up morale
There were many signs that the day-to-day
business of the running of the pharmacy was
about to change. Many of the goods we sold
were almost unobtainable and we realised that
something had to be done.
Looking back, I realise that there was quite
an important role to play in keeping up
morale. This applied throughout the land, of
course, but in our own small way we raised the
spirits of many a customer when we could
provide a long-awaited pot of cream or a
bottle of Brylcreem substitute (especially for
the Royal Air Force boys at Hooton), made by
Mr H.
From 1939 onwards, the pharmacy became
a very busy place, especially the kitchen, where
Mr Holman and I spent hours stirring pans of
cream and lotions from which we made
cosmetics, including face cream, hand cream,
face powder in three shades, Brylcreem and
even lipsticks. Normal supplies had
completely dried up so Mr H filled the gap; he
knew most of the formulae so he simply
copied them. I did the packing — the face
powder was packed into small manilla
envelopes to sell at 3d each.
Lipsticks were made and
shaped in the machine
normally used for making
suppositories.
I was in charge of a list
which included many
names of women who
were waiting for the
few cosmetics —
Yardley and so on —
that we received once
a month from the
wholesalers. It must be
difficult for young
people today to imagine
the excitement caused
when telling a customer
that you had a lipstick for
her — they would be almost
hysterical — great satisfaction
all round.
Films too were soon in short supply
because the RAF had priority for air
reconnaissance work. So, because we stocked
cameras, a film would be put into one (a
Brownie with a 120 black and white film) and
this would be hired out to customers who were
allowed to take just two photographs before
returning it for the next person to have their
turn. These precious pictures could then be
sent to a loved one in the forces. They
included babies not yet seen and little children
growing fast over the years their fathers were
abroad. This was a great service and highly
appreciated.
During the winter months all lamps, cars etc
were shaded. I cycled the mile to work and
back so had to have my bicycle lamp
shaded — just slits through which the light
shone. Once or twice an air raid warning went
as I was on my way home in the dark; I spent
hours in the large shelter in Torr Park waiting
for the all clear.
My war-time work in the pharmacy was a
great preparation for my later career and an
experience that has stayed with me all my life.
Lily Brown became a Red Cross nurse while at
the pharmacy. Her job at the pharmacy lasted
until July 1944 when she began to train as a
nurse at Birkenhead General Hospital. She now
lives three miles from Eastham.This article has
been adapted from a booklet about war-time
Eastham, which is one of a series published by the
Eastham Archive Group.