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Turn right out of Tooting Broadway station, and there are two ghost signs in quick succession on Mitcham Road. The first is right next to the lovely Tooting Public Library, but a long way from its public service remit!
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The advertisement is for Player's Navy Cut Tobacco (with 'Navy' and 'Tobacco' now partially covered by thick black paint). A lot of detail at the top of the sign is now faded to illegibility, but as best as I can tell, referred to '--son & Co ... Mitcham Road, agents for Player's Navy Cut Tobacco'.
A few steps further, and there's another sign, this time for 'J&M Stone, London's Largest Radio & Lighting...'. The lowest part of the advert is now obscured by a shop sign. A photograph from 1951 shows equally impressive shop signage for Stone's; our sign is perhaps of similar vintage, given its lack of any mention of television.
2 comments:
I think the painted J. & M. Stone sign is from several years before the war. The style of the lettering is Art Deco, and it is on a background with old-fashioned ornamental corners. A sign painted after 1936 for a large radio shop would probably boast of selling television receivers. After being shut down in 1939, British television broadcasting resumed in 1946. The 1951 shopfront in the photograph seems to say 'Radio & Television' in letters too small to be sure of.
I think you're right. The lettering style did make me wonder if it was pre-war; then I started second-guessing myself...
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