Weird News

[Carruthers]

I've saved, and magnified, the photo and the top seven rows on the gable end appear to be rabbits, with game birds and poultry below.
The wall on the left hand side appears to be mostly covered in pheasants with some poultry.

I can only speculate but here goes. I wonder if this is a Christmas display? As it would be the first Christmas of WW2 it was probably an effort to show that everything was running as normal.
There is still a shooting estate just outside High Wycombe and no doubt there were more in those days so supplies were unlikely to have been a problem at that stage of the war.

Just my two penn'orth.

ETA: OK, I've just found some more info. The letters 'POU' are just visible on the right hand side of the picture.
Using some inspired searching around the word 'Poulterer' I came up with a bit more info including another photo.
I'm not going to post the photo here as it is available from a commercial photo library and is watermarked. However, the information reads:

23rd December 1939: A poulterer's in High Wycombe with an elaborate Christmas display. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

The building is considerably larger than it appears in Bruce's post above and there doesn't seem to be a square inch of wall visible anywhere.

See for yourselves here: Getty Images.

[glatt]

Nice find.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Carruthers

I've saved, and magnified, the photo...

I found the original here.

Some children had their own butcher shops.

[Carruthers]

Thanks for the link Bruce, that's grand.

I've also done some more digging and find that the business was called 'Aldridge's' and appears to have been well known for its Christmas display. I suspect that the firm no longer trades as they don't appear in the phone book. Whether the premises remain is unclear as White Hart Street is now a pedestrian zone so Street View doesn't help.

Anyway, here's the pictures, the first being from the twenties and the second being dated as 1931.

[Griff]

fascinating