Co-op Stores, 141 – 143 Victoria Road, Cambridge

History of the Co-op, Victoria Road

1939 Cambridge and District Co-operative Society Ltd, Branch no.2

P Harradine, manager

In 2025 ML shared these reminiscences of her mother ‘K’ recorded in 2004: During the war, women who didn’t have children received ‘call up papers’ for ‘war work.’ When I received mine, the choice was either factory work at Pye’s or shop work. I didn’t want to go back to Pye’s so I chose to train at the Co-op. I went to the main branch in Burleigh Street, cycled over the commons, for a month. When Mr Harradine, the manager at the Victoria Road Co-op heard I was there he told me he could do with some help. Harradine applied and I was ‘posted’ back close to home. (He knew me well through Don having worked there.)

It was working in the Co-op which led to my being known to some people as ‘K’; this because they needed to differentiate between two Mrs Edward(e)s.

In the photo the Co-op girls, from left to right, are: Betty, ‘K’, Glad, Iris, Dot.

Whe the war came to a close in May 1945 with VE (Victory in Europe Day), I can remember everyone coming out of their houses and heading towards town. There was a huge swell of people on Chesterton Road – they came out of the pubs with their beer glasses, people were singing, everyone was celebrating. For the boys of the East Anglians (who’d been at the Co-op before the war) there was no celebration as VJ (Japan) day would have to wait until August.