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The Old Raincoat Shop, Orchard Street


Guest tk2

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Can anyone share any memories of the Old Raincoat Shop on Orchard Street? It was situated a couple of doors down from the Museum pub (the building now appears to be back offices of Schuh shoe shop). I understand it was run for decades by Abraham Simon Graham who was a bit of a local character, an amateur poet and an avid collector of books. I've heard when the Raincoat Shop closed c. early 1980s a huge collection of books was found in the shop basement (including many rare first editions) which were sold off for 50p each with people queuing around the block to get their hands on them. Can anyone confirm this or recall anything else about the shop? Thanks!

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The shop had yellowed windows, some sort of translucent film that was fixed to the interior of the glass,

supposedly to stop displayed items perishing in sunlight.

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Thanks for the link Steve, I noticed at the weekend there's also an advert for the Raincoat Shop on the safety curtain in the old Abbeydale Picture House

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Long ( so you could grow into it), belted gaberdines were a childhood acquisition for use at school and when "going out"... bought from the Raincoat shop. This was a childhood memory of a Sheffield which, I remember, was always damp and dull....or so it seemed.

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Just stumbled across this little gem "The Lost Poets of the Raincoat Shop" on Radio 4, broadcast last Sunday.

"Ian McMillan tells the story lost poets - through the letters , diaries and scattered pages of poetry found in a derelict raincoat shop in Sheffield. The papers were found by an engineer who saved them from the skip and took them home to read. Fascinated by the story they revealed, he donated them to the Sheffield Archive."

Can still be listened too for the next 4 days only, so be quick.

Link here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047wb6b

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Yes thanks for posting the link! I was actually involved in doing research for this same radio programme hence my initial interest in the shop. It's a remarkable set of records which were recovered from the derelict Raincoat Shop and a fascinating story of friendship they reveal which can now be found at Sheffield Archives

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