Watch: Step inside three new shops from the 1940s and 60s at the Black Country Living Museum
How would you like to send yourself a postcard from the past? Try on military uniform? Shop in a Co-op from 1949? Well, you can now do all of that and more at three new attractions at the .
The open-air museum this week introduced three new – but old – shops to its historical high street.
Visitors can now browse the shelves at a 1949 Co-op store, an exact replica of the Halesowen and Hasbury branch, try on military uniforms, trench coats, hats and boots in Langer's Army and Navy store from 1967, and send themselves a postcard from the past – and maybe some chocolate and gifts – at a replica Spring Hill post office from 1965.
At the Co-op, we were joined by modern and olden-day employees who compared products that are still being stocked today, 75 years on – including 99 tea, Kellogg's Cornflakes, and Cadbury's Dairy Milk.
The old Co-op gives visitors a look into the first time self-service was introduced, as opposed to counter service where customers would enter a shop and tell the cashier everything they would like to buy.
It also teaches the younger visitors what rationing was during and after the Second World War. Shoppers would need to work out what, and how much, they could buy depending on their ration tokens. Ration tokens made sure everybody got their fair share of what was available.
