Traditional Black Country newsagent shop to be recreated with call for help to stock the shelves
A traditional Black Country business is being recreated at a popular attraction which has called on people to help bring it to life.
The Black Country Living Museum wants to recreate Burgin’s Newsagents – setting the scene in 1959 – as part of its BCLM: Forging Ahead development.
The project includes new learning spaces and a brand new visitor welcome centre, taking the museum's story up to the closure of the Baggeridge Coal Mine in 1968 which brought about the end of a unique era for the Black Country.
Burgin’s Newsagents – a shop that boasted football legend Duncan Edwards, stage star Billy Dainty and Sir Lenny Henry among its customers – closed it shutters in 2016 after nearly 150 years in the same premises.
The newsagents had occupied the same spot in Dudley’s Wolverhampton Street since 1868.
When the shop opened William Gladstone was entering office as Prime Minister and the British were still fighting the Zulus.
To bring the Dudley attraction's own version of Burgin’s to life, the museum needs items to stock the shelves and is particularly looking for 1959 editions of comics, magazines and newspapers.
A spokesman for the Black Country Living Museum said: "This recreation brings to life one of the Black Country’s oldest newsagents – a shop that counted Duncan Edwards, Billy Dainty and Lenny Henry among its customers.
"We are particularly interested in memories from the 1940s-1960s, as the shop will be recreated as part of our new 1940s-1960s town.
"To help us to recreate this newsagent, we would love to talk to anyone with memories of the shop.
"Did you buy your newspapers or sweets at Burgin’s newsagents? Were you a paperboy for Burgins? Can you tell us what it was like inside the shop or the home? Do you have any photographs of the shop in the post-war decades?
"Burgin's will be set in 1959, and will feature a range of confectionery, chocolate, comics, newspapers and magazines that would have been found in a newsagents at this time.
"To help make the shop look as authentic as possible we’re now also looking to acquire comics, magazines and newspapers from 1959 to stock the shelves, as well as any examples of confectionery packaging from the era to help us recreate sweets from the period."
Cynthia Burgin, who was the owner of the newsagents in 2016, announced she was retiring on health grounds and, with no family members to pass the business onto, the shutters were pulled down for the final time.
Cynthia’s great-grandfather John Burgin moved from Kidderminster to set up a book-selling agency at the former cottage on behalf of his father-in-law Samuel Aston.
A few years later it became Burgin's Newsagents.
Following Mr Burgin’s death, his son Alfred Burgin stepped up to take over the shop, while also working as a carpenter, with his wife Jane, who he met as next door neighbour to the shop.
The shop remained open despite Mr Burgin being called up to fight in the First World War.
Older brother Harry, who was a clerk for a drainage company, stepped in while he was away.
Alfred and Jane had two children, John and Joan, with John Burgin later taking control of the shop – by now a family treasure.
He ran it with wife Cynthia until he died.
Then it passed into Cynthia’s hands and she ran it with her daughter Susan Williams.
Days after the shop marked 130 years of trading in 1999, Cynthia was praised by police after fending off an armed raid by lashing a robber with electrical cable and slamming a till drawer on his fingers.
She later received a Good Citizen’s Award from West Midlands Police.
Speaking when the newsagents shut in 2016, Mrs Burgin said: “We’ve run out of Burgins. It’s very sad and feels like a terrible loss.
“When I had to let all of our customers know that was really disappointing.
“I’ve kept trying to carry on because we’ve had so many good times in the past and we’ve been here for so long.
“There’s no one who can take over from me and keep it going which is sad.
“I can’t even count how many Burgins have worked in this shop and helped to run it over the years.”
The newsagents had survived armed forces conscription call-ups for its owners, would-be raiders and falling newspaper sales.
Cynthia said the firm must have been one of the Express & Star’s oldest customers.
The premises now no longer trades as a shop or retail business.
Anyone who can donate items to the museum is asked to get in touch at collections@bclm.com, call 0121 557 9643 or write to Collections Team, Black Country Living Museum, Tipton Road, Dudley, DY1 4SQ.
