Most of the material I’ve found so far is about the High Street of a few years earlier than 1925, the year of the action of Butcher, Baker… I’m hoping not too much had changed in the decade or so after the time described in some of these great sources. But of course that period was momentous, including the Great War of 1914 to 1918, so I am still on the lookout for similar material from that post-war period.
But before I find that…
I don’t know who, in 2020, did the two-part analysis of the 1911 census of Ware’s High Street that I’ve linked below. They deserve to have credit for it! What surprised me was the sheer number of people who lived on the High Street. These days it is rare for people to “live above the shop”. But in 1911 the upper floors were occupied by the shop owners/keepers, and also their staff.
I learned about the experience of living above the shop from Shop Boy an autobiography of John Birch Thomas, which was published in 1983 by Routledge and Kegan Paul. It reads as if you are listening to the practiced tales of an accomplished anecdotalist, including clever call-backs and an unfolding love story. It was transcribed and, I assume, edited by the author’s granddaughter, Jean Sutherland Moore, and gives a fascinating picture of what it was like to grow up as work in shops from the 1860s to the turn of the 20th Century.