CHRISTMAS SHOP WINDOW DISPLAY

I was invited to join Brian Burgess of the Town Centre Steering Group and Joss Baker of Kick FM to help judge the Christmas shop window display competition, which had been held for a number of years. We met at the Town Hall and agreed the criteria for marking each window display. We then went out to tour the town wherever there were shops, under the direction of Brian. We walked down Bartholomew Street, along Pound Street and back to the opposite side of Bartholomew Street and then turned right along Market Street, calling into Inch’s Yard and along Cheap Street and then crossed the road and walked along the opposite side to get to the Market Place. We were grateful to go into the Kennet Centre for warmth as it was a cold day, but fortunately not raining. I should perhaps state the obvious that we were taking notes (and recording scores whenever we saw a shop window with Christmas decorations in the window. We then went up Northbrook Street, including Cromwell Place, Weavers Walk, Saddlers Court and back over the bridge into West Mills. Our last port of call was the Arcade before returning to the Town Hall. It was apparent there were three front runners; Panousha Baguettes in the Arcade, G K Curtains of Bartholomew Street and Hetheringtons at the Kings Coffee House in the Broadway. All three had gone to a lot of trouble, effort and cost to make their shop windows part of the Christmas scene. In the end it was the G K Curtains which came first as a result of their cascading snow machine which had attracted a great deal of interest, particularly amongst the children. We all thought that Hetheringtons was a close second but much of their decoration was inside the shop. We returned at a later date to present the prizes and certificates which were much appreciated.
I found it disappointing that only the smaller retailers had bothered to decorate their shops. It was evident that the larger national retailers had done virtually nothing and in particular in Northbrook Street. I hope that next year it will be better.