The Decoding of High Street

The Decoding of High Street: The Secret of Jas. and Chas.

Growing up in Worcester during the 1950s, the geography of my world was defined by the long, sun-drenched stretch of High Street. As a young boy, the journey through town toward our home in Langerug was a ritual of observation. Like any child with an inquisitive eye, I had my landmarks—the steady visual anchors that told me exactly where I was. The most prominent of these were the two sentinels standing guard at the intersection of High and Napier Street. On one corner stood the whitewashed, thatched facade of Jas. Perkins, and directly across the way was the solid corner building of Chas. A. Pelteret.

For years, I accepted these two establishments as the twin pillars of Worcester commerce. Looking down High Street toward the Drostdy, Mr. Perkins’s shop occupied the left, while the Pelteret building claimed the right. In my young mind, "Jas." and "Chas." were not abbreviations; they were names in their own right, unique and perhaps even a bit exotic. I imagined a secret brotherhood of men named Jas and Chas who had conveniently divided the town’s needs between them. One Jas would sell you a bag of flour or a tin of jam, while the other Chas provided the timber and paint to keep the roof over your head. It made perfect, albeit skewed, sense. I would ride past them, glancing left and right, acknowledging the presence of Jas. and Chas. as if they were local celebrities or perhaps a pair of friendly giants who owned the corners of my universe. None of my friends had such names, which only added to the mystique of these two business titans.

Perkins’s shop was a relic even then, a Cape Dutch style building that seemed to have sprouted directly from the soil of the Old Cape. It featured an "eyebrow" style gable that curved over the thatch like a heavy lid, and above the door, a wooden signboard announced "Jas. Perkins, Provision Merchant" in bold, utilitarian lettering. Stepping inside was like entering a museum diorama or an Aladdin’s cave. It was dark and gloomy, the air thick with the scent of roasted coffee, floor wax, and dry grain. Long wooden counters ran the length of the room on both sides, and the walls were lined with towering shelves packed with a dizzying array of paraphernalia. There were tins of Sunlight soap, boxes of Surf and Persil, Rice Krispies, and Klim milk. Sacks of grain leaned against the counters, and posters for VIM, Lux, and Sunlight Soap decorated the vertical surfaces. In the midst of this cluttered treasury sat old man Perkins himself. With a shock of white hair and a quiet, scholarly demeanor, he seemed as ancient as the building he inhabited. To a small boy, he appeared to be in his nineties, a living connection to a bygone age.

Directly across the intersection, the building belonging to Chas. A. Pelteret offered a different kind of commerce. A general merchant and building contractor, Pelteret’s corner was dominated by signs advertising Fergussons Quality Paints. While I never ventured inside his doors, his name was just as indelible a landmark as his neighbor's. As we drove home, I would mouth the names to myself: Jas. Perkins on the left, Chas. Pelteret on the right. They were the rhythmic markers of our progress toward the hill of Langerug, two unusual names that occupied the same mental space in my childhood landscape.

The realization did not come as a thunderclap, but rather through the lens of a Brownie Holiday camera. I had been given the camera for Christmas, a simple plastic box that transformed the way I saw the world. As the instructions suggested, I was selective with my shots; a roll of 120 film only offered eight "snaps," and each one felt precious. I spent the holidays carefully choosing my subjects before rewinding the spool and taking it to the local chemist to be developed.

The chemist was a friend of the familyly whom we knew as Uncle Charlie. His shop was another staple of High Street, though I hadn't yet connected his name to the signage on his door. A week after dropping off my film, I went to collect the results. He handed me a bright yellow Kodak folder, the kind used to house negatives and prints. There, printed in bold, unmistakable letters on the front of the packet, were the words: CHAS. HOME – CHEMIST.

I stared at the paper in my hand, then looked back up at the street. The linguistic penny finally dropped with a jarring clarity. Suddenly, the exotic mystery of Jas. and Chas. evaporated. "Chas." was not a name at all; it was merely a tired piece of shorthand for Charles, the very name of the man standing before me. By extension, "Jas." had to be James. The enigma of Jas. and Chas. vanished instantly, replaced by two ordinary men named James and Charles who simply happened to share a corner and a sign-writer. I remember continuing our journey home feeling a little less clever than I had been five minutes prior, realizing that the world was far more literal, and perhaps a little less magical, than my childhood imagination had allowed.