Don't know if its that deep as the building used to accomodate the American Bar as well as the shops you mentioned. That pic is great though.
Oops, your probably right, I'd forgotten the American Bar so probably to do with that I guess.
I'm wondering now if that was the place my late Dad mentioned as going in when he was on leave in about 43/44. I remember him saying he'd gone in for a beer in 'The American Bar' and a wild west fight broke out between the Yanks and assorted other nationalities. My Dad legged out very early when the guy next to him got a glass pushed in his face for no apparent reason. My Dad hung around outside to see the show, apparently the US MP's ,or Snowdrops as they were known due to their white helmets, turned up with baseball bats and were just pulling guys out one by one and whacking them and laying them out in the street. No questions and no quarter given.
*** edit. I think it might have been this place instead. Or does anyone know if the Bar in the Forum remained open when it was a cinema and was also known as 'The American Bar'?Talking about fires, here's one I remember as a kid, really tragic as well.
Hendersons fire in 1960.
As a child you can be fascinated by this sort of horror, especially when you are too young to understand them properly, but I seem to remember this being really awful and occupying the front pages of the Echo for many nights afterwards.
Some of the poor souls who perished were trapped behind the metal bars on the upper windows yet in full view of the attempted rescuers and their inability to cut through in time to rescue them. As a child, it actually scared me a bit as we had been in the shop just a few days before. For a while after, if I was in town with my Mum or Dad and going upstairs in any of the big shops I was always a bit apprehensive.