I received the following information from a Coffey Time reader: “The answer to the question on Duke Street was wide of the mark. The Volunteer was NOT nearly opposite to the Duke of Cambridge.

“It was opposite where Evelyn Daw's Ladies Fashions was and also, a little further down from those houses, there was a small cul de sac of old houses and this included a watchmakers.

“All this space is now taken over by the large shop belonging to Bartons. Further down from that, before you got to the Lowe Street road junction, was the Kit-Kat Café which had all the walls covered in green Vitrolite, and then the chemist.

“These are the houses. The pub you can see is where the car is, on the corner of Mill Street where the Chemists shop is now opposite Rigby Street and the Hair Dressing supplies in what used to be Evelyn Daws Ladies Fashions.

“The wall at the end of the row to the left of the picture is where the little cul de sac was where the watchmakers shop was. I remember it very very clearly.

“The Volunteer pub was opposite Rigby Street, and it’s now a chemists shop on the site. The old houses went down towards what was the Oxford Cinema, which has been all sorts of night clubs since then, and the little cul de sac of houses and the clockmakers I mentioned was where Bartons shop was built on them opposite Hamer Street.

“The Duke of Cambridge is higher up on the opposite side to the Volunteer going towards town and opposite what used to be Buckleys Newsagents.

“Roberts's Cake Shop used to be opposite the Duke of Cambridge, going up towards the Capitol Cinema and Benny Brookes sports shop, and a childrens clothes shop next door to the cinema.(posh clothes that was.) I believe the lady Ann Barrow was the daughter of the people who owned Shaws furniture shop.

My thanks to “littlmum” Eileen for these additional ‘now and then’ snaps of that stretch of Duke Street.