Like most small villages, Clairac has seen many shops close, one after another, for many decades. So we remember - it seems only yesterday - three butchers (Lacombe, Moureu, Galan), bakers (Lajoie, Bidaubayle or Poirier), pork butchers, grocery stores (La Ruche, Tichit, Marliac, Bessoubs ...), electricians, mechanics, hairdressers...?
Once we study bills and other commercial documents, we can discover an large variety of shops, in a time when there were no mini-markets or supermarkets! Some examples to dream about?
In 1910, Bimal & Ribes recalled that their Grand Hotel was “completely refurbished, recommended to Messrs. the travellers”; in 1920, Olivier Clouzié fils praised his “decorations of apartments and churches, letters, fake wood, marbles & attributes”; in 1923, Louis Didouan was the specialist in “articles for cattle, speciality tobacco twine, whips & guides, mosquito nets & muzzlers”. Closer to our times, H. Arcas offers “colonial foods, first choice food products, sulphur & sulphates, clogs, haberdashery, pottery, wines”.
This quick overview of some of these documents that members can discover by clicking here is a real and wonderful journey through time; the opportunity to remember that even in a small village of Lot-&-Garonne, we could for a moment believe itself Course of Intendance in Bordeaux, or on the Grands Boulevards in Paris...
