December 2007 - Christmas past...Christmas present
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This Christmas we return to our collection of trade advertisements previously featured last July. We find that almost exactly a hundred years ago George Crook, an optician in Southport, was recommending you buy a friend or relative a pair of glasses for Christmas. It didn't matter what power they were. You obtained a sample pair to hand over on Christmas morning. Imagine the joy when the person unwrapped them! Two days later the lucky recipient could go in for a free eye examination and have the spectacles replaced with ones that met their own prescription.
Maybe they'd fancy a pair from our museum Christmas tree?
Despite the nature of the advertisement, concerning the supply of prescription eyewear, Crook obviously had other strings to his bow and he cites himself at the bottom of the column as a pharmaceutical chemist. Thus we can conclude that he is clearly anxious to identify himself with what was then a more established profession and yet not averse to blatant commercialism in his attempt to cash in on the festive pound.
We wish all our visitors, researchers and web-users a very merry Christmas and a spec-tacular 2008.
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