Queuing to buy coke

THE headline above this photograph in the January 20, 1951 edition of the Saturday Telegraph – then a sister paper of the Luton News – said it all really.

Luton Queues To Buy Coke’ it stated and the story told how families were lining up to buy ‘off the ration’ coke for fuel at Luton Gas Works.

Although the Second World War ended in 1945, rationing continued for several years and coke was still restricted in 1951.

It was on sale on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings and people were allowed to carry away up to 28lbs each. On this occasion, the Telegraph reported, 200 people had been served within an hour.

One woman collected her coke in a large pillowcase, while others turned up with shopping bags, sacks, carts and prams. A schoolboy told a reporter that his family had been without coal for two weeks and managed with coke instead.

Fuel was in short supply and Luton factories appointed fuel watchers to make sure that lights were switched off, heating turned down and fuel consumption reduced as much as possible.

The Luton Gas and Coke Company had been founded in 1834 as gas began to replace lighting by oil or candles. It occupied the site where the Sainsbury’s supermarket in Dunstable Road, Bury Park, now stands. There is still a path called Gas Works Path.

> The Yesteryear picture on July 13, below, showed children in Dorset Street, Luton, in August 1970 before homes were demolished to make way for high-rise flats, including Dorset Court.

We’ve now traced the Luton News double page spread, entitled ‘A Street Dies To Live Again’, that accompanied the photo and others of the street.

Dorset Street was described as “a rising bank of terraced houses” which ran from Langley Street up to Surrey Street School.

A reporter spoke to residents about the move to the new flats, including Ivy Toyer, who had run the grocery shop on the bottom corner of the street for 36 years.

She would be moving into a flat on the eighth floor of one of the 14-storey tower blocks and she was keen to get a flat looking towards Luton Hoo.

Another resident was looking forward to the move as his house suffered from damp and he had to decorate twice a year. Demolition of the houses was due to start in February 1971 and by April the whole street would be gone.

Related topics: