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Pifl ’81 Day 7: Norbury and Sons Department Store

Saturday, January 7th, 2023

Norbury and Sons department store opened its first branch in Auk over 150 years ago. The Pifl branch opened not long after the arrival of the railway on the Harbour Road. The tallest building on the harbour it rises six stories above the waterfront. There are entrances on the ground floor on Harbour Road facing […]

Pifl ’81 Day 6: Harbour Road Bandstand

Friday, January 6th, 2023

Across Harbour Road from the Pifl branch of Norbury and Sons department store is one of the towns Bandstands. Provided for the entertainment and edification of the population and visitors to Pifl by Victorian benefactors it was manufactured by W MacFarlane & Co. Ltd of Glasgow. It has seen better days. The town council see […]

Pifl ’81 Day 5: Madam Rasputin

Thursday, January 5th, 2023

Madam Rasputin (real name Maggie Rivers) is a local fortune teller in her mid-40s who works out of a room above Candy’s Cotton Candy. She has no ability as a fortune teller but a small gift at spinning an entertaining yarn. However about 1 in 20 of the fictions she spins seem to come true. […]

Pifl ’81 Day 4: Candy’s Cotton Candy

Wednesday, January 4th, 2023

A little further inland along Harbour Road is Candy’s Cotton Candy. A gaudy and popular sweet shop run by Candy Chase who originates (as she likes to say) in Cañon City in the Great State of Colorado. She came to Pifl with her husband, a USAF officer seconded to nearby RAF Coterel. Rapidly becoming board […]

Pifl ’81 Day 3: Fl and Chips

Tuesday, January 3rd, 2023

Fl and Chips at Number 1 Harbour Road is an unassuming, two storey building that stands on its own just before the West Pier. It takes its name from the River Fl which flows through the harbour on its way to the North Sea. It used to be the best Fish and Chip shop in […]

Pifl ’81 Day 2: Arcadia

Monday, January 2nd, 2023

Arcadia in 1981 is a large entertainment complex to the left of P’s Postcards from Pifl on the Harbour Road. Originally built by Josiah Caxton at The Grand Arcadia Gardens on instruction from the de Pifl family in 1865. They had been inspired by a trip to Paxton’s Crystal Palace, completed for the Great Exhibition […]

Pifl ’81 Day 1: P’s Postcards from Pifl

Sunday, January 1st, 2023

On the Pifl harbour road, sandwiched between an ever changing cavalcade of gaudy emporiums Postcards from Pifl is a small, unnoticed Pifl institution. The shop has been here, in the same family, since 1903. It occupies a narrow shop unit rented from the Butty family. Barely wide enough for two customers to squeeze past each […]