Jehangir Dhunjeeshaw Patel rented ground level space at the  Grand Hotel building in the Crescent where he opened the British Colonial Stores. This was  in the early 1940's in partnership with his uncle, though by 1950 he bought out his uncle and became the sole proprietor.  Jehangir's father occasionally came into the store in the evenings and sat at the till - an old manual cash register. The purchases were not just rung up on the till, but also entered into a huge ledger. The staff comprised  4 or 5  Indian salesmen, a couple of clerks (accountants), several (4-5) Arabs and Somalis plus a couple of Arab "coolies".

This photo shows the British Colonial Stores which occupied part of the ground floor level of the Grand Hotel in The Crescent, close to The Rock Hotel, a little further northwest along the Crescent.  A Greek family who lived above the store kept a couple of turkeys in the run behind the shop!

The store sold "provisions"; everything from biscuits, chocolates, tinned vegetables and  fruit to Italian and Swiss cheeses, salami, mortadella, ham, bacon,  kippers, French and Italian wines, also frozen food.  The store also sold crockery, cutlery and kitchen utensils although these were later (in the early 60's) sold from a separate store across the road. All the store stock was imported from Europe.  It was not a shop for tourists, mostly for service families.

 

"I remember as a young child the Sunday afternoon outing was a trip to Khormaksar to collect the food from the Aerodrome and drop it off at a cold store in Maalla.  He later had a small cold room created within the store. The trip was in the old Opel Kapitan which had a copious boot.  Later my father acquired a couple of Volkswagen vans which were used for transporting goods for the shop. As the Aden agent for Amstel beer, he supplied all the other outlets that sold Amstel."

There was the bar at the front of the British Colonial Stores that ran the whole width of the shop and sold Amstel Beer.  A sign over the door read "In bounds to all ranks". There were regulars who came to the bar in the evening - Indians, Greeks, Italians some Arabs and the occasional group of servicemen.  When things threatened to get a bit rowdy, Jehangir had only to threaten to call the redcaps and things quieted down immediately. He was "loathe to call the redcaps because they would simply and brutally beat all the soldiers and take them away."

View of the British Colonial Stores and Grand Hotel from Doong Seng Hung's shop

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