Black Country Living
Museum is looking for memories from the 1960s of Langer’s Army and Navy Stores,
Stourbridge as part of its ambitious new development project BCLM: Forging
Ahead. The shop will be recreated and set in 1963 as part of the new 1940s to
1960s town providing the opportunity for visitors to learn about the impact of
World War II in the Black Country, the experiences of prisoners of war and the
buying and selling of military surplus.
Langer’s Army and Navy
Stores was opened at 55 Enville Street in 1953 by Herbert Langer, a former
German prisoner of war who decided to return to the Black Country after the
war. The shop had distinctive signage featuring a soldier, sailor and airman,
as well as large outdoor displays of goods that would take hours for Mr Langer
to put up and take down.
A huge amount of
military surplus became available in the years following World War II and the
Korean War, which caused a boom in the military surplus trade. There were large
numbers of uniforms available, which retailers such as Langer’s could buy in
bulk at auction to sell on to customers seeking affordable but good quality
clothing, often for workwear. Langer’s also sold items such as work gloves for
workers in local factories alongside household items such as buckets, baths and
brooms.
Herbert Langer was born in
1925 in Berlin, Germany. He trained as a chef during the 1940s and was
conscripted into the German army towards the end of the war. He was shot in the
left knee in battle and was captured and imprisoned initially in Texas, USA
before being transferred by boat to a POW camp on Bromley Lane, Wordsley. Whilst
imprisoned, Herbert became the camp chef and was, like many prisoners, involved
in an informal trade in military equipment and clothing.
The Bromley Lane camp
was an open camp, occupied first by Italian then German prisoners. Inmates were
able to go out and work for one shilling a week. Whilst many of his fellow
prisoners worked at local glassworks or brickworks, Herbert took on a job
caring for the grounds of Wordsley Rectory. He was later allowed to live in an
outbuilding there, in the care of Reverend R. H. Fowler.
At the end of the war,
Herbert was repatriated to Germany but he missed the Black Country so much that
he returned after two years. He became a naturalised British citizen in
1954. In 1949 Mr Langer was deployed to
work in Billy Evan’s Hardware Store, Cradley Heath. In 1952, Billy Evans opened
another store at 55 Enville Street selling hardware, workwear and haberdashery
yet died six months after the shop had opened. Langer purchased the shop in
1953 from Mr Evans’ widow and renamed it Langer’s Army and Navy Stores. He met
his wife Annie in the late 1950s, they married in December 1970 and had their
son, Steven, in 1971.
The store traded for
around 60 years, eventually expanding into the neighbouring terrace, through to
63 Enville Street. Herbert Langer died in 2004, aged 79. The shop building has
now been demolished, replaced by retirement homes. The business has moved to
Comberton Hill Kidderminster where Steven Langer, Herbert’s son, continues to
trade
To help us in our recreation, we would
love to talk to anyone with memories of Langer’s. Do you remember the shop? Did
you buy military surplus or workwear there? Do you remember Herbert Langer?
Please get in touch with us by emailing [email protected] or call 0121 557 9643.
For more information about BCLM: Forging Ahead, please visit: www.bclm.com/forgingahead.
