Hanson's in Shenley Road has to be one of Borehamwood's best known and oldest shops.

For more than 60 years the Hanson family ran the shop, selling sweets and tobacco to customers including Sophia Loren and Clark Gable.

At the end of the 19th-century the premises had been Fox & Clark, which made and sold furniture.

In 1905, the Starck family took it over, sold confectionary, opened a tea room, at the back of the shop, and operated a car-hire firm from the shed behind the building.

Marjorie Starck, who is pictured, lived in Borehamwood all her life and died a few years ago.

Other shops in Shenley Road at the time included ER Tucker draper's, now the Eat Well cafe and sandwich bar, and Mr Clinton's barber's, now Michael James hairdresser's.

In April 1933, Herbert and Elsie Hanson, who are both dead, moved from Huddersfield to take over the premises.

Their daughter, and local historian, Mary Hanson, remembered how her father had always wanted his own business; and when Elsie Hanson's cousin, who worked at Tucker's, said there was a shop going Mr Hanson travelled from the north to have a look.

The Hansons moved to the town, which was small, rural and considered an economically-depressed area, even though it had some manufacturing industries.

Many of Hanson's customers came from Keystone Mills and, during the war, from the two army camps in the town.

Mary, 67, who lives in Borehamwood, remembered film stars, like Sophia Loren and Clark Gable, buying cigarettes. The shop also sold snuff, tobacco which could be inhaled.

She said: "We knew everybody, but in those days you did not have to have a shop to know everybody because Borehamwood was small enough."

The family lived in the flat above the shop, which had a back garden with fruit trees. Hanson's was sold to the Rudd family five years ago.