LAST week we featured a picture of the Dock Street end of Skinner Street, Newport c.1936.

THIS is Skinner Street, it was busy during the 60s as Maurice Wights music store was there and it was a magnet for young musicians and bands.

Across the road was the Olympia Cinema where there was Saturday morning pictures for the ABC Minors.

It used to cost 6d to sit down stairs, and 9d upstairs if you were posh or your mum didn’t want you to mix with the rest of us rag tags downstairs.

Jan Rickard Maddox, Newport

TODAY’S picture is Newport’s Skinner Street.

For many years it was one of the busiest small streets in Newport.

There were shops of every description selling everything and anything.

One of the most permanent shops was and still is Arnold’s at No 13.

They have been in the same premises for well over 80 years.

Well known for their prompt and friendly service, nothing is too much trouble.

Arnold’s is a part of the fabric of Newport, the first shop opened as an ironmonger in Godfrey Road in 1808.

How many shops in the UK can boast of serving their community for 209 years?

Opposite Arnolds was the ABC Olympia Cinema.

ABC acquired the Olympic Cinema in 1929 and which operated up until it closed in September 1964.

They used to have a children’s cinema on a Saturday morning, with the children queuing down Skinner Lane, it was 6d (2½p) for which you got two cartoons, a serial and a feature film.

Many years ago there was a creek where lower Skinner Street is with a stream running into it down where Bridge Street is now.

Dave Woolven, Newport