C&A

My daughter Kate always smiles when she passes this store in Memmingen as she is just old enough to remember C&A with it's 113 UK stores. They were closed down in 2000, possibly because of competition (M&S, BHS) & lack of profits but could also be image problems and quite likely, the chance to make some money on selling off the high street properties.

They have been doing seemingly quite well in around 2000 branches in 23 mainly EU countries but last night it was revealed they are in talks to sell the group to the Chinese.

C&A is split between HQs in Belgium and Germany. It was originally started by two German brothers who, as was common from the 17th century onwards, would cross the border, from their home in northeast Germany to Holland and sell their cloth goods there. The two brothers christian names were Clemens and August, the surname Brenninkmeyer. They had great success in Holland and in 1841 started a company with a shop there. This family then became Dutch, the name changed to Brenninkmeijer and they are today one of the richest families in the world. Needless to say, the group is now controlled by a holding in Switzerland and I have no doubt they pay their taxes fairly and fully in each of the countries they operate in.

The building is in the "strange" Schrannenplatz in the southern part of central Memmingen. Schrannen in southern Germany was the place where the grain was stored and traded in middle ages. In Austria, the word was used for the place where justice was handed out by the medieval "courts" and is often the site of the village/town weekly market.

I can't be too sure if much of this "modern architecture" is a late result of the WWII bombing of Memmingen town by the US which took place on 20th July 1944, 9th April 1945 and finally on Hitler's birthday 20th April 1945. Apparently, the citizens of the city were overjoyed to welcome, without any resistance,  Patton's GIs five days later. The French had also been close and the rumour was they were an unpredictable, thrown together group.

Anyway, I am not a fan of much of it but have to go there as in the new three spires building to the right, a whole host of specialist doctors have their offices and I had to have my last two stitches removed. Was a breeze and I managed not to put too many cracks in the plasterwork with my screams of agony.

Nobody would have heard my pleas for help. Outside another strong storm blowing and making walking around very unpleasant. The mobile phone has been constantly giving off horrible war siren tones as a series of official warnings about wind, then snow (above 800m, snow drifting and finally this evening flooding were sent out. Found out today that the siren goes off on my mobile even when it is fully switched off.

Could be embarrassing in lots of circumstances when you thought you had muted the thing. By the way, if you are visiting our area (and probably anywhere in Bavaria or Germany) on the second Saturday morning of the month at around 11:00 am, don't be alarmed as the disaster/catastrophe alarm sirens are set off in the whole area one by one for testing purposes. They sound exactly the same as the sirens from WWII films. And if you are thinking of invading Germany you may like to consider this as a good starting time - everybody ignores the warning.