Brollies of Perth, High Street (1971 – 2026)

By our Shop Obituaries Correspondent

Brollies of Perth, which sold umbrellas, rain hats, galoshes and a once-popular plastic headscarf known locally as “the Granny Rain-Mate”, has closed after 55 years on the High Street.

The shop’s owners blamed the Met Office’s long-range forecast, which said rainfall was “likely to be below average” into the middle of November. “We’ve survived everything,” said a family member. “The 1976 drought. Online shopping. Those fold-up ones from the garage. But ‘below average’? In Perth? In November? That’s just cruel.”

Brollies of Perth was famous for its window display, which featured a rotating umbrella that had been turning since 1983 and was thought to be the oldest moving object on the High Street.

It was a shop of firm opinions. Customers who asked for “a small umbrella” were shown the door. “A small umbrella in Perth is like a small coat in Lapland,” the founder once said. “It’s not an umbrella. It’s a hat with ideas.”

The shop’s busiest day was 9 August 1985, when it rained so hard that a queue formed outside, in the rain, of people waiting to buy umbrellas. Nobody in the queue had an umbrella. Several of them got very wet. It was, staff said, “the happiest day of our lives”.

Brollies of Perth is survived by one golf umbrella the size of a small gazebo, which is being donated to St Johnstone for use in the dugout.

The real story: Long range forecast (Met Office)