At the Newtown there was one shop. Old Mrs Murray sold a wide range of things- including one fag/one match for a penny !
I was born in Beecher Street - down the bottom end, demolished in the early 1970s. I remember Murray's shop, although later we called it Lily's. The shop was the front room of the house, and there were jars of sweets all along the counter (liquorice torpedos, jap desserts, those monkey nut sweets etc), and there were several chewing gum machines on the wall outside. I believe the shop was owned by Charlie Robertson, of Charlie's shops on Cowpen Estate, and he lived there.
However, Murray's was not the only shop in Cowpen Newtown. At the very top of Beecher Street was Mrs Air's, which was a general dealer's and off licence. The shop window, where I stood drooling over chocolates on display, has long since been bricked up and pebbledashed. The door was right under the blue and white Beecher Street sign which is still there today. I trudged up that street many a time on errands, often to buy cigarettes for my mam or the neighbours in those age-restriction free days.
Mrs Air's was closer than Murray's, and because of this, the latter was known as the top shop.