Here is a little something about P.Orr and sons in Mount Road... I will root around & see if I can find anything about Pophams, David.. meanwhile this is a small flavour of things as they were... warm greetings, Vanya Orr it was a tradition at P.Orr's that there would always have to be a Director on the premises during working hours right round the year! This ensured that Madras Society shopping here was always served by someone almost on that society - and not by a salesman, no matter the latter's immaculate white suit, just the right tie, shoes that shone and impeccable manners. From owner-directors' hands, P.Orr's passed into the Amalgamations Group and then, in 1967, Anantharamakrishnan sold the business to his friend Karumuthu Thiaigaraja Chettiar, in whose family the business remains, but with the property strongly disputed even after recent court rulings. Chisholm's 60 feet by 30 showroom that was the chief attraction of P.Orr's building in its heyday was a veritable Victorian wonderland of ornate chandeliers, floors with shining tiles, richly embellished walls that were an "art gallery" of the coats of arms and heraldry of British and Indian royalty and nobility, and, above all, scores of ornamental showcases, with their glass gleaming and their rosewood and teak polished almost every day. And in the showcases, themselves works of art, were the riches of P.Orr's, ranging from watches to silverware, from precious stones to jewellery. There also used to be renowned Diamond Table, the display of rubies and jade that the Rangoon branch regularly supplied, and case after case of watches, chronometers and silverware. Today, no longer can you see here the Golconda or the 68-carat Guntakkal Diamond, nor displays of silver and gold table service or trophies. Today, it's back to roots - and that's watches. Behind it all there also survives what used to be a fascinating horolgical workshop, a maze on different levels, with hundreds of stools and workbenches where hundreds of employees pored over the intricacies of the innards of watches and clocks, while at other levels jewellery was created, gold and silver engraved. There was a time when P.Orr's even went beyond its traditional business, in an unconscious reflection of Peter Orr's engineering roots which, from time to time, manifested themselves in some new creation of his - like his mechanical process to work the city's punkahs by steam! During that short excursion, P.Orr's assembled bicycles, served as agents for Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Wolseley cars, sold and serviced sophisticated surveying equipment and even had an arms and ammunition section, where arms repair was a specialty. Over the years, and particularly after Independence, department after department was closed down and it is with watches the firm is primarily associated once more." -- Vanya Orr, Project Director Earth Trust Ketty Post Nilgiris, Tamilnadu, India mob.: +919787749943 office: +914232517036 www.earthtrustnilgiris.org