Shops of yesteryear

C_J

I recently popped into Wilko's as they are selling items off due to the store being in some difficulty and it's a little sad seeing all the shelves as empty as they were and that got me thinking about shops and stores that have come and gone.

Do you remember a shop/store that you use to shop in that's no longer on the high street?

I thought it would be interesting to see the kind of shops people remember and maybe miss.

C_J

I often shopped at Woolworths for my records, games and loved the pick n mix and often got a magazine I was into.

Jimm_Alumni

When I think of Woolworth's the thing that first comes to mind is when we had to have an assembly in secondary school. Some kids skipped school to go into town and nick from the pick'n'mix in Woolies. In their school uniform. They weren't the sharpest bunch.

I've moved so often in my life as child and adult that I no longer really have a specific old shop I remember going to. The saddest shop closure I remember was when the towns Waterstones closed. It was the last bookshop left and me and my sister used to sit in the reading section after school.

C_J

Thanks for sharing @Jimm_Scope I would be lost without a good bookshop to browse around.

Sandy_123

I miss Dorothy perkings  BHS too 

C_J

@woodbine I didn't know Next were called anything else just assumed they started as next. I remember M.F.I well.
There was also Dixon's the electrical shop.

 

CATP

john menzies. my parents bought a comodore64 PC/console hybrid for me and my sister from there somewhere around late eighties to 1990 and its mainly where we bought our games.

although my dad bought us zzap64 magazine so we had tapes to play (they even had a couple of rude ones they never noticed lol) i only got one new game a year and i remember being brought into the menzies shop and i pointed at the simpsons:bart simpson VS the space mutants tape. i still had that game last year and its box/bag/tape/instructions in mint condition i coud have sold it for a lot if i was someone who sold my games but one of my old suport staff who i really got on with,who coud roll off any line from the simpsons and was a simpsons fan and gamer woud have found more love for it than i had as i didnt like the simpsons,i gave it him on his last day at my service.

i watched the netflix standalone interactive episode of black mirror called bandersnatch when it came out and it took me back to the late eighties/early nineties as it looked like they had kitted out an entire store to be a john menzies,really cool.

and the last shop...more recently,i used to love going to robinsons equestrian store to get my head properly measured and buy my new helmets-i have a wonky head as ive banged my head my whole life so they dont get a good fit,i had to save up for more expensive skull caps and buy silks with them,new boots,new mountain horse yard boots with metal toe caps which i still have today-theyre mega weighty so i find they help me know where my feet are.

id get my joules embelished polo tops from there-ive still got 3 from those years and they all still fit but need some sewing up.

robinsons were bought out by the sports direct guy and now it looks exactly like a sports direct with all sorts of sports in there,itss full of big golf umbrelas from sports direct, no one around to help with helmets (not that i live near any RDA riding school with a hoist),the bottom floor used to be full of horse equipment like feed and tack,no longer the truth, very sad to see it go.

i dont know any decently sized similar shops in the NW to check out, they all seem to have gone online sadly.

-i do remember one equestrian store that posibly might be shut now cant find it anywhere,i have something you all might find funny as i still to this day find it shocking that someone can think womens size 10 is XL .(so, i am ftm trans so im a bit familiar with womens sizes-even though ive never worn womens clothing and ive always been outwardly male since a toddler) this equestrian store in the NW somewhere?-it might have been called astley hall or something similar, one day decided to collab with katie price many years ago and for some reason, katie decided to design 'hot pants' for riding in, which is not only a joke if you know riding but its very bad for health and safety,especialy if using a saddle.anyway,i remember katie classing them as going up to size XL which meant womens size 10. so aparently size 10 is extra large.  katie and the shop got an absolute bashing on horse riding forums.

66Mustang

I liked going into game stores to buy games for my computer and Xbox

Never really got into online downloading games, I quit gaming before that became the big thing

C_J

Hi @woodbine I think your right about Dixon's and yes Currys are now known as Currys PC World.

Back in the day we use to rent our TV from a rental shop in town I can't remember the name of the store back then.

CATP

C_J said:

Hi @woodbine I think your right about Dixon's and yes Currys are now known as Currys PC World.

Back in the day we use to rent our TV from a rental shop in town I can't remember the name of the store back then.

woudnt be rumbelows or radio rentals woud it?

my parents bought some ex display CRT TVs from radio rentals back in the day, and they lasted for so many years,they also woud buy me one computer game a year and theyd buy me them from rumbelows- the games i remember being well overpriced,but you coud pay them off every week.

C_J

Radio rentals that was the one thank you for reminding me.

Wilshyboy

In Bedford High Street until recently there was Goldings Ironmongers, which was one of the oldest shops in the town, it was a narrow little shop but very long, there was a chair in the middle of the shop for the  elderly or disabled customers to sit and catch their breath, Downstairs there was every type of Nuts, Bolts, Hooks, Mousetraps and anything else for the House you would need upstairs was where all the keys were cut, also Doormats and other stuff to numerous to mention, It was a real old fashioned shop with good service, My brother worked there for 27 years, and when he handed his notice in the owner said to him,"If i'd known you weren't going to stay i wouldn't have given you the job". Also it was said if you couldn't get it in Goldings, you wouldn't get it in Bedford, A sad loss to the town indeed.

C_J

@Wilshyboy it was a shame to see shops like that disappear as they seemed to sell items other shops didn't if you were doing some sort of DIY and needed some strange nut or bolt or fitting those shops were the place to go and they always seemed to be a place people liked to stop and have a good natter.

Wilshyboy

The man who actually owned it was well in his 80s and used to come in 2 or 3 days a week and all the older  ladies who came in and had known him for years were greeted with "Hello old ducky" because he couldn't remember all their names.

OverlyAnxious

Comet, Maplin, Somerfield, Focus DIY, C&A.

66Mustang

@Wilshyboy I'm sure you do live near me now  

We have a nice hardware store in our town that's still going a bit like you describe.

When Ronnie Corbett died he put a fork handle with four candles mounted on it in the window.

Jimm_Alumni

Back in the 90s my dad was a security guard for C&A.

I don't remember anyone ever saying anything nice about it though? Probably why it didn't last?

Hannah_Alumni

When I was a teen, I used to shop at Tammy Girl. There's a blast from the past. I also loved Borders. We had a huge one up by the big Tesco. Me and a friend would jump on the bus, go have lunch in the Tesco Cafe and get our American teen magazines from there. It was the only place you could get them 

C_J

I often enjoyed eating in the local Wimpy when we all went out when I was younger.

Jimm_Alumni

Regarding shops that have closed down and failed, and also harkening to my previous post about the local waterstones shutting down (this was in the 00s). I remember when everyone assumed bookshops and Waterstones were just going to go out of business thanks to Amazon and other online shops. Waterstones is at least doing alright though it seems, many of them had cafes added to diversify the business and attract more customers I guess.

C_J

@Jimm_Scope I have purchased the odd book from online shops but you just can't beat looking around a good bookshop and that's were I prefer to buy my books or a good book fair/market.