Dearly departed shops :-(

[thismonkeyhere]

Pickled said:

John Menzies, great when ZX Spectrum, Acorn Electron et al were all the new thing, used to spend many a saturday morning playing Manic Miner, or just typing

10 Print 'insert rude word', (if you added the comma - irrc it would fill the whole screen going across horizontally then vertically.)
20 goto 10

Then you would learn a bit more Basic and get it to do random colours, and annoying noises - simple pleasures.

Semi-colon, rather than comma, no?

[bristolracer]

Army and navy stores

Radio rentals

Binns

Habitat

laskys

[joe_90]

As a child... When Hamleys in Bath left.
As an Adult with kids.. thank fk for that.

[joe_90]

thismonkeyhere said:

Semi-colon, rather than comma, no?

correct. semi-colon, and add an extra space or two get a wrapping warping effect.

[Thankyou4calling]

bristolracer said:

Army and navy stores

Radio rentals

Binns

Habitat

laskys

That's just a list of defunct shops ( habitat is still around)

What do they mean to you? What did you used to enjoy about them?

[SidJames]

thismonkeyhere said:

Pickled said:

John Menzies, great when ZX Spectrum, Acorn Electron et al were all the new thing, used to spend many a saturday morning playing Manic Miner, or just typing

10 Print 'insert rude word', (if you added the comma - irrc it would fill the whole screen going across horizontally then vertically.)
20 goto 10

Then you would learn a bit more Basic and get it to do random colours, and annoying noises - simple pleasures.

Semi-colon, rather than comma, no?

+1 happy days.

[aka_kerrly]

SidJames said:

aka_kerrly said:

SidJames said:

International Stores
Gateway
Comet
Bejam
Netto

I do believe that International Stores became Gateway who then became Somerfield who then bought the Kwik Save brand before being bought out by Co-Op.

Netto were one of the other supermarket chains that benefited from the strip down of the Kwik Save brand.

pedant.

you forgot fine fare and somerfield.

Yes slightly pedantic, I'm by no means a supermarket historian, my mother worked for international up until it became the Co-Op. All I remember is each time the company rebranded there was a huge faff over new uniforms/working hours/pay and holidays.

[miniman]

soad said:

Virgin Megastore.

Megastore in Brighton was a fantastic place. Ground floor contained all the chart dross, then 4 more floors of great music, top end hifi gear and then games and other stuff. Could spend hours in there, and did regularly.

[eliot]

WilliamWoollard said:

I discovered just yesterday that Midnight Pumpkins are still available online. I may have to treat myself.

And they still last about 5 minutes before smashing into a million pieces

[SydneyBridge]

I used to buy viz from Virgin megastore, when it was the only place you could buy it from. before everyone discovered viz

[backwoodsman]

Rosscow said:

Tandy

Still at least one out there.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.2295485,-1.29299...

[jet_noise]

Funkycoldribena said:

Boney Maroney and Paradise Garage ring any bells?

Not in my belfry!

[Pickled]

thismonkeyhere said:

Semi-colon, rather than comma, no?

I'm not going to disagree been best part of 25 years since I typed any basic.

[droopsnoot]

Chevykevv said:

My dad had a village shop and all the wholesalers used to give out Green Sheild Stamps, we'd spend hours licking the damn things so we could hand in pallets of them in exchange for a toaster.

I remember going on holiday one year, possibly to a Butlins, where many of the fruit machines paid out in Green Shield Stamps. Had to go and convert them into "prizes" at the end of the week.

I also loved Borders - mainly because the one nearest here (on the retail park next to Cheshire Oaks) had a great selection of magazines, and they had a lot of the red "clearance" boxes all over the place. And, while Waterstones is still there, they don't do enough clearance boxes any more. I used to go to the one on St Annes Square in Manchester and they'd have at least one box on each of the four floors, then out of the back, through the arcade and into the Deansgate branch where they'd have more there.

[spikeyhead]

What I miss are all the independent shops. These days it doesn't seem to matter which town I go shopping in, they've all got the same homogenized dross.

[droopsnoot]

spikeyhead said:

What I miss are all the independent shops. These days it doesn't seem to matter which town I go shopping in, they've all got the same homogenized dross.

True. I recall a trip to Manchester, morning around town and Arndale, then over to the Trafford Centre. On leaving a shop in the TC that also had a branch in Arndale I had a brainstorm because the two shops directly opposite were the same as those opposite the Arndale branch.

[anonymous-user]

The ahem 'Gentlemans' shop on Mill Road Cambridge. Sorely missed

[PlayersNo6]

All Doncaster :

Evans model shop on Silver Street. Aladdin's cave of model kits and Scalextric. Got gutted by fire and relocated to the nearby stationery store, eventually returned but was never the same.

Toy shop at the bottom of the stairs in the indoor market had loads of Action Man and Star Wars stock.

Wimpy (now Burger King) at the entrance to the Arndale Centre was the place to be on a Saturday - huge queues.

Sugg Sport upstairs in the Arndale to check out the latest trainers. Also Don Valley Sports next to the chippy.

Boots upstairs in the Arndale for Spectrum games and blank tapes.

Hillard's supermarket in Edenthorpe seemed big in the early 80s - eventually bought by Tesco.

Bradley's Records again upstairs in the Arndale.

Co Op department store for the excellent cafe upstairs - great building sadly became a succession of discount stores.

Proper tobacconist next to both the Black Bull and Castle pubs in the Market Place had a huge international selection of cigs and Zippo lighters. Last time I was there now just a boring paper-shop.

See Goldberg's in Edinburgh has already been mentioned. Used to go there a lot with relatives, popular as it had parking out front. Good Lego selection upstairs IIRC.

[birdcage]

Ricemans Canterbury Kent, massive toy department.

[Spare tyre]

CorbynForTheBin said:

Beatties

Two in my childhood stomping ground
Lordshill and east st in Southampton

Loved going in there

Lord shill is now a charity shop

East street is a convenience store

Edited by Spare tyre on Tuesday 10th November 19:39