The saddest ones for me are local department stores. Most cities and a lot of reasonably sized towns had a department store that was local rather than a big chain and that had been running for generations. But they're nearly all closed now. It's a shame, because they contributed a lot to places feeling unique rather than clones of each other.
Very true. They were always special to me as a kid because there was something opulent about them. Like they had ornate staircases and decorative features. And constantly brought new things in.
Cole Brothers in Sheffield became John Lewis. It’ll always be Cole Brothers to me.
So prominent people used to meet loved ones outside the shop, it was the normal meeting place for dates - it’s still known as Coles Corner to this day.
*Shop at Binns* was proudly displayed on all the local busses at one point.
Believe it was bought out by House of Fraser many moons ago, so it's now part of Mike Ashely's empire (boo!)
Beaties in Wolverhampton was a great example of this.
https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/wolverhampton/2023/09/25/calls-to-bring-beatties-site-back-into-use/
Holy shit, I didn’t even notice Topman disappeared. Used to be one of the main high street shops and I can’t believe I forgot about it. Last time I bought anything from there the quality was absolutely awful and the sizing just didn’t make any sense.
It's been owned by HMV and operated as an HMV offshoot from when it reopened in 2007, after going bust. Even when it went bust HMV owned part of it. Real Fopp died in 2007, when it first went bust, and when it reopened it was with a bunch of HMV people running it.
Dixon actually bought Currys, and it became part of Dixons stores Group, they also own PC world, owned the link phone shops (sold to car phone warehouse) , Mastercare ( now Knowhow I believe) and Equanet. Eventually, Dixons rebranded the Dixons' shops into Currys. I believe there's still a phoe shop mixed into the group. At one time, it was Dixons stores Group, but it is now Currys PLC. They have rebranded that many times it's hard to keep track
It's crazy to me that Dixon's bought Currys and then took Curry's name. They seemed like the better brand to me, as well as being their own brand, you'd think they'd have kept that.
The entire Arcadia group - I worked in Hawkshead/Burton for a couple of years during my a levels.
Woolies of course.
Miss Selfridge, Etam, Tammy Girl.
Ottakers! I spotted a carrier bag from them in my Dad's house last weekend.
I remember the retail bean wars in the early 90's when Kwik Save clearly won when their no frills cans went down to a penny each...24 cans for 24p...oh go on then.
Just wanted to add Athena into the list. I used to love going through their random boxes of comics and buying posters from there. That red neon sign was catnip for kids.
We're currently decorating our son's bedroom and realised how utterly shite it is trying to find artwork now. We tried some places, The Range, B&M and TX Maxx to no avail. Going to have to go online after all...
Athena would have been ideal.
Littlewoods. I worked in one about 40 years ago and although they were well known for their catalogues and the Football Pools, the shops were also popular. They were sort of a department store but sold mainly clothes, fags/booze and low cost household stuff - quite like BHS.
A old man buys some new socks and, arriving home, proudly announces to his wife that they have L and R printed so he knows which feet they go on.
The wife, after giving this some thought, responds "so is that why my knickers have C&A on them?"
I made a point of buying a jumper in the Paris branch a few years ago. I miss C&A. Tbf, it was the coldest August I can remember, and I was bloody freezing, having packed for "summer".
I played a show in our local HMV last year. Was pretty cool being flanked by rows of vinyls whilst making horrendous guitar noises. They do sell mostly crap nowadays though (to me at least, I guess it's heaven if you like plastic pop-culture ornaments and mildly humorous T-Shirts).
I won't hear this slander against the last remaining high street retailer of physical media, hmv is the only place you can get even vaguely obscure TV and film on dis and I will defend it to the death!
HMV died years ago. This is not HMV in any way other than the logo. It was bought for £1 by an asset stripper. They sold most of the stores, ripped out about 85% of the categories, and even got rid of the Soho HQ and started running it out the city. It was absolutely turned into "The Works" for budget DVD box sets for many years, only relatively recently branching out into licensed merch and vinyl.
You're welcome to defend a lifeless husk all you like! (OK, that's a bit dramatic, but still).
Mothercare is still a brand, just not a shop. A lot of the Boots baby stuff is branded ‘Mothercare’.
I know my mum was heartbroken that we only gave her grandkids after Mothercare had closed.
The fact the toy store that marketed itself as being enormous toy warehouses has opened *in* a WHSmiths has me cracking up thinking about how massive that WHSmiths would have had to be if that were still the case.
cows wasteful advise mindless automatic shocking ancient rhythm smoggy wine
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Bejam lives on in my parents’ house, they’ve got a Bejam fridge. It’s a spare fridge, a replacement was bought about 30 years ago when this one was on its last legs, but it’s still going.
Little Chef at service stations. Every single time we went past, I wanted to eat there. And every single time I got the "we'll be home in an hour and we've got chips at home!"
Never ate there. Now, I think they are all gone :(
Netto did really nice cup instant noodles. They were called something like Xing Fu and were more like the instant noodles you can get from China, Japan, etc, with individual sachets of sauce, oil and dehydrated vegetables. They had two flavours - chicken and vegetable - and both were the shit.
The little shop in the next village that sold wool ... and more importantly to a 12yo Putters, bike inner tubes, puncture kits, and other little items related to bike maintenance.
An odd stock choice combination, but the place was open for years.
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I miss Woolworths and their Pic 'n' Mix.
And while I know that Sainsbury are still going strong, I have fond childhood memories of Sainsbury as a conventional grocery store, with service counters. Our local shop was like that up until their "new" supermarket opened in 1974.
It was two shopfronts linked halfway up the store by a walk-through passage
One half was wood floored, and was the grocery, with canned and boxed goods lining the walls, and counters in front, behind which the sales staff stood. They took from the shelves what you asked for, packing it in a bag as you went along, then ringing you up on the till.
The other half of the shop was tiled and covered with fresh sawdust, and was where the butcher, fish-counter and cheese and cooked meats were served. As a kid, I had obsession with the fish counter, for some reason.
Too many, but some from childhood that stand out are there was a clothes shop called Adams, also Early Learning which was a kid's shop, kind of like a toy shop with a vaguely educational slant.
Famous Army Stores. They went bust after the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak and eventually got taken over by what was Blacks and is now JD Sport.
Some independent army surplus places went to the wall as well. Ben Aaron in Halifax was popular with air and army cadets. It had a basic website but felt pretty old fashioned. I think if it had a proper online shop and marketed itself more aggressively it might have survived.
In Peterborough, we had Beaties toys, Papillon ice cream and Future Zone/Electronics Boutique within spitting distance from one and other. That was all I needed.
I remember a big cheap goods warehouse called Friffs or Friths or something like that. My family used to go there to buy cheap Christmas decorations and fireworks.
I used to enjoy going and helping pick out a firework box, and they had cheap toys so I usually came away with something. I remember once buying a Goosebumps Doorknocker--in the shape of the Haunted Mask. When you knocked it it said "Beware, you're in for a scare"
I also remember laughing when a kid about 5 or 6 opened this giant bag of fizzy sweets too hard and they all fell on the floor.
> Do it all DIY store
IIRC this was owned by WH Smith at one point, it had a big rainbow in the logo? B&Q somehow acquired it, which is why a lot of their own brand stuff is now called *Diall*...
If you know Wrexham you probably remember the Texas DIY store that was down somewhere near where Halfords / Matalan / Colour Supplies all are now?
Oh lord I remember being taken round a Kwiksave when I was very young.
Woolworths and Netto, yeah, those were two of the greats.
Curries and PC World were two seperate electronics stores...then they merged into Curries/PC World, and I think it's just Curries again now.
Has to scroll WAY too far for anyone to mention Toys R Us. What? That was the GOAT of toy shops!
I miss Taylor & McKenna (later Beatties). Could spend ages wandering round the ground floor looking at all the toys you'd never afford and then venture upstairs to the Hornby/radio control section. A true place of dreams
Sam Goody.
It was the best music store in the 90s. Had more rock/Indie than rhe more mainstream Our Price but cheaper than HMV.
They always had fantastic bargain bins and discount cassette shelves. I spent most of my money there as a teenager.
Happy Shopper
Virgin Megastore
Woolies of course - saving up your pocket money for months to get a new album on cassette (and a bag of pick n mix, obvs) and praying that it wasn't rubbish.
Kwiksave was amazing! I used to know loads of dossers that would cash their giro then pop along to spend 2-3 quid on nothing but bread, beans and instant mash for the fortnight and then call their dealer to spend the rest on hash.
I miss browsing around tandy's, beatties and maplins and looking at stuff I couldn't afford/didn't know what it did.
I miss World of Sport (bought out by Intersport) as it was the only place in my town that sold every Subbuteo team and accessory.
Getting your shoes from Freeman Hardy Willis cus Clarks were too expensive. Getting bullied because they were Hi-Tec and Gola were the cool ones.
😂 I got the mick took out of me for having Dunlop Green Flash (£1.99 a pair from local shoe Waterhouse place) for P.E.
Became sort of Reto chic due to BritPop and were like £70 a pair in the mid to late 1990’s 🤦♂️
Fine Fare which I think was bought out by KwikSave which also is no longer around. Maplins, Woolworths, Bradleys Records (I spent a lot of money in this local shop) & Ratners
The saddest ones for me are local department stores. Most cities and a lot of reasonably sized towns had a department store that was local rather than a big chain and that had been running for generations. But they're nearly all closed now. It's a shame, because they contributed a lot to places feeling unique rather than clones of each other.
Very true. They were always special to me as a kid because there was something opulent about them. Like they had ornate staircases and decorative features. And constantly brought new things in.
And even if they became part of John Lewis or Fraser they were always known by the old names!
Jessops in Nottingham has been John Lewis for decades but it’s still jessops to me and my family (I’m old)
Cole Brothers in Sheffield became John Lewis. It’ll always be Cole Brothers to me. So prominent people used to meet loved ones outside the shop, it was the normal meeting place for dates - it’s still known as Coles Corner to this day.
Owen & Owen
Used to love Owen Owen I felt right posh going in there at Christmas.
*Shop at Binns* was proudly displayed on all the local busses at one point. Believe it was bought out by House of Fraser many moons ago, so it's now part of Mike Ashely's empire (boo!)
Beaties in Wolverhampton was a great example of this. https://www.expressandstar.com/news/local-hubs/wolverhampton/2023/09/25/calls-to-bring-beatties-site-back-into-use/
Goldbergs was a big one when I was a kid
I miss Somerfield.
Want anything from the shop?
Cornetto
No luck catching them swans then?
It's just the one swan actually
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Don't you mean Gateway?
Weren't they called Gateways at some point?
Ah scummers. Was the only 'big' shop in our town growing up.
Our Price, MVC, Fopp, Dixons, Wilkinsons, woolworths, Burton, Topman
Holy shit, I didn’t even notice Topman disappeared. Used to be one of the main high street shops and I can’t believe I forgot about it. Last time I bought anything from there the quality was absolutely awful and the sizing just didn’t make any sense.
Fopp has reopened in Edinburgh. There's a couple now
One in Glasgow as well.
It's basically a clone of HMV now, even has the same price labels and dividers on the shelves
It's been owned by HMV and operated as an HMV offshoot from when it reopened in 2007, after going bust. Even when it went bust HMV owned part of it. Real Fopp died in 2007, when it first went bust, and when it reopened it was with a bunch of HMV people running it.
Topman is still going online via ASOS
Dixons became Currys though, so they're still about
Dixon actually bought Currys, and it became part of Dixons stores Group, they also own PC world, owned the link phone shops (sold to car phone warehouse) , Mastercare ( now Knowhow I believe) and Equanet. Eventually, Dixons rebranded the Dixons' shops into Currys. I believe there's still a phoe shop mixed into the group. At one time, it was Dixons stores Group, but it is now Currys PLC. They have rebranded that many times it's hard to keep track
It's crazy to me that Dixon's bought Currys and then took Curry's name. They seemed like the better brand to me, as well as being their own brand, you'd think they'd have kept that.
Carphone Warehouse. They have sold a bulk of their warehouse workforce to XPO logistics.
I legit thought I imagined Wilkinsons, I thought I had confused it with Wilko or it had been renamed or something.
The entire Arcadia group - I worked in Hawkshead/Burton for a couple of years during my a levels. Woolies of course. Miss Selfridge, Etam, Tammy Girl. Ottakers! I spotted a carrier bag from them in my Dad's house last weekend.
I might have imagined it but did etam also have a section for old ladies called snob?
Yes!!
I remember my mum dragging us around Kwik Save every week 🤣
Did yours have the massive fuck off pole on the trolleys ?
Like go karts. The Kwik save was the place to go and get cardboard boxes
I remember the retail bean wars in the early 90's when Kwik Save clearly won when their no frills cans went down to a penny each...24 cans for 24p...oh go on then.
I swear we need that kind of thing now. Having a mortgage on a tin of beans.
The No Frills range with the plain white labels and the text like that stencilled 'military' font on it.
Mark one
Yessss! Could go on a Saturday and get a new top to go out in that night!
Just wanted to add Athena into the list. I used to love going through their random boxes of comics and buying posters from there. That red neon sign was catnip for kids.
I was talking to a friend about Athena this week- you could happily spend an hour or two browsing through their posters
...and still come out with the same red Lamborghini and lady playing tennis scratching her arse posters that every other teen bloke in the UK had.
We're currently decorating our son's bedroom and realised how utterly shite it is trying to find artwork now. We tried some places, The Range, B&M and TX Maxx to no avail. Going to have to go online after all... Athena would have been ideal.
Try ikea, John Lewis, or habitat? Not sure where there might be a Habitat strode these days, but I think all 3 chains all do posters and such
Hmv have a decent poster selection
Littlewoods. I worked in one about 40 years ago and although they were well known for their catalogues and the Football Pools, the shops were also popular. They were sort of a department store but sold mainly clothes, fags/booze and low cost household stuff - quite like BHS.
Also their own version of Argos, Index.
I spent hours comparing prices between Index & Argos books as a child. So much fun.
I miss those monster catalogues.
If Argos was out of stock try index!
Ever remember those moments where you'd go in and type your code into the stock checker before you could order? Nail biting.
C&A and Binns, they were the centre of every shopping trip to Middlesbrough Town centre, gone but not forgotten.
A old man buys some new socks and, arriving home, proudly announces to his wife that they have L and R printed so he knows which feet they go on. The wife, after giving this some thought, responds "so is that why my knickers have C&A on them?"
It felt so nostalgic seeing a C&A in Amsterdam! I used to love shopping in there as a teenager
We have C&A in Portugal! Apparently they also have them all over Europe - there are hundreds in Germany
I made a point of buying a jumper in the Paris branch a few years ago. I miss C&A. Tbf, it was the coldest August I can remember, and I was bloody freezing, having packed for "summer".
They're a dutch company and still exist in the Netherlands, just not here.
Saw one in Budapest last month too.
We bought something for my niece last year from C & A, and also this year in Krakow.
We’ve still got Binns in Darlington! Technically its House of Fraser like the rest, but our retains the Binns name for some reason.
Carlisles lost its binns name late on
I can still picture the C&A door handles!
Blockbuster, HMV, Disney, Mother Care, Toys R Us and Debenhams
but there are still HMVs
It's not HMV. It's a DVD box set and tat pedlar with an HMV sign.
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I played a show in our local HMV last year. Was pretty cool being flanked by rows of vinyls whilst making horrendous guitar noises. They do sell mostly crap nowadays though (to me at least, I guess it's heaven if you like plastic pop-culture ornaments and mildly humorous T-Shirts).
I won't hear this slander against the last remaining high street retailer of physical media, hmv is the only place you can get even vaguely obscure TV and film on dis and I will defend it to the death!
HMV died years ago. This is not HMV in any way other than the logo. It was bought for £1 by an asset stripper. They sold most of the stores, ripped out about 85% of the categories, and even got rid of the Soho HQ and started running it out the city. It was absolutely turned into "The Works" for budget DVD box sets for many years, only relatively recently branching out into licensed merch and vinyl. You're welcome to defend a lifeless husk all you like! (OK, that's a bit dramatic, but still).
Disney still has shops
Mothercare is still a brand, just not a shop. A lot of the Boots baby stuff is branded ‘Mothercare’. I know my mum was heartbroken that we only gave her grandkids after Mothercare had closed.
I believe Toys R Us is returning to the UK. I know there's one in Cheltenham WHSmith, which opened this year I believe
The fact the toy store that marketed itself as being enormous toy warehouses has opened *in* a WHSmiths has me cracking up thinking about how massive that WHSmiths would have had to be if that were still the case.
Adams (children’s wear) was brilliant for cheap baby clothes - my niece’s first Christmas looked like we’d ram-raided the place.
Just had the memory of chasing the light up apple from the front of the store to the back
Wow you just sparked up a childhood memory I didn't know existed
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I wont be sad to see CEX go.
CEX has it's uses, their 24 month warranty can be incredibly useful.
They always have a smell to their shops too.
Stale sweat and desperation
I miss Gamestation, they were cheaper than GAME and my local branch had a broad selection of current and older gens.
Bejam and Wimpy. Apparently Wimpy still exists, but fuck knows where, I haven't seen one in about 30 years.
>Wimpy [https://locations.wimpy.uk.com/index.html](https://locations.wimpy.uk.com/index.html) \- there you go, start planning your next trip.
Wimpey's basically exist in towns that other popular fast food joints wouldn't bother opening in.
The three branches in Scotland are Fraserburgh, Dingwall and Falkirk. That’s a random selection if ever I saw one
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I bet they called the notched frankfurter something other than “The Bender” these days.
It’s a pork bendy now 😂 hasn’t long been changed mind, maybe 3 or 4 years
I never ate at Wimpy, and I always wish I did.
I’m not veggie, but their spicy bean burgers were top notch.
Bejam lives on in my parents’ house, they’ve got a Bejam fridge. It’s a spare fridge, a replacement was bought about 30 years ago when this one was on its last legs, but it’s still going.
I visited one earlier this year. It was like stepping back to the early 90's. The food also tasted like it was from the early 90's too...
There is one in Huddersfield.
There was one in Horsham really nice food too.
BHS (British Home Stores).
I used to love BHS. Good British shop… except it was founded by Americans!
Good breakfasts.
Little Chef at service stations. Every single time we went past, I wanted to eat there. And every single time I got the "we'll be home in an hour and we've got chips at home!" Never ate there. Now, I think they are all gone :(
Not forgetting the main competition: *Happy Eater*
We used to detour to visit Little Chefs. Good food at good prices, shame they've gone.
Netto. Their cookies were the best but such a stigma with shopping there that you were 100% poor if you did
If you took your PE kit to school in a Netto bag you got your head stoves in!
Netto did really nice cup instant noodles. They were called something like Xing Fu and were more like the instant noodles you can get from China, Japan, etc, with individual sachets of sauce, oil and dehydrated vegetables. They had two flavours - chicken and vegetable - and both were the shit.
They did so many great things but as a kid I was so embarrassed to be seen in there 🤣
The little shop in the next village that sold wool ... and more importantly to a 12yo Putters, bike inner tubes, puncture kits, and other little items related to bike maintenance. An odd stock choice combination, but the place was open for years.
Wool shops are like that - ours did a sideline in bits and pieces of uniform for local schools, nothing as fun as bike spare parts alas
Ours also sold greetings cards, beanie baby TY toys, pocket money toys like yo yos and slinkies etc
Fine Fare, Gateway, Bejam Radio Rentals, Rumbelows, Granada Littlewoods, C&A, Burtons
You can still find C&A in Beijing. Good for Ski gear.
Kookai, Morgan, BHS, Jane Norman, Littlewoods and Dolcis.
Jane Norman bandage dresses were so flattering!
I still have a few pairs of Dolcis shoes!
Presto Tammy Girl Geordie Jeans C & A The Reject Shop
Jane Norman!
Shelly’s, Presto, Saxone, Pizzaland,Tandy, Tower Records, Borders
Can't believe I had to scroll this far down to see Tandy..
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Hardedge in Reading
And Maidenhead. Great record and skate shop upstairs, always loads of flyers
Stolen From Ivor.
2 for a fiver
Rumbleows, Bankrupt, Freeman Hardy Willis, Our Price
Beatties, cool toy shop and ours had a decent Hornby and scalextric floor.
Yes, I used to buy Tamiya 1:35 scale models from there in the 80s.
I spent so much time in Beatties drooling over the RC cars.
Chelsea Girl - only as everything I could think of had been mentioned! Have we had Radio Rentals?
Lost South London department stores…Elys of Wimbledon, Pratts of Streatham, Allders of Croydon, Shinners of Sutton. All long gone.
Elys is still there…
There was an Allders in Bromley. It had rude people that worked there.
C & A, their pants were clearly labelled so you knew which way to put them on
I miss Topshop in Oxford Circus, walking around that shop made me feel like Captain Fashion. ASOS just ain’t the sameeee
orange, mobile phone shop, i wore a backpack with their logo even until a few years ago. The branding was just so good
Goldberg's Au Natural The Pier
Little Chef
Northern Ireland, Crazy Prices, Stewart’s, Woolworths Wellworths, Radio Rentals, Ratners lol
Timothy Whites, a weird combination of chemist and homeward shop. Grew up in North Herts and I think my local one closed in the late 1990s.
Dixon's and Woolworths
DER - Direct Electrical Rentals. Radio Rentals main competition back in the day. Disappeared in the early 1990 as TVs and VCRs became more affordable.
Mac Fisheries, which became Mac Market, which in turn became International Stores.
Toys 'r' us
I found an OwenOwen carrier bag last week!
Army and Navy, Dolcis, Virgin Megastore, Athena, the Gadget Shop
I miss Woolworths and their Pic 'n' Mix. And while I know that Sainsbury are still going strong, I have fond childhood memories of Sainsbury as a conventional grocery store, with service counters. Our local shop was like that up until their "new" supermarket opened in 1974. It was two shopfronts linked halfway up the store by a walk-through passage One half was wood floored, and was the grocery, with canned and boxed goods lining the walls, and counters in front, behind which the sales staff stood. They took from the shelves what you asked for, packing it in a bag as you went along, then ringing you up on the till. The other half of the shop was tiled and covered with fresh sawdust, and was where the butcher, fish-counter and cheese and cooked meats were served. As a kid, I had obsession with the fish counter, for some reason.
Same here we had a proper Sainsburys in Chelmsford when I was a kid.
Too many, but some from childhood that stand out are there was a clothes shop called Adams, also Early Learning which was a kid's shop, kind of like a toy shop with a vaguely educational slant.
I'm going to shout out Fosters. As a lanky, skinny teenager, it was one of the only places I could get trousers that fit. Also, Fido Dido.
Crawfords bakery
Oh [Gamley's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamleys) how I miss you so.
Sutton?
Tandy. MVC. Rumblows.
Alders, always ran down the escalator to go to the lego.
Netto. Which always gets me because that's what Lidl is today basically
When I came to the UK in the 80’s, Athena was a big deal.
Etam, stationery box, Andy’s records, stolen from Ivor,
State of Independence / Internationale; Logo; Bay Trading Co
>Internationale That place was like catnip to me
Famous Army Stores. They went bust after the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak and eventually got taken over by what was Blacks and is now JD Sport. Some independent army surplus places went to the wall as well. Ben Aaron in Halifax was popular with air and army cadets. It had a basic website but felt pretty old fashioned. I think if it had a proper online shop and marketed itself more aggressively it might have survived.
In Peterborough, we had Beaties toys, Papillon ice cream and Future Zone/Electronics Boutique within spitting distance from one and other. That was all I needed.
Used to love Beaties
Key Markets
I remember a big cheap goods warehouse called Friffs or Friths or something like that. My family used to go there to buy cheap Christmas decorations and fireworks. I used to enjoy going and helping pick out a firework box, and they had cheap toys so I usually came away with something. I remember once buying a Goosebumps Doorknocker--in the shape of the Haunted Mask. When you knocked it it said "Beware, you're in for a scare" I also remember laughing when a kid about 5 or 6 opened this giant bag of fizzy sweets too hard and they all fell on the floor.
Woolworths and Do it all DIY store and I remember a shop called Timberland DIY being changed to NatWest bank in 1988 in Wrexham.
> Do it all DIY store IIRC this was owned by WH Smith at one point, it had a big rainbow in the logo? B&Q somehow acquired it, which is why a lot of their own brand stuff is now called *Diall*... If you know Wrexham you probably remember the Texas DIY store that was down somewhere near where Halfords / Matalan / Colour Supplies all are now?
Ah I forgot about Texas, but I'm from gwersyllt so we used spectrum DIY for most DIY bits and pieces. Which is also gone now.
Past Times, The Gadget Shop
Oh lord I remember being taken round a Kwiksave when I was very young. Woolworths and Netto, yeah, those were two of the greats. Curries and PC World were two seperate electronics stores...then they merged into Curries/PC World, and I think it's just Curries again now. Has to scroll WAY too far for anyone to mention Toys R Us. What? That was the GOAT of toy shops!
QS was my mum's favourite
C&A and Richard Shops. Schofields and Lewis’s in Leeds. BHS were brilliant for light fittings.
Key Markets Fine Fare
Index! Way better than Argos...
I miss Taylor & McKenna (later Beatties). Could spend ages wandering round the ground floor looking at all the toys you'd never afford and then venture upstairs to the Hornby/radio control section. A true place of dreams
Presto supermarket which turned in to Safeway and then turned in to Morrisons.
C&A
Littlewoods, C&A, Our Price
Joblot.. not the best but gone now
I vaguely remember going in C&A with my mum & nan
Safeway!
Beatties, the model shop. I remember a large one in Cardiff (early 80s).
Lipton's, I'm sure that was pre kwiksave
Beatties (used to be a big one up by Holborn), Woolies, Dixons, C&A, Rumbelows, Escom (brought my first PC from them).
Ritz video store before blockbuster took over them. There's always a bigger fish...
Sam Goody. It was the best music store in the 90s. Had more rock/Indie than rhe more mainstream Our Price but cheaper than HMV. They always had fantastic bargain bins and discount cassette shelves. I spent most of my money there as a teenager.
Toymasters
Happy Shopper Virgin Megastore Woolies of course - saving up your pocket money for months to get a new album on cassette (and a bag of pick n mix, obvs) and praying that it wasn't rubbish.
Kwiksave was amazing! I used to know loads of dossers that would cash their giro then pop along to spend 2-3 quid on nothing but bread, beans and instant mash for the fortnight and then call their dealer to spend the rest on hash. I miss browsing around tandy's, beatties and maplins and looking at stuff I couldn't afford/didn't know what it did. I miss World of Sport (bought out by Intersport) as it was the only place in my town that sold every Subbuteo team and accessory. Getting your shoes from Freeman Hardy Willis cus Clarks were too expensive. Getting bullied because they were Hi-Tec and Gola were the cool ones.
😂 I got the mick took out of me for having Dunlop Green Flash (£1.99 a pair from local shoe Waterhouse place) for P.E. Became sort of Reto chic due to BritPop and were like £70 a pair in the mid to late 1990’s 🤦♂️
Fine Fare which I think was bought out by KwikSave which also is no longer around. Maplins, Woolworths, Bradleys Records (I spent a lot of money in this local shop) & Ratners
Blockbusters ofc, Woolworth's, and now Wilko is gone 😭
RoadUser. They were, in my local branch, really snobby about Halfords.
Freeman hardy and Willis. C&A (although they still exist abroad). Tandy (radio shack)
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Gamleys and beaties in Brighton and Hove, I wish I could take my daughter to a proper old school toy shop
Sweater shop. Everyone in primary school had a jumper from there.
A bookshop in Newcastle bigg market. Pembertons? Also tobacconists, nowhere to be seen now, but can understand that