Practically Classics Forum

With the sad demise of Woolworth's it got me thinking of other High Street shops and chains which are no longer with us and are now only a memory.

What about;

Finefare

VG Shops

International Stores

World Stores

and more recently... Safeway.All gone, merged with others.

I know some of the ones above you may not heard of as they may well have been regional chain stores, none the less they were part of the High Street and now no more.

What ones can you remember?

I was only just talking to my mother the other day about this, not so much main stream shops but local ones. My mum still lives in the same house I was raised in (I’m 52) and just round the corner and along the road is a row of shops, a Polish food shop, chinky, betting shop, a hair salon that changes name and decor almost monthly, computer repair shop (temporary) and other feckless outlets. These same shops used to be an independent butcher who I remember used to let me make sausages when my mum wanted some, an independent greengrocers, ‘Coulters’, old Mrs Coulter used to sit in a chair in the corner giving her orders out, a shoe shop/cobblers – there was always an elderly gent sat in the corner who was very rotund and constantly checked his pocket watch, I never did know why he was there and a bread shop who used to pipe the cream into the cakes as you purchased them.
Nostalgia eh, no wonder we like old cars so much.

There's a proper old cobblers near us - dad takes his walking boots there - a shoe shop says "you'll have to buy new ones" - but the old cobbler rekons that if they've lasted 30 years until a seam burst, they'll last another 30 with his restitch
There used to be a butcher baker candle stick maker etc, but when Sainsbury's bought the army site, they all dissapeared

Although in the next town there are several good independant stores

Beaties what a sad loss. toys'r'us just isnt the same.

I find some of the large chains rather bland. Ofcourse they did a pretty good job of wiping out some of the small family shops but are they still as keen on cutting prices as they may have been when they were taking over. Think of the suppliers, who they have first enticed to become dependant upon them and then swallowed. It's pretty hard to find much in the way of general grocery in my local town centre. There is a frozen food place but that's a bit limited and there's a bargain basement supermarket, where the food has to be served in the packaging to add flavour. We still have a few butchers and a green grocer, a decent Radio & TV shop, ironmongers, newsagent/tabaconist pet supplies shop and an increasing number of nail bars and cafes (Many of which seem to be frequmetled by those with nothing to do). I tend to use the Spar shop near me street and what I can't get there, I get in Morrisons about a mile and a half from my house (In the next valley)....I usually walk it. That used to be Leos, which is a name you don't see round here anymore. I can't think of any Coop stores either.

It was a sad day when Ferraris closed....Ferraris bakery that is......famous for the fastest pasties you could buy ; only joking but they did do nice stuff. Not long before they went through, the did a nice birthday cake for my father's 70th and a bit before that for my mother. The quality of their stuff was certainly no reason for them to go through.

Tandy (the electronic component supplier, not the Isle of Wight-based manufacturer of these):

are no more in the UK, nor are Timothy White. Weren't they absorbed by Boots?
Then there was Hintons, which begat Presto, which begat Safeways, most of whose stores Morrison fairly swiftly offloaded to Sainsbury.

What about the Cheap Tab Shop chain? Perhaps the decrease in tobacco consumption hit their business hard, either way, their bright red shops are no more.

JPB wrote:Tandy (the electronic component supplier,

Well I didn't know they had gone . I believe they were an American company wasn't they? Famed for their "Radio Shack" stuff in the 198os I seem to remember?

They're they chappies, Alan. Their "Tandy" trading name was used in the UK, the "Radio Shack" brand being used for their own brand goods and their United States retail outlets.

Yes, 'tis a shame they vanished as Maplins (Hi-de-hi jokes to be got out of the way before continuing), arguably their only direct equivalent now - since others in the component supply game lack the supermarket-style retail outlets - are quite expensive for some things, such as their Batteries; PP7 and PP9 are an eye-watering £7 each in Maplins', Screwfix can do these things at £1.99 each.

Thought of another retailer that vanished from the high streets comparatively recently; Littlewoods. OK, so like Woolworths' they still operate an on line store, but this isn't always a satisfactory alternative to a real-life shop when clothes should ideally be tried on before handing over the cash.
And then there's John Menzie's. Have all of their stores become branches of WH Smith's now or do Menzies still trade on some high streets?
Stead & Simpsons. They used to sell shoes that looked similar to higher-priced, big brand items, such as their take on DMs, which were harder and much less comfortable then the real things. They seem to have vanished recently too. A shame as they were the only remaining "real world" source of Meltonian shoe cream, an essential product in the arsenal of many a restorer of rexine-covered, portable entertainment devices such as these things, a variety of which is always available at reasonable prices from a certain forum user not a million miles away from my desk :

(Replica HT & LT batteries to take modern internal cells available to order).

Oh yes. Nice batteries!

Re Radio Shack, back in the Eighties I used to buy a lot of their radio equipment (as In CB Radio), it was good quality stuff, real quality made. I bought an antenna rotator for my huge Yagi Beam from them, one day I went out in the garden (where it lived) looked up to admire it's hugeness, noticed smoke coming out of the rotator .

Quickly lowered it down and sure enough it was smoking, the metal casing was red hot.

Once it had cooled down (boy was it hot) I opened the case to find it was stuffed full of American newspapers!! .

I cleaned them out, put it back together but the damage was done as some of the nylon ring-gear had melted. Took it back to Tandy, showed them (ash all over their lovely clean counter) and they in turn told me off for opening it up.

All was well in the end, I got a new replacement. First thing I did was look inside to check for newspaper - there was none.

Ooh, C & A as in "man at C&A" that was me that was.

Bejams, an unfortunate name to get shortened