Shops of the period

[Black Sheep]

I know the Co-op tried to re-brand in the late 80's / early 90's to be different brands depending on the size of shop:

 

Stop 'n' shop, Locost, Co-op and pioneer (think that's right for size smallest to largest)

 

was Poundstretcher arround?

[ess1uk]

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/53572-80s-home-improvement-stores/page__st__25__gopid__642731

see this thread too

[andyman7]

Supermarket wise wasn't there Gateway and Safeway before Asda, Morrisons and Tesco started taking over the world? Somewhere I still have a Gateway plastic carrier bag as it contains a load of rusty Meccano that I was gifted in the mid 1980s from a shop in Looe (he was throwing out the dross from some stuff that had been traded in and I asked if I could have it).

Morrisons was confined to the north of England until they acquired Safeway in the late 90s. Tescos fits the 1970s too, they were around on high streets for some years before world domination beckoned. Sainsbury's was around, as was Fine Fare and Budgens - don't forget Kwik Save too.

[Padishar Creel]

Hallo,

If I'm not too late for this topic:

Top Man, Top Shop, Chelsea Girl, Hallmark, Dixons come to my mind

 

Es grüßt Euch

PC

 

Edit: there was a chain of Jewellers and a top executive got into trouble for publicly stating that all they sold was "cheap crap" or words to that effect. I cannot remember the name of the stores....

[RANGERS]

Hallo,

If I'm not too late for this topic:

Top Man, Top Shop, Chelsea Girl, Hallmark, Dixons come to my mind

 

Es grüßt Euch

PC

 

Edit: there was a chain of Jewellers and a top executive got into trouble for publicly stating that all they sold was "cheap crap" or words to that effect. I cannot remember the name of the stores....

 

Ratners was the shop, Gerald Ratner the errant chief exec who drove the chain close to bankruptcy with a throw-away comment about a particular item which he described as "crap". The tabloids latched on to it and reported that he'd admitted to selling "crap", the rest is history!

[ess1uk]

Bejam that became Iceland?

Gas board and electric board shops

Radio Rentals

Granada

And that's just working down the street in Kettering that I remember

[trisonic]

You have to be careful because there were way more regional variations. One mans high street supermarket may be unheard of 100 miles away. So you still have to research location x year. Cooperative Supermarkets, Woolworths and Boots may have been the only nationwide chains - I don't remember seeing Marks and Spencer outside of London very much if at all, until the late '70's. Remember C & A's?

 

Best, Pete.

[Black Sheep]

farm foods?

 

Marks and Spencer would have been around in Yorkshire (think wakefield's M&S is as old as DELTIC) as it started as a penny bazar on Leeds market in 1884

 

independent newsagents would have been around, more chip shops, less curry houses, possibly with the occasional pizza takeaway?

 

don't forget local public libraries even in villages.

[stewartingram]

To me, a 'big town' High Street always had a Woolworths and a Marks & Spencer in close proximity, for as long as I remember, anywhere I went from the 50s onwards. Even today if you look closely around the vicinity of a Marks & Spencer store, you can often detect a former Woolworths building - in traditional streets not shopping malls obviously.

 

Stewart

[MartinWales]

was Poundstretcher arround?

 

Yes, but called Thoms way back then!

[trisonic]

Here's another big in Brentwood: Fine Fare

Male Mod clothing: Brent and Collins + lots of independent stores.

Boring Male Clothing: Burtons (nearly always had a Snooker Hall above the store).

 

 

Stewart, You are completely right about Marks and Sparks they just came very late to Brentwood.....

 

Best, Pete.

[andyjoneszz]

In the big town centres, W H Smith was around, moving in 1973 to the brown & orange 'cube' logo. (http://www.whsmithplc.co.uk/about_whsmith/history_of_whsmith/) Debenhams was buying up independent department stores (like Busby's in Bradford), and so was House of Fraser (e.g. Brown & Muff's in Bradford). British Home Stores (BHS) was there as well as C&A, Littlewoods went national (was it Liverpool-based?) towards the end of the 70's, and so did Brentwood Nylons (!), perhaps a little earlier. On the gents' ready-to-wear front, as well as Burtons, there was March the Tailor (remember the TV advert with the bloke marching into the shop in his vest & Y-fronts?), and Dunns & also Greenwood's. There were still lots of smaller, independent shops around, as well: specialist tobacconists, photographers, TV showrooms, travel agents, jewellers, crockery shops, book shops, record shops, toy shops, even model shops. :-)

 

What there weren't was... coffee shops, charity shops, pound shops, or McDonald's (though in the 70's there was the home-grown Wimpy's!)

 

Smaller places could certainly still muster newsagents-&-tobacconists (many of which were sub-post offices too), chip shops, butchers, greengrocers, and maybe even such survivals as cobblers, milliners, drapers, haberdashers, sweet shops, and fishmongers. Corner shops which sold general foodstuffs were in serious decline, though, already losing out to supermarkets.

 

Memory Lane... :-D

[Black Sheep]

when did Jessops become national?

 

not sure how long Klick photopoint are - I'm sure I remember foto processing, yellow folder that your pictures came in?

[Russ (mines a pint)]

Morrisons was confined to the north of England until they acquired Safeway in the late 90s. Tescos fits the 1970s too, they were around on high streets for some years before world domination beckoned. Sainsbury's was around, as was Fine Fare and Budgens - don't forget Kwik Save too.

Yeah more smaller regional chains supermarkets, Walter Willson, William Low were ones in the North, it would be rare to see Somerfields in the north and I think Sainsburys only really came to the north sort of mid 80's?

 

Youtube sometimes gives interesting 'old streets' they can be a bit unclear sometimes, as an example have a drive through Paisley in 1977: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGjUxn0Ukjo lots of small independent shops, old style petrol stations, vehicles, and most noticeable I thought was a comparative lack of litter?

[Unchuffed]

Someone earlier said McDonalds weren't around - the first opened in London in 1974, and they'd reached provincial towns like Norwich by the early 1980s.

A chain that's now vanished was Pizzaland - which spread out from London and Manchester from 1970 onwards - originally had a woodlined Swiss (why?) theme to its restaurants.

A bit earlier was the long vanished Golden Egg chain of restaurants.

 

There was also the electrial retail chain Rumbelows from the late 60s - not sure they may have been more a Northern chain.

[Mark Forrest]

As there have been a couple of mentions of Tesco in this thread, the link below might be of interest as it shows how the stores have changed over the years:

http://www.tescoplc.com/index.asp?pageid=11

[ess1uk]

Tesco was not as big back then so what shops were there then?

The Peco backscenes I used back then are still available but how contempary were/are they?

though i don't think there were too many shops on them.

scope to add a few?

Most have mentioned high street shops. I was thinking more along the back street visible from the train.I'm going to go with independant corner shop for my back scene.

[BernardTPM]

There was also the electrial retail chain Rumbelows from the late 60s - not sure they may have been more a Northern chain.

We certainly had a Rumbelows locally (East London) in the '70s, probably earlier (the shop is now a Chemist and has been so at least since the 1980s).

[Supaned]

Can I add Preedy newsagents and Our Price records to the list??

 

Also Wilkinson homeware shops have been around for a long time.

[Fat Controller]

Most have mentioned high street shops. I was thinking more along the back street visible from the train.I'm going to go with independant corner shop for my back scene.

Most smaller 'corner shops' would just have carried the shop name above the window, perhaps on a background panel in the colour of one of their major suppliers (Cadburys and Benson and Hedges come to mind). A few had joined one of the bulk purchasing groups, such as Spar. Many were strictly minimalist- I can think of three within walking distance of my parents' house in South Wales where the front room had simply had a counter installed and a few shelves, whilst a folding board outside would advertise 'Lyon's Maid' or similar.

[crompton 33]

corner shop's how about mace/ vg /wavy line/ all around in the 1970's

[gc4946]

Pinks (W. Pink & Sons Ltd) were a chain of grocers that existed until the early 1970s in the Portsmouth area.

 

http://www.nationala...B0042 1370A.pdf

 

Many Co-ops were known, including those in the Portsmouth area, by their local names at the time, although they were uniformly branded "Co-op", the style of logo changed over the years, the local co-operative society adopted the blue Co-op logo early on after its introduction in 1968:

 

http://logos.wikia.c...rn_Co-operative

[scruff]

Don't forget Presto (became part of Asda) and Wm. Low (bought out by Tesco) Supermarkets. Also Gateway which became Somerfield in the '80's which merged with KwikSave in the early 2000's. Somerfield is now part of the Co-Operative Food Group.

Burtons, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Top Man, Top Shop and Debenhams were all part of the Burton Group.

Mothercare, British Home Stores, Currys, Dixons, Rumbelows, C&A, John Menzies(Scotland) WH Smiths(England), What Everyone Wants, Littlewoods, H.Samuel, Ratners, F.W.Hind (south half of England), Woolworths, Valentines Cards, Boots the Chemist, The Army, Navy and Royal Air Force also had high street recruiting offices.

 

 

Mark

[LIRR]

I can recall some regional shops from that era in the West Midlands. They may still exist as far as I know: Firkins (bakery); Lasky's; William's (furniture); DFS; Radio Rentals; Bejam; Fine Fare; Londis; Maplins. I also remember a few petrol stations and shops had Green Shield Stamps signs outside or in the window. I think most high streets also had a curry house called Koh-I-Noor or an Anglo-French restaurant called "Pimpernel's" or something similar.

 

Andy

[gc4946]

Green Shield trading stamps were the 1960s and 70s equivalent of today's Clubcard and Nectar loyalty schemes, you collected stamps with your shopping and stuck them into special books which could then be exchanged for gifts at Green Shield Stamp catalogue shops, later on rebranded as Argos from July 1973 (source: Wikipedia).

Until 1977, Tesco was a big player in the market and every Tesco store (and several other retailers, too) had posters and displays emblazoned with Green Shield stamp promotions.

 

http://logos.wikia.c...ore_1970s_2.gif

 

http://www.google.co...75&tx=122&ty=93

 

A reconstruction of a 1960s Tesco store has also appeared recently:

 

http://uk.lifestyle....1316534284.html