please empty your brain below

Cranks have disappeared too. I used to love their hommity pie.

Pubs - Whitbread, Truman, Watney, Courage, Ind Coope, Charrington

Blimey, you're early!

Definitely showing my age, I can say I remember the predecessor to Our Price Records, which was Harlequin.

As regards banks, don't forget Barings. Hmmm, and another name you don't hear any more is Barclays de Zoette Wedd (sp?)

And, in terms of miscellaneous, how could you leave out Index, the one that was "Like Argos, but with more stuff... and usually cheaper"

MacFisheries should also be in the supermarkets category.

TV rentals - Multi Broadcast.

until about 18 months ago, this Wavy Line shop front remained in Greenwich: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dar...\\_se7/109772077/


Mace still exist!

http://www.palmerharvey.co.uk/Sy...90/
Default.aspx


Thanks. I've made a breakfast-time update to the post.

To be fair, some of them still exist but have just re-branded themselves, eg Virgin is now Zavvi.

And I seriously doubt that anybody misses Happy Eater. Even the logo was a man being sick, IIRC.

Not forgetting one of those that International supermarkets swallowed up back in the day...Wallis.

And Wm Low (OK mostly applies to Scotland and the very far north of England) - taken over by Tesco

And furniture...they didn't last long, but have already gone - Ilva, kind of like a Danish and more upmarket relative of Ikea (even down to their canteens, with frikadellen + red cabbage in place of meatballs). Pity they're no more, actually.

Yeah, I was gonna say that Mace still exists too - there's one just down the road from where my in-laws live.

Gateway's also a re-brand, now Somerfield. My Saturday job as a teenager was working in Fine Fare; it was acquired by Gateway (or some kind of deal involving Gateway's parent company, anyway - I forget the exact details) a couple of weeks before I left.

A few more random names that spring to mind: Berni Inn, The Reject Shop, Spoils.

A few months ago I was looking for pictures of the Green Shield stamp dispensing machines, like the ones they used to have in our local Co-op. Couldn't find any though. They were the 1970s variant, vaguely telephone-like, with a circular ring of buttons like an oddly-formed mini-cash-register. Anyone?

Clothing:
Etam’s 210 UK stores disappeared three years ago when they were swallowed up by British Home Stores. Etam was founded in the 1920s.

Focus still exist in some locations eg Bishops Stortford, Colchester.

http://www.focusdiy.co.uk/

It probably shows my age that all I remember from them is Safeway, C&A, Littlewoods, Do It All, Focus, Texas Homecare, Virgin Megastore, Lunn Polly and Index. Even then most a pretty vague memories.

SHame I'll probably be able to write a much longer list when I get older.

Record stores: anyone mention Fopps yet?

Don't forget Allders

Ones I remember from Bromley & surrounds.

Furniture/Dept store - Harrison Gibson, Medhurst, Alders, Army & Navy, Nicholsons, Dunns, Hobbs & others in the United Draperies group.
Clothes - Harry Fenton.
Restaurants - Berni Inn.
Pubs - Simmonds, later Courage, Barlay & Simmonds.
Newsagents - Martins (it was a chain but perhaps only a small one)
Shoe shops - it was Freeman, Hardy & Willis.

There's still an Allders in Croydon, which I think was the flagship store of the original chain.

And H K Lewis the bookshop, I think it was taken over by Foyles.

Funny, I was thinking about Our Price records only the other day.

Then there is the list of places that you thought had gone and indeed wished they had, like the Angus Steak Houses ...

Martins newsagent is still going. I live near one.

Fopp haven't gone out of business, they closed some stores last year having got into difficulties because they expanded too quickly apparently. Covent Garden Store on the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue still going strong.

Noises from the dark:

"They're behind you."

If we are all going down memory lane.
What happened to the Saturday morning ABC club?
All together now.
‘We come along on Saturday morning
Greeting everybody with a smile
We ................’

Fopp closed down before being bought by HMV who re-opened the Cambridge Circus store but not the TCR one. Not sure about the non-London branches.

Home and Colonial;
The Civil Service Store

Peter said, …………………If we are all going down memory lane.
What happened to the Saturday morning ABC club?
All together now.‘We come along on Saturday morning
Greeting everybody with a smile, We ...
Those words are from the Odeon Saturday morning clubs.

The ABC song was. “We are the boys and girls together, we’re member of the ABC, and every Saturday we line up for all the films like to shout about with glee”………..
A few more names from memory,


TV rental shops:
Radio Rentals, D.E.R., VisionHire, Rediffusion, Granada, Multibroadcast.
Café/tea shops:
ABC Cafes (Aerated bread Company), Zetas, Spud U Like,
Cinema Chains:
Granada, Classic, Gaumont
Jewel, watch shops:
Samuels.

John

@John:

H. Samuels is still going.

Beatties are now Modelzone.

Brentford Nylons! What a fantastic name that was. This list makes me feel very nostalgic - someone mentioned Etam up above, and their children's range was called Tammy Girl.

Thinking back to Woolies - what will happen to their brands - Ladybird and Chad Valley? They must be valuable assets surely...

Hillards!
There was one at the end of my street growing up - it transformed into a Tesco...

Fopp did expand quickly, but what killed them was when they bought up a failed company with a lot of debt. They then failed themselves because the banks wouldn't lend to them.

HMV bought up the profitable stores and run them under the Fopp name.

Cheesmans have vanished, the only one I knew was in Lewisham .

Ottakers!

Pizzaland
Harris Carpets

And I think he was called Freddie Barrett, not to be confused with Barret Homes, had very amusing adverts for alcohol.

Chelsea Girl is now River Island, as they shifted the demographic target upwards. They kept one Chelsea Girl shop going for a while - not sure if it's still there.

Don't forget Queensway, a sort of MFI, if I recall.

Martin's Bank (early-70s)

United Dairies shops, London Co-operative Society, Royal Arsenal Co-Op. Enfield Highway Co-Op

Midland Bank is rebranded HSBC
(Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp).

Tandy - good riddance!

David Greig (it went in the 60s), slightly downmarket (or so my granny told me) competitor to Sainsbury's when both were High Street grocery shop chains not supermarkets.

Hardly a chain, but Gamages toys department store on High Holborn (was next to the Prudential Building), was taken there once to buy a train set, cough.

This thread http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/foru...=364325&
page=12
might jog some memories.

dg writes: Er, yes, that's why it's already mentioned in today's post.

And of course Victor Kayyam. I liked it so much I bought the company.

Last one before lunch - the Houndsditch Warehouse.

We still have a Focus in Reading... it can't be the only one, surely!

Oh, and John Menzies was bought by WHSmith in about 98/99. I had to wear their delightful nylon uniform for a beautifully hot summer before they finally sent us new Smiths ones. The Smith's in Didcot still has not been refitted so you could say Menzies lives on!

ah, Granada. I got out my family heirloom Christmas lights yesterday (c. 1970) and they had a Granada plug on them. So did we nick it off the telly or what?

I remember the Home and Colonial in Thornton Heath from my childhood. It has a ride-on space rocket outside (which really freaked me out once when it was out of order) and those early security camera domes inside (which freaked me out, aged four, full stop). I hated going there.

http://www.focusdiy.co.uk/ for your viewing pleasure =)

@John Spud-u-Like is still going strong in Yarmouth.

We used to have the Eastern Electricity store as well as On The Box TV Rental.

Books etc.

My mum told me that David Grieg and Sainsbury's were indeed competitors but that like Romeo and Juliet one of the Sainsburys married one of the Griegs and they agreed a truce and wouldn't set up a new shop in a town if the other family was already established there.

I don't know if it is true but I never did find a Sainsbury's and a David Grieg in the same town.

Up here in the dank port of Leith, there has actually been a revival in the rent an electrical device for only a pound a week industry.

Two doors down from Woolies, and doing a roaring trade.

"No credit check required."

The Gaumont cinemas, I remember them from the early 1960's.

There was a David Grieg & Sainsbury's in Tottenham in the 1960's, but they were quite a distance apart.. I can also remember at least two H & Colonials too!.. Then there was Fine Fare - (Tesco's competition) with it's 60s style red and white stripey signage.. and two 'Egg Stores' - I think there was also one at Stoke Newington..

There was a Williams Brothers grocers at East Finchley on the opposite corner to Sainsburys

i owned a pair of bata shoes.
Anyway we will have a list of the super riches who will be reduced to destitute, thanks to the long running, seem too good-to-be-true Madoff scheme

Books ETC still exist, there's one in Victoria Station.

http://www.borderslocal.co.uk/vi.../victoria-
place


How about Powerhouse, Dixons, Scottish Power and The Link in electrical retail world?

SupaSnaps?

Do cinemas count in your list? Cause we've lost... UCI, thefilmworks, Warner Village, UGC and ABC in the last 10 years...

Oh, Ster Century and Virgin too, I forgot last time round they changed names...

I know it was only fiction, but Grace Brothers would have gone a long time ago. Or was that because the production company could not afford enough extras?

Thanks, for your tons of feedback!
I've made an early evening update to the post.

Great Mills in the DIY bit. There's also the other travel agent that Lunn Poly merged with to become Going Places, but I can't remember their name only some of their locations.

Hmmm.

It's fine to get misty-eyed about the banks and building societies whose names have disappeared into history, but no-one ever remembers the other heroes in the world of high finance and commerce, namely the accountancy firms


Someone has got to care about all the long-established names which have been shed like an old skin, over the years, as firms have merged together, amalgamated with each other, and simply bought each other out.


Whatever became of Deloitte Haskins & Sells, of Stoy Hayward or Peat Marwick McClintock, for example?


Like I said... *someone* must care...



... surely???

Aren't they BDO Stoy Hayward Now?

It's survival of the 'fittest' (not to be confused with 'the best') c.f. VHS vs betamax.

As has always been the case, "the best material is often left idle."

The shop list in Baedekers London and Environs 1900 (avail in new facsimile) is very interesting. Amazing how many names are still trading - also of course, a lot that are not.

I used to work for the hateful Rumbelows until it was taken over by a bunch of barrow boys who ran it into the ground. If I sold you a eight year warranty sorry for lying to you

For those who cannot forget

flickr.com/photos/joncombe/356739473/

I can think of a few which you've missed out. I mentioned Kwik Save yesterday, and I think all the UGC cinemas were branded MGM before they became Virgin, which then in turn became UGC and now Cineworld. Dixons is now Currys Digital (though still trades as Dixons online). Silverscreen was a short-lived DVD shop, and many department stores lost their names when they became John Lewis, including Welwyn Stores in Welwyn Garden City, Trewins in Watford and Robert Sayle in Cambridge. Victor Value was a supermarket chain taken over by the domineering Tesco's, and MVC was a chain of record stores (once owned by Woolworths, funnily enough).

I remember quite a few of these. I always remember being taken to a local Berni Inn when I was a lad - I think most of them turned into Beefeater or Brewers' Fayre type places. I also remember popping into Tandy, as there were one or two local to me. I also have good memories of Midland Bank before it became HSBC. I also have fond recollections of both Dillons and Ottakars as well: I often popped into the Cambridge and Lakeside branches of the former, and the Enfield Town branch of the latter. I also remember the Harlow branch of Littlewoods.

Furthermore, I think Etam still exist on the continent, at least in France (they seem to have branches in Paris and in Cité Europe, near the Calais end of the Channel Tunnel).

And I don't even consider myself to be that old...

After they demolished the Odeon (originally Mayfair) cinema in Becontree Heath, the replacing supermarket went from Wallis to Gateway, International then Somerfield through subsequent takeovers.

Fremsley - Grance Brothers was alive and well in Sydney last time I went.

Hmmm, for all of the references to Woolworths, I find it a little surprising that, so far, I haven't seen anyone mention their "Winfield" brand name (which was as much a part of Woolworths as "St Michael" was to M&S)



@ Kirk: yes, you're right about BDO Stoy Hayward - I must admit I didn't think long enough over that one.
I think I was rushing so I could think about something else other than accountancy firms.
(Erm. For example, defunct car dealerships. Or garden centres. (Or actually *anything* apart from accountancy firms))

ooh, also, Ritz video shops!

I was suprised to not see Kwick Save on the list of supermarkets.

I was less suprised to not see Stationery Box, my former employer. Our customers hadn't heard of us whilst they were stood in the store. More than once I heard some-one talking into a mobile phone "I'm just in Partners now". I still miss it, though.

Does Sock Shop still exist?

Shelly's Shoes (any left?)

From my childhood there's Preedys the Stationers and Revolver Records.

More recently, there's silverscreen, the DVD shop that expanded rather quickly and then ran out of money very quickly. Our local branch is now a Jane Norman.

I now think MFI can be added to the Furniture section of your list. Come the 5th January, you could also add Woolies (sob).

we used to shop in Lipton's in spennymoor. worryingly, my mum still has a wide range of their products in the back of her kitchen cupboards...

Cinemas: Cannon

Bookshops: Sherratt & Hughes, Hammicks

What about House of Holland? Original patio sets etc.
Then there was Martin Ford clothes shop - the domain of cheap but fashion conscious school uniform.
And the department stores - DH Evans in Oxford St; Barkers, Derry and Toms and Pontings in Kensington High Street, Cuffs in Putney.
Off Licences - Saccone and Speed and Arthur Coopers.

Thanks for the nostalgia trip

I'm coming late to this but the supermarket near my Mum was a 'Dee Discount' and then 'Frank Dee' in between it being Spar and Somerfield.

One that everybody has forgotten is Richards, the ladies clothes shop which was brilliant for me in the 90s. I am beginning to suspect they went under because of the durability of their hangers. Far far better than M&S rubbish!

There was a Pauldons (sp) in Manchester. They were taken over by someone, maybe Littlewoods? Lewis's also in Manchester - no relation to John Lewis.

Also no mention of Timothy White's, unless I've missed it.

In South London, Kennedy's the Butchers closed down a few months ago. That was the end of an era.

I did add Wimpy and Sock Shop and then had the sense to Google. Much to my surprise, they still exist. I was also going to add Woolco but apparently they're part of Asda now.











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