Which stores do you miss?

Woolies and C&A. We’ve lost our Debenhams as well another of my favourites

mancgirl I remember Marshall & Snelgrove very posh!
and Kendal Milne. All the snooty assistants in there.
Also remember Henry’s... a load of old tat there, bought by me ☺️. Think Lewis’s was my favourite. Not lived there for many moons don’t think I’d know the place now

Kendal Milne had lovely windows near Christmas.
I lived with my grandma from age 12 till I got married at 20, she used to taker me to C&A`s bargain basement in Manchester for all my clothes. We always found just what we wanted, but it was always so much darker down there than in the store proper.

Kittye Lewis's is now Primark, Henry's I think is now Aldi after being a BHS, kendal's now House of Fraser. Not sure what Marshall and Snelgrove is. Not been into "town* since about March this year. Shame really, some great eating places and theatres - and shops!

mancgirl when this Covid business is over I’m determined to have a few days up there in Manchester to see what it’s like now. I do see pictures on forums I’m on and some of the parts look amazing ?

FannyC - Oasis in Brum. My word you've got a good memory. I loved wandering through when I was a teenager.

Marshall and Snelgrove in Leicester and Simpkin and James. The first one had a lovely perfume department that I would wander around with no hope of buying anything and the second, particularly at Christmas has magnificent displays of exotic goods, mangos, cheeses,, olives, hams etc the likes of which I hadn’t seen anywhere before. Nowadays of course, everything they sold is freely available everywhere.

Good old Woolworths!

I bought a bright lime green leather coat from C and A. I had long blonde hair but bought a Tina Turner type wig. When I wore both, I rang mum to pick me up from the station after work. She didn't recognise me.

I had a Saturday job in Woolworths selling shampoo sachets and sanitary towels.

Gordon Thoday , lots of choices of fabric at a good price, I remember once going to the Gloucester one, I was going to make a Father Christmas outfit using red corduroy, so a little pricey but worth it (we still have the costume now), the chap in the store very helpfully laid out all of the pattern pieces on the fabric so that I didn’t need to buy any more than was necessary... now that’s what I call service!

Does anyone remember Bourne & Hollingsworth in Oxford Street in the 60s. Lovely family owned store. I worked for them for a time.

Woolworths, I can still remember the Pick and Mix and spending ages trying to decide how to spend my pocket money. Dolcis seemed so sophisticated, I was a child living in the East Midlands! I remember my mother spending hours in C &A. Shopping in my childhood and teens was quite a novelty and an outing.

FannyCornforth

Jane43 - I came on to say Beatties!
I'm amazed that the Wolverhampton one is still there.
The one my mother and I would frequent was Beatties at Dudley.
I also remember Lewis's, it seemed very grand.
Lowering the tone somewhat, do you remember a rather strange shop called Oasis on the opposite corner to Lewis's? It was like a counter-culture department store.
Full of punks, hippies and goths.
I loved it when I was 14!

I think you must be younger than me. By the time Punks and Goths came along I was married with two sons. I don’t remember that shop but from your description I think it must have been in the location where another department store called Greys was, it was quite an old fashioned store. I took my mother-in-law for lunch in the Dudley Beatties for her 70th birthday, it was waitress service then. Although House Of Fraser bought the Beatties stores they kept the Beatties sign on the Wolverhampton store.

Lewis’s in Liverpool and Blacklers in Liverpool too . Their Christmas tree and grotto were even better than Lewis’s

Woolies, BHS lighting and homewares. Also there used to be small, one-off sort of shops such as a leather shop that would do leather repairs, another was a pen/stationery shop where I bought my fountain pen (still use it) in the 1960s.

pensionpat

Woolworths for me.

Me too. They did the Ladybird range of clothes. They were such good quality and didn't cost the earth. Their boy's school trousers were much better than M&S.

Ooh terrific memories of my shopping days in London
Whitelys of Queensway, Barkers High St Kensington Fenwicks of Brent Cross, Selfridges & can't leave out Harrods but mainly in the years before they franchised lots
all now gone or changed so much
I stick to JohnLewis now the best of what's left

Catterygirl

I had a Saturday job in Woolworths selling shampoo sachets and sanitary towels.

Shampoo sachets! That brought back memories.

I bought my wedding outfit at the Regent Street Dickens and Jones in the 60s, a beautifully elegant cream dress and coat.

We called C&A ‘Cheap and Awful’, but it was a joke. Everybody bought things there.

Coopers in Liverpool, in Church Street. Oh, the smell of coffee! I think I would describe it as a rather upmarket grocer.

Woolies. And Biba! Couldn’t be more different but both so brilliant in their own ways.

I miss Borders the book shop. It was a two storey building and had loads of books and music and a coffee shop. I used to go to a book group each month there and it was brilliant : good books, good coffee and a lovely social gathering. That was in Preston. I actually live in Blackburn and the only book shop we have now is The Works. W H Smith closed down after lockdown. There are a few charity shops but nothing else. I had to travel to the Trafford Centre on Monday to buy a book token for my great nephew's birthday as that was the only place I knew that I could park very close to Waterstones.

Marshall and Snelgrove in Leicester I remember as well, and either John Lewis or Lewis's in Leicester, both in the 1950a and 1960s. I recall the Christmas displays there as well. There was, I think, maybe a sort of creche where children could be looked after while parents were shopping.

I miss Richards...... C&A’s....and even Woolies, where us teenagers could buy our records when we had a few Bob to spare.

British Home Stores for the women's clothes and lighting, C&A's for bargain clothes, Woolworth's for their Ladybird stuff and The Golden Egg for those moments when you want some junk food to eat but don't want to cook it!