High street shops of yore

Kwiksave – owned by Somerfield who were originally JHMills ,Dee Stores, carrefour(uk) International, Macfisheries , Macmarkets, Fine Fare to become Gateway in the 70s then Somerfield
Anyway they cherry picked the stores and converted them to Somerfield then ran the rest as a standalone business until they realised it was costing them money, they then sold the business on to a company called BTTF ( back to the future) which was supposed to take KS back to their original trading format and it didn’t last due to lack of funds and buying power against the multiples
Closing the doors in 2007 for the last time the name has been bought by Costcutter to be used again and yes there is one store in Bolton but it’s more a convenience store than a discounter
Btw Victor Value was bought by Kwiksave as was Liquorsave which was a seperate business owned by Northwest vintners ,
Spent best part of 20 years with KS and latterly SF and loved it, rough and ready but would do well now
They also bought Shoprite and a few others along the way too

Couple of slightly dodgy ones from me

Bata, closed after it was disclosed they made jackboots for the nazis during WW2 using slave labour

This one might ring a bell with anyone from East London, OTV in Clapton next to the canal. Dodgy looking bloke called Joe owned it and appeared in his own adverts on C4
Sold recon tellys and video machines, remember it well as it was next to my local The Prince Of Wales

Taylor mckenna ( toy shop)
Contessa ( underwear)
Weigh and save
DER (TV rentals)
Cheap Jacks ( jeans)

Showing my age now. Not exactly a national chain but a good portion of my spending money went here as a kid.

Also mustn’t forget Green Shield Stamp showrooms, when they shut quite a few became Argos shops

I remember the Green Shield catalogue, you could get a basic 1.3 Ford Cortina for about 800 books. We only had enough for a fishing reel and a chip pan, always did better on the Players No6 fag coupons.

Olympus Sports is a good call…was just a young kid when that was about but remember they had a running track around the store and i would sprint up and down that and one day Daley Thompson was there for some promotion and ‘raced’ me – I didnt know who Daley Thompson was at the time though!

Another one was Tower Records. The shop in Glasgow was great, really expensive but it was open to about midnight and had a great selection of records (particularly imports), computer games, magazines etc. And how could i forget the minidiscs and laserdiscs.

When it opened it was around about the same era as McDonalds first opened in Glasgow…hard to believe now but going for a burger, fries and milk shake there then popping into Tower Records next door felt exotic and exciting.

Bit later on then i still miss Borders Books particularly their magazine and newspaper selection, no-where else carries anything like the range they had.

Great Mills
Homeworld

I’d just like to add that having worked for Our Price between 98-02 I definitely don’t miss that **** place.

There’s a Kwik Save in Little Lever near Bolton that’s been opened within the last year or so but I think its the only one in the country.

There’s one recently opened on Manchester Rd, Castleton, Rochdale too.

Andy’s Records was an ace music shop, used to have a better range of music than all the others like HMV etc.

Selby’s Tesco will always be Hillards to me.

There was a big Hillards in York , I used to roller skate round the empty car park every Sunday morning
It’s a Coop now and I think they’ve sold off half of the carpark for flats.

National Petrol Stations – where I used to get my smurfs from. (Leaded and unleaded )

Anyone remember Shoppers World ? Ime pretty sure they were the Green Shield outlet.