Shops and Cafes no longer here.

I loved Laura Ashley in Kensington Church Street .
The lovely Victoruan dresses were crammed very tightly on the rails on wire hangers -rather like Primark !
Rita Tushingham and I collided going through the doors .
I also loved Bus Stop .
I went to the one in Croydon .
It had originally been a pub and was near the bus terminal.
I had a few dresses from Biba -older friends passed them on .
One unpleasant thing that I recall vividly-old men used to frequent it to pick up the "dolly birds " -their expression not mine.
Waiting for friends who worked there a guy tried to pick me up .
I was 15 .

We use to have a Dorothy Perkins, Edinburgh Wool, Bon Marche and a M and S foodhall. There was a Curry's and Eastern Electric shop, Co Op, Wilkinson and Fine Fare but all gone now. Plus many independent shops. Also had two cafes as well but they've gone and replaced with coffee shops serving horrid bitter coffee in huge cups I can hardly pickup!! No wonder people shop on line now.

Forgive the typos. Am on the list for a cataract op. Fingers crossed my sight will improve for proof reading.

Sorry that was from L Ashley jot Biba. But I loved Biba as well. Such a dramtic shop. Wonderful.

My wedding dress was a maxi corduroy high necked dress. In a sort of tobacco colour. I probably looked like a pair of curtains but I loved it.
Had I kept it, it would sell on vinted for £200 or so. And cost me £13 in 1973.

Have loved everything I bought there. I still wear a pair of navy long shorts in a navy heavy cotton. Beautifully cut.

Never bought their furniture or homeware, but admired it.

My last purchase was in their closng down sale 6nor eo yrars ago. . I felt quite tearful.

Chaitriona

Biba in Kensington Church Street, Kensington Market in Kensington High Street, Miss Selfridge in Oxford Street.

I remember being taken to Biba by my late older brother.when I was about 17. How I wish that I had kept the items, which were so trendy! Also Laura Ashley- I had a gorgeous full length maxi dress, which I wore as a student. Happy memories.

The Copper Kettle in London to meet my pals for very long lunch breaks. Don’t know how we got away with it.

My mum was a Lyon’s House Nippy at Trafalgar Square, I think.

I often think fondly of the big department stores, specially when it's raining. Usually carpeted, and luxurious, where you could spend all day and have lunch! Usually had at least one per large city, and loads in London.

I remember Daniel Neal in Kensington Magenta. The other shops were Barkers, Derry & Toms and Pontins

Nancat I often used to visit it Rackhams in Birmingham where I used to work in the late 1960s. I loved to see the models walking around the store in the latest fashions.

I haven’t been back to Birmingham in decades, I think I would see it very changed.

Terribull I too remember Lyons Corner houses. Proper restaurants, and uite smart, but open to all. it is where we usually ate when we come up to London from the suburbs.

The Indian and Ceylon governments separately funded lovely tea houses, one in Hay Market, the other in Oxford Street. Delicious tea and light bite catering.

All the department stores, Swan & Edgar at Piccadilly and convenien for where I liked. Dickens & Jones at the top of Regent Street with its lovely logo of a woman's head developing from a picture of a rose. I saw that same logo yesterday, on a hat box in the window of a local charity shop. Its clothes had much more edge and were more fashionable than other more run of the mill department stores.

Oxford Street was department stores end to end on one side, or it felt like that.

More recent - but I still miss BHS and Littlewoods.

Not the most obvious shop people would miss, but independent betting shops. Many towns had one of these on a side street, often referred to as a turf accountant to make them sound more upmarket.

Musicgirl-

Going to Past Times and buying very pretty dresses from Laura Ashley was a happy interlude in my life.
I look back and I think that they were naive and innocent times.
Unlike the terrible world in which we are living now.

@Esmay, I loved PastTimes and often buy Christmas and birthday presents on Ebay or Vinted of their items. I was a music student in the mid-eighties and our performance exams, aka recitals to which people could attend the final such recital - were formal and strict dress codes were expected. Male students had to wear DJs and many of the female students, including me, bought our special dresses from Laura Ashley. I also had my "going away" outfit for my wedding in 1989 from Laura Ashley - a dress with matching jacket, which I was able to wear for other formal occasions afterwards. I still have them in my wardrobe but the chances of me ever being able to fit in them again are somewhere between fat chance, slim chance and no chance whatsoever! Laura Ashley sizes were notoriously lacking in generosity and my size twelves from that time are probably more like a present day size eight.
I loved Chelsea Girl, Richard Shops, Dorothy Perkins, Dolcis as they had such a good, fashionable selection at prices that would not break the bank. It's a shame that they have all gone. Another more recent casualty is Brantano. They had a wide range of shoes in an equally wide range of sizes at reasonable prices. When my daughter went to her school prom in 2012, we were able to buy a lovely pair of formal shoes in size 2, her size, in the adult section, which is very hard to do normally. Similarly I have a friend who takes size 10 and she was able to choose from a wide variety of ladies' shoes in that size in the same way that most of us take for granted and never have to think about.

I think Annabell's was where he was often seen, LizH13.
I don't think he owned it.

Dodo43

I worked a holiday job in Woolworths;
I remember being enchanted by the Kardomah in Chester when I went there to college.
When I was a child I remember the grocery shops where bacon was sliced for you on a machine as you wanted it, butter was taken from a large container, weighed and shaped according to your requirements, tea was served from a sack and weighed accordingly as were many other items. These shops smelled wonderful .
More recently I do also miss Richards and Principles, and of course all the other department stores that have disappeared.

My wedding dress came from Richards, £3 10s, very short, white lace with big sleeves, my grandchildren are amazed at the odd photo I have.

Shel1951

There used to be John Colliers for men.
When I was a child I used to sing along with the tune..John Collier John Collier the windows to wash, never understood why people would want to wash shop windows

The window to watch, not wash! I wonder if some of us were in the same place in Manchester years ago, the same names cropping up!
I still say Kendal Milne, or I did when we still lived up there, all my Denby came for KM as seconds, Denby another recent loss.

For clothes:
Snob
Etam
Mark One
Fosters men’s wear
Hodges menswear
For shoes:
Barratts
Freeman Hardy Willis
Stead snd Simpson
Millwards
For coffee:
Carwardines
Stephen’s bakery

HelterSkelter1

There was a coffee house in Bromley in the mid 50s which roasted their coffee beans and there was that wonderful smell wafting out. I was 5 and probably if I ever had coffee it would have been Camp.

My mum was a ‘coffee snob’ and we used to go there. She liked proper coffee and wouldn’t buy instant so we always had ‘proper’ coffee at home. It is hereditary because I am the same- fine because Melbourne is very,very good at coffee !

Is anyone a Stokie? Remember Huntbach's and Bratt and Dykes in Hanley? C&A (my ma in law used to call it "coats and 'ats"!) Tiko Coffee Bars, The Place (not a shop a nightclub) Co-op Department stores and who could forget Woolies with their wooden floors? Dolcis shoe shops, Pauldens in (Newcastle under Lyme )
It seems to me that everyone is reminiscing these days..even my own sons, now in their 50s. Is it because our world feels so unsafe now?

Rackhams in Birmingham, a very posh department store, had the most fantastic and genuine January Sales. People would queue for days, sleeping bags, and families taking food for the queuers. The big bargains were all one-offs though, hence the queueing.

SpinDriftCoastal My DH frequented the Plaza cafe before we met probably with his scooter club mates. He remembers Annabels as being George Bests place. He also went to Time and Place. Grandmaofone
I didn’t move to Manchester until 73 so it’s great reminiscing some of the early shops I got to know, The milk bar in Piccadilly and a boutique near CandA I think called 2001

Does anyone remember Apple the boutique on the corner of Baker Street owned by The Beatles.

It opened in December 1967 and closed in July 1968. I had a holiday job in Bond Street at the time and the day the shop closed, they were giving stuff away free, one item per person. I managed to nab a rather awful Kimono. It is lurking at the back of my wardrobe as, I'm not quite sure why, I don't want to part with it.

Moor Street Warehouse in Birmigham. I used to be mesmerised by the system that sent the change wizzing round the shop in what looked like a tin can.