Do you remember the good old days before the Ghost Town?

[Newbornbairn]

47 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

As I think most of the sadly ubiquitous Greggs' stuff is substandard shite it's great to go to a wee town somewhere in Scotland, find a local baker that's been there for 100 years just about unchanged, and buy a decent pie/sausage roll and substantial cake.

There's a bakers in Turriff that I have vivid memories of my grandad taking me to 50 years ago. Still there, pretty much unchanged. 

Edited December 25, 2022 by Newbornbairn

[Shotgun]

I read an article a few years back, could've been by Bill Bryson, talking about how one of the most popular attractions at Disneyworld/Land is "Main Street, USA". This is an ersatz copy of what the centre of a small American town used to look like. People love it. The real thing...not so much.

[Cosmic Joe]

7 minutes ago, Shotgun said:

I read an article a few years back, could've been by Bill Bryson, talking about how one of the most popular attractions at Disneyworld/Land is "Main Street, USA". This is an ersatz copy of what the centre of a small American town used to look like. People love it. The real thing...not so much.

Did it have a half-decent bakers or just a Gregg's? 

[TxRover]

9 minutes ago, Cosmic Joe said:

Did it have a half-decent bakers or just a Gregg's? 

Gregg’s would be an upgrade…it’s typical Disney crap, served lukewarm and flavorless…although, maybe that does describe Gregg’s quite well too!

[BFTD]

13 hours ago, Cosmic Joe said:

If you walked up Leven High Street in the 1970s you had a draper then Williamson's the arcade (with a brilliant toy department), butchers (still there) on the left. On the right was a fishmonger (still there - although don't be expecting anything more exotic than smoked haddock), Woolworths, Galloway's Mens outfitters, Boots, Deas the bakers, John Menzies. 

Back on the left there was Cummings clothing store, Walker's electrical shop that started hiring VHS and Betamax tapes a few years later with, I'm told, some naughty ones under the counter, a couple of banks, a couple of pubs (still there), Ladbrokes, Victoria Wine, Lightbody's the bakers, across the road was the Caledonian Hotel, which is still there. There were more wee shops that I've forgotten about. 

It was pedestrianised sometime the following decade, which was a good move in my opinion, but every time I return more and more car wankers are flagrantly ignoring this, which irks me greatly. 

I miss video rental stores, despite the internet being objectively better.

We got our first VCR when I was wee, just before the Video Recordings Act came in, when it was still the Wild West with regard to what people could legally release on videotape. I loved wandering about looking at all the video boxes, all adorned with wee stickers saying that you could buy them for £99.99 (likely meant as a warning that you'd be expected to pay that if you lost/broke the tape). I remember being entranced by the art on a box that I could never reach, which I'd later discover was the soon-to-be-banned Cannibal Holocaust  

They had a false wall at one side of the room, behind which they kept videos that I wouldn't be interested in, according to my mum  

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Milngavie town centre is a depressing dump.

You’re big standard charity shop, chemist, tea room, a chippy, bookie, old man pub, a damp smelling Asda with stains on the floor.

A great place if you’re a pensioner. Shite if you’re younger than 65. 
A good metaphor for Britain.

[sugna]

On 24/12/2022 at 19:17, carpetmonster said:

Newhaven round to Cramond along the shoreline and then back up into Leith for a panini at the wee Sicilian bakery at the back of Easter Road

* panino

On 24/12/2022 at 22:15, carpetmonster said:

Excellent, their omelette paninis were a fantastic hangover fixer. 

* panini

[carpetmonster]

18 minutes ago, sugna said:

* panino

* panini

 

On 24/12/2022 at 14:42, alta-pete said:

 

 

[Derry Alli]

2 hours ago, TxRover said:

served lukewarm 

Already has an advantage over Greggs, then.

[CityDave94]

I would easily spend an hour in this shop in Inverness.

In Inverness this shop below was the go to place for your punk and indie vinyl and or if you simply wanted to browse and listen to The Ramones or The Buzzcocks blasting out of the shop's speakers.

[TxRover]

47 minutes ago, approximately dave said:

I would easily spend an hour in this shop in Inverness.

Sent me down a rabbit hole, finding the 1999 original of this picture:

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4425470

…and that ended up with a 2014 new story on shops missing in Aberdeen…

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/378589/13-aberdeen-shopping-institutions-that-sadly-arent-there-anymore/

 

[Fullerene]

5 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Milngavie town centre is a depressing dump.

You’re big standard charity shop, chemist, tea room, a chippy, bookie, old man pub, a damp smelling Asda with stains on the floor.

A great place if you’re a pensioner. Shite if you’re younger than 65. 
A good metaphor for Britain.

Somebody said Millguy is better. 

No idea where that is. 

[BFTD]

You're probably all aware, but if anyone's on the look out for a proper old-fashioned record shop, Europa Music is still on the go on Friars Street in Stirling.

The best record shop I remember was Beanos in Croydon, but I understand it's been gone a long time. Some businesses should be kept open for historical reasons alone!  

[CityDave94]

6 hours ago, TxRover said:

Sent me down a rabbit hole, finding the 1999 original of this picture:

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4425470

…and that ended up with a 2014 new story on shops missing in Aberdeen…

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/378589/13-aberdeen-shopping-institutions-that-sadly-arent-there-anymore/

 

I used to go through to Aberdeen for shopping or was the area for the football every now and again rotating with Glasgow, Edinburgh or Dundee each month. so knew the city center reasonably well. One up, It was not uncommon to spend a couple of hundred in there in one go on cds and I remember the Pentangle shop on Union Street though I only went in there once just before it finally closed. There used to be a Formula One shop in the old shopping center with lots of memorabilia. Once walking in the front door I didn't see what was hanging from the ceiling and because I'm quite tall I walked into it and it bounced of my head, Jos Verstappen's seat mold from one of the Orange Arrows F1 cars, not exactly the best place to leave it. There was also a Fopp Records the road at the back of Marks & Spencers, not sure if it is still there now.

[philpy]

I think there was one of the those F1 shops in the metro centre. My wife said she already knew about it. How did chicane it was there??

[CityDave94]

Inglis Street before being pedestrianised. A few points here you can see on the right the Carlton Bar which also served as a music venue upstairs. Trying to remember if after it closed in the late 80's if it was turned into Hatchard's Bookshop. There was also an Intersport which had two floors and was excellent for football tops. Both names also gone now.

Someone had the bright idea of demolishing that unique building on the end which was painted sky blue with white on the window frames and replacing it with a boring modern block with zero personallity. Much of Inverness city center lost its character during the 70's and 80's due to replacing buildings that could have easily just had some work done on them being replaced with concrete block carbuncles. Recently there's been a trend to keep these old stone buildings as seen in Castle Street, there is some hope, but probably too little to late.

The well known and infamous to some 'Boots Corner' High Street / Inglis Street during by the looks of it from the cars the late 70's. Boots before they moved into the Eastgate shopping center used to have a fairly large space on the 1st floor for records. You could by former chart 7'' singles for 49p which I did when I had my first record player, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sparks, Skids, The Stranglers, The Beat and The Jam plus a few others all in one purchase were the first records I ever bought.

There was at that time another chemist in town who sold records, Christies who were on Queensgate just besides the entrance to the Victoria Market. The basement was used for this purpose and there was a more independent feel about the place than Boots with a preference in taste by those who worked there into playing the metal bands and the classic rock bands of the time rather than chart music. We had Woolworths on the High Street as well which sold mainly chart music and was relevant name back then and a John Menzies which opened around the time that the first Star Wars film came out, John Menzies now WH Smiths.

Imagine chemist shops selling records, but it was a thing.

In the picture are those two cars both Ford Cortinas but different 'marks'?

[Crazy Days]

22 hours ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

 

We had a local bakery chain in Falkirk called Mathiesons, Although they were once pretty good they had went majorly downhill in their final 5-10 years, to the point where you would go in at 1.15 pm and they would have nothing except a solitary cold scotch pie for sale. yet when they finally went to the wall social media was a wash with tears.

Used to do a cracking steal mince pie but then at the same time you had Fishers who had a supreme chicken pie which was only available on a Friday and Saturday.

[Cosmic Joe]

3 hours ago, BFTD said:

You're probably all aware, but if anyone's on the look out for a proper old-fashioned record shop, Europa Music is still on the go on Friars Street in Stirling.

The best record shop I remember was Beanos in Croydon, but I understand it's been gone a long time. Some businesses should be kept open for historical reasons alone!  

There's one in Onion Street in Dundee

[tongue_tied_danny]

9 minutes ago, approximately dave said:

Inglis Street before being pedestrianised. A few points here you can see on the right the Carlton Bar which also served as a music venue upstairs. Trying to remember if after it closed in the late 80's if it was turned into Hatchard's Bookshop. There was also an Intersport which had two floors and was excellent for football tops. Both names also gone now.

Someone had the bright idea of demolishing that unique building on the end which was painted sky blue with white on the window frames and replacing it with a boring modern block with zero personallity. Much of Inverness city center lost its character during the 70's and 80's due to replacing buildings that could have easily just had some work done on them being replaced with concrete block carbuncles. Recently there's been a trend to keep these old stone buildings as seen in Castle Street, there is some hope, but probably too little to late.

The well known and infamous to some 'Boots Corner' High Street / Inglis Street during by the looks of it from the cars the late 70's. Boots before they moved into the Eastgate shopping center used to have a fairly large space on the 1st floor for records. You could by former chart 7'' singles for 49p which I did when I had my first record player, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sparks, Skids, The Stranglers, The Beat and The Jam plus a few others all in one purchase were the first records I ever bought.

There was at that time another chemist in town who sold records, Christies who were on Queensgate just besides the entrance to the Victoria Market. The basement was used for this purpose and there was a more independent feel about the place than Boots with a preference in taste by those who worked there into playing the metal bands and the classic rock bands of the time rather than chart music. We had Woolworths on the High Street as well which sold mainly chart music and was relevant name back then and a John Menzies which opened around the time that the first Star Wars film came out, John Menzies now WH Smiths.

Imagine chemist shops selling records, but it was a thing.

In the picture are those two cars both Ford Cortinas but different 'marks'?

I was in Inverness earlier this year. I thought that the town centre had held up a bit better than most places. The streets were quite attractive and there seemed to be fewer empty shops than elsewhere in Scotland.

 

[CityDave94]

The biggest loss for me personally in Inverness was the loss of the bookshop newsagent in Union Street which went through a few name changes in its time. I first remember it as Melvens and it finished as Thains. I was a regular whom bought all my magazines there having my own folder for all the magazines I ordered never missed a copy of NME or Autosport, the staff were brilliant. I had been known to spend all afternoon in there browsing the books going through every section for something interesting. Waterstones is good but it doesn't have that same magic about it.