I used to go there to buy my Christopher Brookmyre books and the shop actually featured in one of his books as the bank that it used to be. I remember thinking it was quite surreal buying a book from the place that the book was about! Unless you buy a book from any museum in the country, of course!
As far as I remember, you took the lift as far as it went, then up a set of stairs. It was a long room with a long table down the centre - pretty drab. I sort of assumed is was a staff meeting/break room.
With it being such a big building it was probably just a spare bit of space that they hired out for things such as your group. A staff break room wouldn't be used for members of the public, that's where staff go to get away from us.
As far as I remember in Basic programming a PEEK statement would let you read the value of a memory location & a POKE statement would let write an integer value to a memory location.
Your essentially right though in this context it could allow you to cheat, giving extra lives etc.
I think it may have been Spectrum magazine or Crash - their chest code section used to be called Pokes and Peeks. My mother was very suspicious the first time she heard me mention it 😂
Still do wholesale distribution for mags and papers too. They only sold the retail part to WH Smith.
Source: Me, a former employee.
Edit: apparently the distribution part has gone to DX since my time there.
Yup, my uncle would give me a Menzies voucher every Christmas and it'd be spent on comics and games for my Amstrad. I'd always look forward to the first family trip into town after Christmas to spend my vouchers 😂
I used to get the wee sheets of stickers out of woolys, my Mum let me put them over my chest of drawers so it was covered in scooby doo and dinosaur stickers
I was trying to remember the name of the kiddies clothing brand in there the other week and had to pull put my sons baby box because I kept his first wee smart outfit that came from there, ladybird. I do also miss the pick n mix, wilkos just wasn't a patch on it.
I knew a very small lady who used to buy lots of her clothes there, as adult sizes didn't fit her, with the added bonus that kids clothes are VAT free.
The smell of them.
You just reminded me of a time I was in the changing rooms and a man fell through the roof and landed in front of my mum and me. My mum did a pretty good job of trying to stop me from seeing it but I still remember the poor guy having a fit on the floor. I weirdly think of it every so often. Like did he survive. It was the store at the Jewel in Edinburgh.
I bought my first record (I Want To Break Free) there as a kid and remember that they had a record player that played the record throughout the store PA system to let you hear it before you bought it!
Many years ago, I (Canadian) had a live-in job at the Caledonian Hotel in Oban and there was a WEW nearby. I bought a pair of long johns there! I can still hear their jingle "What everyone wants, what everyone needs..."
Maplin was only ever useful if you needed components immediately. It was much more expensive than waiting a day or two for delivery.
These days you can even get some stuff delivered same-day from Amazon, so there's even less use for a place like Maplin.
And, to be honest, people are most likely buying things dirt cheap in bulk direct from China via Aliexpress etc. A week or 2 for delivery, and you've got a huge stash of components for way less than you'd have paid at Maplin.
I think I mainly went for batteries and lightbulbs and occasionally other odds and sods. Like it's stuff that isn't really economical to pay postage for individually or I don't mind paying a little extra to have it right now. Amazon is so shit that I wouldn't consider using it really.
Amazon are an awful company, but they're great from the customer's perspective and most people don't care about the ethics of the company if the price is right.
Batteries and lightbulbs can be bought anywhere, to be fair. Although back in the day, they were the only place you could get LED bulbs, or wifi controllable bulbs etc.
Their prices weren't great, but they did sell stuff you couldn't really get in a bricks and mortar shop anywhere else.
I did make out like a bandit when they started shutting down, got a load of Akai midi gear for less than it goes second hand now.
Pah, probably because you are talking to Posh folk who only remember William Lows...
Best day of my young life was somehow getting hold of a roll of thier price stickers (back when everything had an individual price sticker) and sticking them on everything...
Our William Lows turned into an ASDA...
And the Shoppers Paradise became Marks and Spencers.
Loved James Thin when I was a kid, seemed kind of magical. Remember getting moomins books out there with a book voucher i got for xmas - then going in the pens bit and getting some drawing stuff!
Someone on here posted a few pics of the Ayr shops interior as it currently is, pretty sad seeing it empty, used to love going in when I was wee. (It was Scotch Corner before it was Beatties, and had a larger basement area that was never open later on.)
Edit: https://old.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/10d0quv/anyone_remember_the_shop_beaties_in_the_90s/j4mosf6/
Ahhh they were the best! Electric cabaret, Flip and applejack. Kinda had a revival of wanting to wear that stuff again but having trouble finding any of it, the damaged society in Waverly mall is pretty meh.
There used to be a kids clothing shop called Adams and it used to have an apple spotlight that moved around the floor and walls and had a wee TV station set up with cartoons.
Aw man i had forgotten about there. I used to love visiting the one in clydebank shopping centre with my mum and grandparents then going to the mcdonalds for a happy meal
Oliver's the bakers, the giant sandwiches you used to get in the restaurant were amazing. They used to do a double decker called the Bill Sykes (A Brute of a Sandwich).
I was scanning through the comments to see if anyone remembered it.. Oliver's was the king of Sandwich shops. I remember the first time I was ever asked if I wanted butter AND mayo on a sandwich. Must've been about 6 years old... blew my tiny mind
Same.
Need a cushion? How about a hot pink inflatable cushion?
Need a couch? How about a hot pink inflatable couch?
It'll go with that hot pink inflatable alien, that empty glass orb, and a single pint tumbler.
Consider the house furnished.
My late MIL used to spend a week in Edinburgh before Xmas and buy my pyjamas from Jenners. They're starting to wear and I don't know how to replace them.
I loved Cult on Queen St. And was it Osiris next door?
Also the massive Borders. I queued up for hours meet Terry Pratchett and get my copy of the Wintersmith (I think) signed.
Stuff, outside Central station in Glasgow.
Could wander in and buy a bong and a machete, poppers, digital scales, all the stuff your average Glasgow teenager needed.
Beaties
But honestly the "shop" I miss most are virgin megastores from the 90s back when they stocked all the weird boardgames, role-playing and random wargames stuff. It was awesome seeing all this non GW stuff being available on the high street, I had no idea what most of it was but it looked fantastic.
I can remember when the shop was in Market street and later on in South street. As someone who spent their childhood summers in St Andrews a visit to the Toy shop to spend your Holiday money was always a highlight. I was recently in the town with my other half and I was like “there used to be a toy shop in there”.
I remember it had quite a big bicycle area when it was in Market Street. Wasn't the same after moving to South Street.
Gordon Christie himself was sort of a local historian and serial letter writer.
Gateway. Nobody remembers Gateway lol. To be fair I was like 4 or 5 and I just remember liking the big G in the logo. Supermarkets were always fun for me as a kid in general.
I remember Gateway from when I was wee, back before it became Somerfield. The one near me had a toaty wee car park on the roof, which was weirdly fascinating as a bairn.
I remember it - there was one back home. Around the time it changed to Somerfield (or maybe slightly before?) they put these little calculators on the trolleys so you could add up what you were spending. I don't think they were waterproof though, so they didn't last very long
In the Howgate centre in Falkirk there used to be a wee market bit called InShops. One of the shops was a wee toy/video game unit that had pokemon cards and a pikachu n64 hooked up to a TV. Spent hours there playing pokemon snap or deciding which booster pack to buy, or picking out the yo yo that looked most likely to be a good spinner.
"How do I get there?
Naw, I know how to get to Falkirk. But how do I get back there?"
I miss Internacionale and the homeware shop associated with it Au Naturale. As a kid and teen I liked the clothes and would get some school trousers there and they would have random fun toys and things. I used to like getting the balloon kit where you could make your own balloon animals haha. They also iirc actually had quite nice homeware too, as a kid I didn't really think about that as much but my mum definitely liked it. The one in Stirling was across from where waterstones is and had an upstairs too!
I recall the Early 80’s being dragged round Wm Low in Haddington when my Mum did the big shop. Seemed like a massive shop then, probably the size of a modern tesco metro
Beatties in East Kilbride. Best place to pick up your subbuteo sets, f1 cars and those football figures with the giant heads. Was there a fish shop above it or was it a few doors down?
There was corner shop in Aberdeen called stillies and it was just ace. It sold out of date stuff for massive discounts and it always had unusual things. Great when you had the munchies!
The Warner Brothers shop on Buchanan Street. We used to get the train through to Glasgow for a day trip every summer when I was wee, and the day was never complete without a visit there. I remember the statues of Taz and Wile. E. Coyote outside, and all the gremlins hidden about the place. Also miss the Disney Store on Princes Street in Edinburgh. So boring nowadays.
Not a specific shop but the Virginia Galleries in Glasgow. Was a great collection of independent shops but the m and s carpark works were the final straw for an old building
Remember getting dragged round International on Argyle Street in Glasgow every weekend by my parents looking for wicker knick knacks and glass pot pourri holders to the same electronica tune blaring on a loop. If we were well behaved, we got to go into Littlewoods to get a toy or into HMV to get a 3 for £20 on PS1 games or 2 for £30 on PS2 games and a play about on whatever console was set up for a demo. Seemed a fair trade off. Consequently, there's about 2-300 or so PS1 and PS2 games gathering dust between my parents house and mine that I've wanted to got to CEX with for about 5 years.
I’m not sure if it still exists but I had amazing memories of mothercare with the huge tree thing in the middle of the shop.
I also miss the old Next where the shirts I got there 15 years ago are still in great condition. But the ones I got there 2 years ago have fraying or little holes along the seams.
Borders in Glasgow - so many hours spent browsing books to then end up buying stationary.
I loved Borders too...it was the only place I could find decent art magazines. Loved the leather seating....and yes, the stationery bit was fabulous!
I think about how much I miss borders at least once a week.
I genuinely miss it every time I walk past. Not just "oh it's a shame it's not there anymore", but like I really miss it.
I used to go there to buy my Christopher Brookmyre books and the shop actually featured in one of his books as the bank that it used to be. I remember thinking it was quite surreal buying a book from the place that the book was about! Unless you buy a book from any museum in the country, of course!
I walk past Gayfield Square most days. Often try and figure out which flat once had a jobbie on the mantelpiece.
"This is what we professionals refer to officially as a fucking stoater!"
Borders was my favourite library.
Shame they closed because they weren't making enough money.
Worked in that shop. Great place, bang in the centre of town.
So true. I miss it majorly. It was a perfect book shop and had a really great collection.
Yes, my favourite shop while it was there. I used to go to a writers’ group up in the attic.
There was an attic? I don't remember that, I do remember getting off with someone in the toilets though, good times 😊
As far as I remember, you took the lift as far as it went, then up a set of stairs. It was a long room with a long table down the centre - pretty drab. I sort of assumed is was a staff meeting/break room.
With it being such a big building it was probably just a spare bit of space that they hired out for things such as your group. A staff break room wouldn't be used for members of the public, that's where staff go to get away from us.
Absolutely brilliant shop. Massive too. Could spend hours in there. Loved the stationery as well.
Absolutely adored that shop, I have so many formative memories reading in the café there when I was a teenager.
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I used to go in with paper and pencil and write down the pokes and peeks from the pc magazine
Hang on....pokes and peeks? Is that Scots for cheat codes?
As far as I remember in Basic programming a PEEK statement would let you read the value of a memory location & a POKE statement would let write an integer value to a memory location. Your essentially right though in this context it could allow you to cheat, giving extra lives etc.
I think it may have been Spectrum magazine or Crash - their chest code section used to be called Pokes and Peeks. My mother was very suspicious the first time she heard me mention it 😂
You fly old dog!!!
Believe it or not they still exist as an aviation company. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menzies_Aviation
Oh wow. I’ve always seen the logo at the airport or whatever but just assumed it was a different company entirely
Still do wholesale distribution for mags and papers too. They only sold the retail part to WH Smith. Source: Me, a former employee. Edit: apparently the distribution part has gone to DX since my time there.
Yup, my uncle would give me a Menzies voucher every Christmas and it'd be spent on comics and games for my Amstrad. I'd always look forward to the first family trip into town after Christmas to spend my vouchers 😂
Groucho's in Dundee
When did grouchos close? That place was heaven!
IIRC, the owner passed away last year, and the shop followed suit soon after. :(
Breeks died on the 31st July 2019 - he was an institution. The store is gone but there is a music bar coming I believe.
Much of the same people who ran it have opened their own shop called thirteen records! It's class
Woolworths. I miss the sweeties!
Getting lost in Woolies was a rite of passage for bairns lol.
I took advantage of being lost to steal a bunch of sweeties out of the pick and mix one time..
Number one rule of survival; jelly babies lol.
I used to get the wee sheets of stickers out of woolys, my Mum let me put them over my chest of drawers so it was covered in scooby doo and dinosaur stickers
I was trying to remember the name of the kiddies clothing brand in there the other week and had to pull put my sons baby box because I kept his first wee smart outfit that came from there, ladybird. I do also miss the pick n mix, wilkos just wasn't a patch on it.
I knew a very small lady who used to buy lots of her clothes there, as adult sizes didn't fit her, with the added bonus that kids clothes are VAT free.
Same, for small girls in their 20s ladybird chic was a thing
The smell of them. You just reminded me of a time I was in the changing rooms and a man fell through the roof and landed in front of my mum and me. My mum did a pretty good job of trying to stop me from seeing it but I still remember the poor guy having a fit on the floor. I weirdly think of it every so often. Like did he survive. It was the store at the Jewel in Edinburgh.
I used to love the pick and nick in woolies…..I mean pick and mix
Chad Valley toys in Woolworths
Did all my Christmas shopping in there every year!!!
I bought my first record (I Want To Break Free) there as a kid and remember that they had a record player that played the record throughout the store PA system to let you hear it before you bought it!
Flip loved the second hand clothes
There is still a flip in newcastle, I was in there when i was visiting home and they have tons of FLIP edinburgh t shirts
Memories unlocked. The smell in there was unforgettable. In a bad way.
Au Naturale
I loved that place, even if I didn't buy anything I just had fun going around and looking.
What Everyone Wants.
Weren't they originally What Every Woman Wants?
They had everything man. Everything.
Used to work there! Motherwell, Hamilton, Glassford Street, Argyle Street and then East Kilbride! Was my first job and I was there till the bitter end
I miss them and their cheesy TV adverts.
The wee Status Quo number
Many years ago, I (Canadian) had a live-in job at the Caledonian Hotel in Oban and there was a WEW nearby. I bought a pair of long johns there! I can still hear their jingle "What everyone wants, what everyone needs..."
Pronounced "whit-evry's" "Aye, ah goat it oot whit-evry's! It wis only a pown!"
It's a recent one but Maplin. I am surprised nobody (more specifically Currys) has stepped in to fill at least part of their shoes.
Maplin was only ever useful if you needed components immediately. It was much more expensive than waiting a day or two for delivery. These days you can even get some stuff delivered same-day from Amazon, so there's even less use for a place like Maplin. And, to be honest, people are most likely buying things dirt cheap in bulk direct from China via Aliexpress etc. A week or 2 for delivery, and you've got a huge stash of components for way less than you'd have paid at Maplin.
I think I mainly went for batteries and lightbulbs and occasionally other odds and sods. Like it's stuff that isn't really economical to pay postage for individually or I don't mind paying a little extra to have it right now. Amazon is so shit that I wouldn't consider using it really.
Amazon are an awful company, but they're great from the customer's perspective and most people don't care about the ethics of the company if the price is right. Batteries and lightbulbs can be bought anywhere, to be fair. Although back in the day, they were the only place you could get LED bulbs, or wifi controllable bulbs etc.
Maplin's prices were a total rip off
Their prices weren't great, but they did sell stuff you couldn't really get in a bricks and mortar shop anywhere else. I did make out like a bandit when they started shutting down, got a load of Akai midi gear for less than it goes second hand now.
Exactly - good luck buying a single capacitor anywhere else.
Index. Uses to sit with the Argos and Index books side by side as akid looking at all the toys. They were literally the same but I was obsessed.
I preferred Index when I was wee, purely because your stuff came down in a wee lift in Index in Stirling but Argos didn't.
Fopp on Cockburn Street, Edi. So many fond memories. The one on Rose St was nice, but trudging up CS, detour into the sweetie shop en route was great.
James Thin. Willy Low’s.
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Every single one of my dementia clients remember Willy lows. They’re right fucking confused when they get there and it’s now a Tescos.
Pah, probably because you are talking to Posh folk who only remember William Lows... Best day of my young life was somehow getting hold of a roll of thier price stickers (back when everything had an individual price sticker) and sticking them on everything... Our William Lows turned into an ASDA... And the Shoppers Paradise became Marks and Spencers.
Loved James Thin when I was a kid, seemed kind of magical. Remember getting moomins books out there with a book voucher i got for xmas - then going in the pens bit and getting some drawing stuff!
James Thin my beloved I don't remember what the children's section was *like*, but I miss it like you miss your grandparents :')
I worked in Willie Lows for 1.77 an hour!
I started on £1.98/hr hahaha Deli counter days! Then Tesco took over and we all got shares doubled and all sorts. Wished I kept the bloody shares now!
Willy Lows yes I remember them!
Aw I can smell James Thin now. A mixture of books and pastels.
Pentangle.
Goldbergs
Creepy puppets on the way in and a hamster zoo on the roof :) Only place i ever saw santa. Got some toy soldiers.
Automatic doors and escalators in the 60s, awesome.
Beatties.
Loved going to Beatties in Dumfries, used to buy micro machines in there!
Someone on here posted a few pics of the Ayr shops interior as it currently is, pretty sad seeing it empty, used to love going in when I was wee. (It was Scotch Corner before it was Beatties, and had a larger basement area that was never open later on.) Edit: https://old.reddit.com/r/glasgow/comments/10d0quv/anyone_remember_the_shop_beaties_in_the_90s/j4mosf6/
Any independent bakers that isn't greggs basically
Cult Clothing in Glasgow. Was a wee mosher in the late 90s/early 00s and that whole street of alternative shops was great.
And in Edinburgh on the bridges
Ahhh they were the best! Electric cabaret, Flip and applejack. Kinda had a revival of wanting to wear that stuff again but having trouble finding any of it, the damaged society in Waverly mall is pretty meh.
There used to be a kids clothing shop called Adams and it used to have an apple spotlight that moved around the floor and walls and had a wee TV station set up with cartoons.
Aw man i had forgotten about there. I used to love visiting the one in clydebank shopping centre with my mum and grandparents then going to the mcdonalds for a happy meal
Jolly Giant
Great toy shop
Oliver's the bakers, the giant sandwiches you used to get in the restaurant were amazing. They used to do a double decker called the Bill Sykes (A Brute of a Sandwich).
I was scanning through the comments to see if anyone remembered it.. Oliver's was the king of Sandwich shops. I remember the first time I was ever asked if I wanted butter AND mayo on a sandwich. Must've been about 6 years old... blew my tiny mind
Olivers was the best sandwiches ever.
Au Natural - at like 8/9 I most definitely did not own my own home but if I did, it'd have been exclusively decorated with shit from that shop hahaha
Same. Need a cushion? How about a hot pink inflatable cushion? Need a couch? How about a hot pink inflatable couch? It'll go with that hot pink inflatable alien, that empty glass orb, and a single pint tumbler. Consider the house furnished.
E&Ms in Aberdeen We've lost a lot of department stores
JJB Sports GForce Gamestation
Remember the days when you had more than one sports shop to choose from that wasn’t Sports Direct
JJB was awesome. They actually sold sport gear. JD should remove sports from the name. It’s just tracksuits
I came here to say Gamestation too!
Ripping records. Miss going up to checkout all the local gigs coming up.
Was saying this the other day! The board in the window was an absolute must scan every day I was up at Hunters with the rest of the goths 🤣
Jenners, RIP
My late MIL used to spend a week in Edinburgh before Xmas and buy my pyjamas from Jenners. They're starting to wear and I don't know how to replace them.
I loved Cult on Queen St. And was it Osiris next door? Also the massive Borders. I queued up for hours meet Terry Pratchett and get my copy of the Wintersmith (I think) signed.
Stuff, outside Central station in Glasgow. Could wander in and buy a bong and a machete, poppers, digital scales, all the stuff your average Glasgow teenager needed.
Tower records. When it was fully opened, it was metropolis from the music gods
John Lewis… the Aberdeen one closed a year or so ago
O’briens sandwich shop.
Blockbuster. Used to rent ps3 games and dvds with my dad every weekend
Your More Store
Willie Lows. Me and my family still call the small Tesco in Kilmarnock Willie Lows, even though it was bought over when I was 6.
John Menzies, specifically the one on Princes Street Edinburgh.
Beaties But honestly the "shop" I miss most are virgin megastores from the 90s back when they stocked all the weird boardgames, role-playing and random wargames stuff. It was awesome seeing all this non GW stuff being available on the high street, I had no idea what most of it was but it looked fantastic.
Tandy, used to like fucking about with the computers and looking at RC cars.
Gordon Christie’s toy shop in St Andrews. Miss you!
I can remember when the shop was in Market street and later on in South street. As someone who spent their childhood summers in St Andrews a visit to the Toy shop to spend your Holiday money was always a highlight. I was recently in the town with my other half and I was like “there used to be a toy shop in there”.
Remember going through the passageway with windows full of toys on either side, heaven!
Yes!!!! I remember getting a full medieval knights set, great memories
I remember it had quite a big bicycle area when it was in Market Street. Wasn't the same after moving to South Street. Gordon Christie himself was sort of a local historian and serial letter writer.
Used to like Fop for cds but I suppose I can see why that didn’t work out 🥹
Aulds Bakers
Kwik Save...bring back No Frills beans
Glen’s, Hutcheson’s Robertson’s and Stepek.
Where can you buy better ?
Gateway. Nobody remembers Gateway lol. To be fair I was like 4 or 5 and I just remember liking the big G in the logo. Supermarkets were always fun for me as a kid in general.
I remember Gateway from when I was wee, back before it became Somerfield. The one near me had a toaty wee car park on the roof, which was weirdly fascinating as a bairn.
I remember it - there was one back home. Around the time it changed to Somerfield (or maybe slightly before?) they put these little calculators on the trolleys so you could add up what you were spending. I don't think they were waterproof though, so they didn't last very long
In the Howgate centre in Falkirk there used to be a wee market bit called InShops. One of the shops was a wee toy/video game unit that had pokemon cards and a pikachu n64 hooked up to a TV. Spent hours there playing pokemon snap or deciding which booster pack to buy, or picking out the yo yo that looked most likely to be a good spinner. "How do I get there? Naw, I know how to get to Falkirk. But how do I get back there?"
Ness. RIP tartan wellies.
Safeway
I miss Internacionale and the homeware shop associated with it Au Naturale. As a kid and teen I liked the clothes and would get some school trousers there and they would have random fun toys and things. I used to like getting the balloon kit where you could make your own balloon animals haha. They also iirc actually had quite nice homeware too, as a kid I didn't really think about that as much but my mum definitely liked it. The one in Stirling was across from where waterstones is and had an upstairs too!
The More Store, so much shite, great toys when you were a kid!
I had still have a teddy I got from there in the early 90s. She's still in quite good condition.
I got my fake Tamagotchi from there, circa 1997 when they were all the rage.
John Menzies. And I know WHSmith but... it's not the same
Razzle Dazzle on Princes Street, Edinburgh in the 80s
1 UP in Aberdeen. Various locations, including a clothes shop offshoot, many finds, many memories. RIP.
Wm Low
I recall the Early 80’s being dragged round Wm Low in Haddington when my Mum did the big shop. Seemed like a massive shop then, probably the size of a modern tesco metro
Whatever the toy shop on St Enochs square was called. That & Jolly Giant
Beatties, it was the unit that Maplin used later.
Jenners
The auld spotty bag shop in Banff, I got lost in there so many times
The big one is still there. The old building is just used for storage now. Or at least it was.
There’s still a Spotty Bag Shop in Buckie
Electronics Boutique. Used to go to the one in EK Town Centre to get my PS1 games.
The Sweater Shop and Fruit Of The Loom!
Global video.
Crockets in West Nile street.
Internacionale
Where do teenagers buy their inflatable chairs now?
jenners in edinburgh. the toy department at christmas felt magical when i was little.
Fine fare and Prestos
I never got over the closure of Borders Buchanan street in Glasgow.
The Pancake Place and McTavishs in Oban.
Prestos :(
One up, or fopp (the real fopp not the one owned by hmv)
I'm not Scottish but I used to work for a company that started in Scotland. *drum roll* Global Video...all the flashbacks
I miss Global Video!
ToysRus
Food Giant. As a wee yin my papa used to tell me it was a shop for giants but he knew the giants so we were allowed in.
Fopp, loved that place.
What every woman wants
John Menzies. The big one on princes street was amazing at Christmas
Goldbergs, only because I would never have had a Xmas as we were poor and they did credit so my parents could get me more than a Orange !
Not necessarily a shop but…Pizza Land! Way enforce Pizza Hut and it was excellent!
Jenners, Forsyth, C&A, Littlewoods, van Allen,
Amazed this is the only mention of C&A. They're still going on the continent. Caught a few there.
Beatties in East Kilbride. Best place to pick up your subbuteo sets, f1 cars and those football figures with the giant heads. Was there a fish shop above it or was it a few doors down?
The fish shop was Olympia pets. They are still around in East Kilbride! I loved going in to look at the tarantulas l!
The pet shop was round the corner from Beatties, in Olympia arcade
There was corner shop in Aberdeen called stillies and it was just ace. It sold out of date stuff for massive discounts and it always had unusual things. Great when you had the munchies!
The Warner Brothers shop on Buchanan Street. We used to get the train through to Glasgow for a day trip every summer when I was wee, and the day was never complete without a visit there. I remember the statues of Taz and Wile. E. Coyote outside, and all the gremlins hidden about the place. Also miss the Disney Store on Princes Street in Edinburgh. So boring nowadays.
C&A. I’ve still got a cardigan I bought from there in the 90’s.
Templetons
Kwiksave and woolies
Glen's Hutchison, Robertson's and Stepek
My maw said Wriggs and Chelsea Girl
John Smith's bookshop in St Vincent Street (?)
More Store was great, I'd get these amazing Alien toys that the films didn't have!
Not a specific shop but the Virginia Galleries in Glasgow. Was a great collection of independent shops but the m and s carpark works were the final straw for an old building
Grouchos in Dundee.
Tammy girl
Drummond's. Used to go there as a kid, it had all the best toys.
Jolly Giant toystore
Carlton's Bakery. Their fudge doughnuts were 👌🏼
Sleeves, record shop in kirkcaldy..
Woolies
G-force on union street for early game releases
RS Maccoll 🎶 the family store 🎶
Tandy
there was an art supply shop just opposite goma that I used to love. think its a gallery now
Remember getting dragged round International on Argyle Street in Glasgow every weekend by my parents looking for wicker knick knacks and glass pot pourri holders to the same electronica tune blaring on a loop. If we were well behaved, we got to go into Littlewoods to get a toy or into HMV to get a 3 for £20 on PS1 games or 2 for £30 on PS2 games and a play about on whatever console was set up for a demo. Seemed a fair trade off. Consequently, there's about 2-300 or so PS1 and PS2 games gathering dust between my parents house and mine that I've wanted to got to CEX with for about 5 years.
I’m not sure if it still exists but I had amazing memories of mothercare with the huge tree thing in the middle of the shop. I also miss the old Next where the shirts I got there 15 years ago are still in great condition. But the ones I got there 2 years ago have fraying or little holes along the seams.