Remembering the High Street

Book excerpt: A nostalgic trip down the British high street, remembering once famous names such as Woolworths, Athena and C&A and also featuring current favorites, including the ubiquitous Tesco and Marks & Spencer which started life as a penny market stall to become a retail giant that has had to adapt to survive. Full of fact boxes and quirky facts about much-loved shops and the people behind them just who was W.H. Smith and what did those famous initials stand for? A fascinating book which charts the rise and, in too many cases, fall of our favorite shops.There used to be butcher, baker, grocer, greengrocer, draper, Boots, ironmonger (hardware), pub, WH Smith, cafe, bank, Freeman Hardy and Willis, jeweler, Marks and Spencer, furniture shop, hotel, bookseller, off license, haberdasher, Woolworth's, confectioner, cobbler, tobacconist, electrical showroom, Burton's, gas showroom, ladies' fashions, gentlemen's outfitters, and more, and maybe a department store, and several versions of some. What do we have now? Pound shop, charity (thrift) shop, building society branch, betting shop, coffee shop, charity shop, shop boarded up, building society branch, sandwich shop, shop boarded up, kebab takeaway, charity shop, card shop, Indian takeaway, mobile phone shop - we exaggerate but make the point. So what has gone wrong - if it is wrong? The author discusses these and many other topics, and answers hundreds of burning questions. Whatever happened to the Home and Colonial, Timothy White's, Lipton's, the District Bank, the Fifty Shilling Tailor? Who were Jesse Boot, Montague Burton, W H Smith? How did the Co-op start? Whatever happened to all those things we used to buy in those shops in the high street - Balkan Sobranie, Caley Tray, Oxydol, Phillips Stick-a-soles, Icilma Cream, Mansion Polish, Mrs Peek's Puddings? Does any girl still dream of going to work in her Maidenform bra?