Category
The names that were on every high street and are now a vape shop.
22 things
A man on a tricycle with a cold box on the front, ringing a bell along the seafront and through the estates.
Meat was the last thing to come off ration in July 1954, ending a system that had outlasted the war by nine years.
Scrap metal and old clothes collected door to door, in exchange for a few coppers or a goldfish in a bag.
Britain's first mass loyalty scheme: stamps at the petrol pump and the grocer, pasted into books and redeemed against a catalogue of things you d
Jars on a shelf, brass scales, and a quarter of whatever you pointed at, twisted shut at the corners.
Cigarette vending machines bolted to shop fronts, with a drawer that clattered out and change taped inside the packet.
Grattan, Kays, Littlewoods: a doorstop catalogue delivered in autumn, with the toy section thumbed to destruction by November.
Argos opened in 1973, built directly on the Green Shield Stamps catalogue business, and invented a very British way to shop.
Friday night, a wall of big plastic cases, and the film you actually wanted already out.
The freezer centre was a whole shop of frozen food, and going there meant a chest freezer in the garage.
The greatest confectionery format ever devised, weighed at the till and eaten before you got to the bus stop.
The Christmas edition landed in autumn and the toy section was destroyed by December.
The ritual of choosing a film as a family, which took forty minutes and ended in a compromise nobody wanted.
Joining a video shop was a small administrative event involving a utility bill.
The stubby pen used to write catalogue numbers on a paper slip, deliberately too small to steal and stolen constantly.
Smoking in enclosed public places was banned in England in July 2007, and the British pub changed overnight.
807 stores, 27,000 staff, and the moment the British high street visibly changed.
Blockbuster UK went into administration for the second time in 2013 and closed every remaining store.
HMV went into administration in 2013, closing dozens of stores, and became the last mainstream place to buy a physical album.
A fixed-price lunch combination that became a national institution and a genuine economic indicator.
All 100 UK stores closed in 2018, ending the out-of-town toy superstore.
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