Well known high street stores - Now defunct

guitars4you

Tammy + Tammy Girl

Focus DIY

Beatties model shop - spent many hours in there

Chelsea Girl

Thomas Cook

Banana Republic - Recall it was part of Gap or some link there

Timothy Whites

mudslide73

Threshers. After their crazy christmas wine coupon disaster (sounds like a good name for a band!).

prowla

mudslide73 said:

Threshers. After their crazy christmas wine coupon disaster (sounds like a good name for a band!).

Ratners

Blackjack

Little Chef
Happy Eater
Etams
Index - a bit like Argos

Nitefly

Green Shield Stamp stores.

boogieman

Nitefly said:

Green Shield Stamp stores.

Which became Argos. 

fandango

Beatties model shop (sold Hornby train sets, remote control cars, airfix kits, etc etc). There was one in Kingston-upon-Thames way back.

fandango

Skinners department store, which was taken over by Allders dept stores. (Sutton, Croydon)

Axe_meister

Tandy
Wendies

C&A (although still around in Germany)

SNAKEBITE

There is a Wimpy in Worthing too.

Nothing like a bender followed by a brown derby.

HAL9000

Blackjack said:

Little Chef

There are still a handful of Little Chefs about.

prowla

Allders

boogieman

Blockbuster video

ESBlonde

Redeffusion

Rumbellows

Liptons

John Collier (The window to watch)

Radio Shack

guitars4you

Laura Ashley - Maybe I've posted this a few weeks to early !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reverend

Wimpy is still around.

Threshers are no online. 

EricTheWeary

I know I've posted this before but every time I go into a branch of Boots it's like being in somewhere that's about to close. It's owned by US company Walgreens so they may not want to hang onto it whilst profits plunge further and further.  

randella

ESBlonde said:

Redeffusion

It wasn't a surprise when the TV rental companies went under; as soon as the big Japanese electronics manufacturers started making sets that didn't fail once a year I guess it just didn't make sense to rent them any longer.

That said - Rediffusion should be noted for probably the first stab at cable TV in the country.  Anyone else remember that?  The rotary selector where the cable came into the house, and hooked up with their special receivers?

Memories from school.  There will be younger folk reading this thinking What the hell's grandad on about now? - but it really was a thing.

RobDavies

They’ve probably already been mentioned, but the places that I remember spending a great deal of time and money in:

Our Price
Tandy
Beatties
John Menzies

exocet

EricTheWeary said:

I know I've posted this before but every time I go into a branch of Boots it's like being in somewhere that's about to close. It's owned by US company Walgreens so they may not want to hang onto it whilst profits plunge further and further.  

I could be talking out of my arse but I do find Boots to be an allegory for UK approach to industry. Years ago, Boots was much more than a High Street Chemists - it had a Pharmaceuticals research arm, they discovered and developed drugs e.g. Ibuprofen. Then they break it up in the name of shareholder value, loose control of the profitable / future business and are stuck with an ailing High Street / retail only model with no USP?