If You Could

Pearls said:

Open a business that would have been thriving years ago but because of times changing, died a death with new ideas and trends, what would you bring back and why?

So I used to love going to a particular cafe and have a coffee or tea with a toasted tea cake or a typical full monty.

I don't want to see a menu for coffee!
What is a frappy mochy frothy or a skinny mini thingy, an iced mocha....

I want to order a damn coffee and that's it.
We have a city now with only one remaining traditional cafe, years ago there would be one on every corner, now we are left with Costa and card board cups for a fiver a throw.

I good old cafe with all the coffee stained cups you can drink at under a pound, it would make a killing

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* caff

A good old fashioned traditional British Corset Company .... not all these cheap copies being shipped in from China

It would have to b a family run bakers ooh the smell of fresh bread being made and ready to buy early hrs of the morning

Therapon said:

First thought would be one of those little shops that sold a bit of everything and I dont want to get off track but a shop where the staff actually knew what they were selling.

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The DIY/Food/Wine/Nails store in Camberwell

They're not extinct but on the endangered list (what with the ruthless leviathan Amazon eating up the market) but

A nice, musty, quietly chaotic and pleasantly surprising secondhand bookshop.

Kinda place where I could lose myself for a couple of hours...

actually, bring back Hamley's - that was a wonder emporium when I were a lad, it's a shadow of itself now

Record shops.

Hours spent flicking through stacks of cardboard-clad vinyl, listening to others' conversations about what they're going to buy (and IMMEDIATELY judging their whole lives by their choices), showing your mates what you'd found and then taking it to the counter, to be sneered at by the punk behind the counter, who was into that band years before you but doesn't like them now that all the kids are into them.

Heaven.

Pearls said:

Oh good choice, not the same now with downloads and Itune thingies

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Used to spend my Saturdays bouncing between Derricks, Musiquarium and Virgin Records (before they started selling mobile phones and shite)

Ah when I was but a snot-nosed, barely formed spunk bubble, I remember a huge shop on the Caversham Road in Reading. It was called “Walls Carnival Stores”; the width of 4 ordinary shop fronts and two floors of absolutely madness. Imagine the little joke shops you had as a child, and scale that up to an emporium or arcade full of oversized feet, inflatable breasts, every piece of rubber/plastic contraption known to man and viewable children… wandering and wondering through its cavernous rooms, to find magic tricks and marbles, sneezing powder and snapping gum, pepper sweets and polystyrene planes. It was a riot of colour and garish unfunny practical jokes that delighted me so.


Then when I was 12 or so, I started to notice the huge fancy dress section and on a Saturday afternoon the couples and singles rifling through the clothes stands picking out costumes (for some reason fancy dress parties were HUGE in the 80’s) and then the most magical of places a confused pubescent boy can discover….. the changing rooms. Nonchalantly perusing the accessories that accompanied these costumes (pirate eye patches, swords, inflatable bananas, cat tails and bunny ears to name a few…), I would hope to catch a glimpse of a woman as she exited these mysterious dens that exuded perfume and the smell of harmony hairspray…. to ask her partner or friend’s opinion on their latest costume choice. A love of suspender belts and fishnet stocks then took hold of me, a garter wriggled up a thigh and I was in happy for a week…


….of course I was a pervy boy, peeking at these ladies, but my love of all things “dressy” has its genesis there, even today I cannot see a sexy nurses outfit without thinking of that place and wondering (and hoping) whether electric blue or green eyeshadow and baby pink shiny lipstick will ever come back in fashion……


Oh to reminisce…..

Admin said:

Am sure that this would be in serious call too... I know a place who'd gladly help get something like that back on track too as it happens.
xx

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Sounds very interesting :hmm:

Her_him69 said:

A good old fashioned traditional British Corset Company .... not all these cheap copies being shipped in from China

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Vollors corset makers ..

Terryg said:

Vollors corset makers ..

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used to work for a company that made PVC/leather lingerie and had a few dealings with this company!

Terryg said:

used to work for a company that made PVC/leather lingerie and had a few dealings with this company!

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When was this ?

Her_him69 said:

When was this ?

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Bloody hell now your asking, 20 years ago, are they no good now?

Terryg said:

Bloody hell now your asking, 20 years ago, are they no good now?

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Will pm u !!

Pearls said:

Open a business that would have been thriving years ago but because of times changing, died a death with new ideas and trends, what would you bring back and why?

So I used to love going to a particular cafe and have a coffee or tea with a toasted tea cake or a typical full monty.

I don't want to see a menu for coffee!
What is a frappy mochy frothy or a skinny mini thingy, an iced mocha....

I want to order a damn coffee and that's it.
We have a city now with only one remaining traditional cafe, years ago there would be one on every corner, now we are left with Costa and card board cups for a fiver a throw.

I good old cafe with all the coffee stained cups you can drink at under a pound, it would make a killing

Click to expand...

A traditional local ironmongers. 'Nuff said. I miss them, and the stuff we used to be able to get at them.. I think they'd still make a lot of money if done correctly and a traditional one was set up.
Oils, paraffin, Tilley Lamps and the smell of leather too, as well as rope, chains, anchor points, buckles, fastners and the such xx

I was brought up in the country. Shooting was a way of life.. it was common place in our house.. we all shot..
Now this isnt a shop i would bring back for obvious reasons. But....
I used to buy my older brother, with saved up pocket money, every birthday and Christmas. A box of cartridges.. always remember the name Eley shotgun cartridges for a twelve bore.
I used to skip to the local gun shop, from being i think the tender age of 8 and buy them.
Its the smell i remember, the gun oil. The dimly lit shop, the rack upon rack of shotguns for customers to handle, all just sitting there, very nonshaluntly, like tins of beans in the local morrisons.
I still see his ruddy face, n beanie hat now.
Alright lassie your kids Birthday again is it! A box of the best? Ees a lucky un your brother.
How times have changed.