Nostalgia by Robert Heaven

BEFORE the invention of the internet and the ability of being able to shop for anything from the comfort of your sofa, as well as actual shops, we also had mail order catalogues such as Littlewood and Great Universal.

These catalogues were popular because large items could be ordered and delivered, and payments spread over a number a weeks.

You owned the goods from the day you took delivery, unlike Hire Purchase where ownership only passed to you when the final payment was made.

Catalogue goods were expensive, but HP incurred interest.

Catalogues were fine, but you really had to go to a shop in person to get most things.

Before the days of plastic, you paid in cash or cheque if you had a bank account - many people didn’t.

Getting the items home also had to be arranged because in the 60s only a few shops delivered.

Timothy Whites in the Market Place would deliver, but only as long as the items would fit into the wicker basket on the delivery bike.

Ted Ford delivered TV sets with his Morris van, but that was because he rented them out rather than sold them.

I can’t think of anyone that did actually buy a TV set in the 1960s.

If you had a car in the1960s it was possible to park outside many Ciren shops to collect your shopping - an impossible task nowadays and a major incentive to buy online and avoid the hassle of a parking ticket or being unable to find a space in the car parks.

Despite the ease of internet shopping, there’s nothing like going into a proper shop to try things on or see what they look like for real.

Somehow an image on a computer screen or iPhone just isn’t the same as buying a pair of trousers in Boultons and seeing your money whizzing off across the shop to the cashier on the overhead railway payment system of wires.