We are all used to seeing Closing Down Sales, perhaps going along and feeling like vultures, the short term thrill of grabbing a bargain, followed by the realisation your favourite shop is gone for good.

The closing down of well known and loved store chains has become a feature of this century, hastened by economic downturns, pandemics and the connected rise in the popularity of on line shopping.

My first simple shopping experience was the corner shop a short distance from our flat, the top half of a Victorian terrace on a main road. It was run by two ‘old ladies’, one of whom was called Dolly. I thought it a very strange name for an adult human, but assumed Dolly Mixtures, the only sweets I was allowed, were named after her. At some stage in my first six years of life I was seen across the road by Mum to trot up to the shop by myself. I knew the road was dangerous as a neighbour used to warn me; delighting in telling the story of a boy who ran out of his house and got run over.

When we moved to a new house in Farnborough, Hampshire shopping changed radically. No shops nearby, but there was a butcher’s boy who came on his bike, a box of groceries the milkman delivered and a greengrocer’s van. We were amused by the greengrocer’s strong Hampshire accent and used to do imitations – Oi’ve gut som noice roipe tomaters. This was a time of opening up, not closing down and in time a shopping centre appeared with new ‘supermarkets’ like Finefare and more importantly to me, a Woolworths. As well as toys you could buy anything. On each of their birthdays I would buy Dad a bag of nails, if I asked him what he wanted he always said a bag of nails as he loved woodwork. Mum would get a new makeup bag, probably the previous year’s cheap bag had worm out by then and some bath cubes. It seemed you could buy anything there from sweets to Ladybird children’s clothes.

When we emigrated to Perth, Western Australia when I was eleven, to another new house on another new estate, shopping changed again. The only nearby shop, up a sandy track that was the unmade stretch of our road, was the Greek corner shop. All the corner shops were run by hardworking Greeks and Italians.

On Saturday the main shops in towns closed at noon, so Mum and Dad left me in charge of my brother and sister and dashed to Victoria Park to do a Big Shop, the first time this expression was used in our family.

After a while, with new houses and families arriving, Tom The Cheap Grocer appeared up the road and evolved into a little shopping centre and we encountered our first delicatessen. 

When I returned to England for my six month working holiday, that I’m still on, Woolworths was still going strong in every town. I thought they would be here forever. When we were married and bought our first place, having to sell the car to afford the mortgage, our nearby town was so dull it did not even make it into the ‘Book of One Hundred Crap Towns’, but it did have a Woolworths, whatever else closed Woolworths remained. There was also a Big Sainsbury. After dropping my son at school and my daughter at playgroup I would sprint with the baby in the pram and dash round grabbing the many items that were cheaper than the little local shop.

Then a big shopping centre was built on the other side of town and we heard that our Sainsburys was closing down. I could not believe they could do that to a loyal customer like me. It was to be replaced by Wilkinsons, never heard of them, coming down from the north. I said I certainly would not be shopping there. I was reminded of my words often as I became a keen shopper in Wilkos, where you could get everything, gardening to gadgets, cleaning to cushions…

When we came to Bournemouth in 2004 sure enough there was a Wilkinsons in Bournemouth town centre and in Boscombe, which also had a TJ Hughes, already well known to us from holiday breaks. You could buy anything from shoes to suitcases and like Wilkinsons it was a godsend for students needing cheap crockery and bedding.

In Bournemouth Square there was a Borders with a basement full of CDs and of course a floor full of books. Open till ten pm, very cosmopolitan. We had three department stores and a BHS and Marks and Spencer.

I won’t bore you with the order in which all these shops disappeared, some chains collapsing completely, others with branches surviving elsewhere. Woolworths was the biggest shock, we had a branch in Southbourne Grove.

When I started having appointments at Poole hospital, one hour’s bus ride away, I realised they had better shops, not to mention a proper shopping centre with nice toilets. I don’t actually like shopping as an activity, but after covid lockdown it was an exciting novelty to go shopping again.

Poole still had a Beales department store, a Wilko and a Marks and Spencer. No sooner had I discovered that Marks and Spencer sold post-surgery bras than they announced they were closing their Poole branch. Beales and Wilko followed.

Sometimes shops stay empty, sometimes the fun returns. Wilko reopened in Poole under new ownership? Debenhams in Bournemouth Square reopened as Bobby’s, which apparently is what the original store was called before Debenhams took over. Not as a department store in the traditional sense, it is an ongoing ‘reimagining of the concept’. That means you can’t buy clothes, bedding or curtains there, but it has had an art gallery, now a work space, had a pet boutique, now a Makers’ Market… and now a restaurant on the top floor.

Borders became a Tesco, New Look became a restaurant. Primark is still there and some shoe shops, but if you need to have a good look round for clothes you are out of luck. However, you can buy clothes for Teddy. Build-a-Bear is still going strong.

Meanwhile back in Southbourne Grove… Woolworths stores all closed in 2009. Our Woolworths miraculously turned into The Ludo Lounge, with its fun décor, old wooden furniture and games and books it looked like it had always been there. A café bar that appealed to everyone. On the roof garden you can still see the old Woolworths sign. We thought it was unique, but actually the lounge chain started in 2002 and there are now 250 lounges and you can get a lounge passport. Lounge fans enjoy visiting other branches. In Christchurch a large hardware shop became the Arcado Lounge.

Have you lost a favourite shop, or lost your job when a shop closed?