RapidAssistant wrote:We've had lost car dealers, lost Wimpy bars, lost department stores and lost record shops, but anyone remember other big chains that were once big household names and were merged, went out of business or otherwise fell into the forgotten trench of history....and can you remember where they were???
Some examples:
- Dodge City - Scottish DIY chain that was swallowed up by B&Q in the early 1980s; there was one on Hamilton Road, that finally closed as a B&Q in 2005 when the big one was built in Parkhead, torn down to make way for houses. Can anyone remember any others?
- Templetons Supermarket - (I believe Galbraiths were part of the same group); absorbed into Presto. then Safeway. There was one on Westmuir Street in Parkhead; it is now a Farmfoods I think.
- Clydesdale (the electrical retailer); there were several in Glasgow as it was a local firm. Think they got swallowed up by Dixons/Currys in the end. There was one on Jamaica St for sure, another on Duke Street, and they had a unit in the Forge, Parkhead as well which replaced the Westmuir Street branch.
- SSEB/Scottish Power; remember the big one on Sauchiehall Street opposite C&A's/Dunnes Stores?
...over to you!
The biggest cause by far of the loss of all British Industry was the lack of investment put into it which meant they couldn't improve to keep up with much cheaper foriegn stuff. Back in 1978 British Steel where getting a million quid a day from the taxpayer just to try and stay in business, very little of that money if in fact in was invested in the company. One of BS employees wrote into the paper that in a Sheffield plant the canteen cutterly had made in Korea engraved on it. British Leyland in the early 1980's where being robbed by there employers of hundreds of millions worth of car parts and even whole engines every year. My uncle worked as a delivery man with Clydesdale in the late 70's and told me that they where stealing loads of things like tv.s and music centres and loading them into their lorries and selling them every time they picked up a load at the warehouse. The minimum wage didn't help much either unless you were lucky enough to be able to keep your job
instead of lose it to a foriegn country where your wage could pay ten men. By the end of the 1980's almost all ICI's patents had run out and they invested the money to get others. British Steel are now run by an Indian company Corus and have been well invested in and are doing well.