Vintage Stuff: March 2016

About Vintage Stuff

The aim of Vintage Stuff is to display some of the ephemera that I have collected, often inadvertently, over the years. I am now deliberately seeking out interesting old adverts, screen shots, leaflets, obscure record covers, picture postcards and illustrations; anything that catches my eye, in fact. They will be mainly, but not exclusively of UK origin (so many vintage blogs appear to be American) and almost always a scan from something that I actually have in my collection, rather than off the net. If you do re-blog, please acknowledge the source. Further stuff, mainly photographs, can be found on my Flickr pages, via the Benny Hill record cover.

Friday, 4 March 2016

Home time

Remembering a time when lines of buses and trams would await home-going workers in industrial towns, Sheffield Corporation trams gather in Bridge Street, outside the works of Gilbow Tool & Steel Co. during the 1950s.

Wednesday, 2 March 2016

Happy Birthday Brent Cross!

Brent Cross Shopping Centre was opened forty years ago today, on 2 March 1976, amid some speculation that it would remain a 'white elephant' and that no-one would want to shop in such an environment. It was the first of it's kind in London, although pre-dated by those in Birmingham (1964) and Leicester (1973), and of course went on to be a great success.

Built on former allotment and waste ground in the London Borough of Barnet, rather than developed from an existing site, this Dixon's commercial postcard shows the centre when quite new with London Transport RML/DMS/SMS types on service in the adjoining bus station.