Three decades of Xmas

H Christmas time - what better opportunity to wallow in a bit of nostalgia?!

With the big day just around the corner, everyone is busy scrambling around to buy just the right gifts for family and friends.

Of course, there once was a time, before the internet made the daunting task of Christmas shopping slightly easier, when we actually had to leave the house to do it all, usually after pouring over adverts and catalogues to decide what to splash the cash on.

We’ve delved into the archives of the Heywood Advertiser, Middleton Guardian, Rochdale Observer and Manchester Evening News to take a look back at some of the things we were buying in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

Here are a few of our favourite adverts, featuring a number of sadly long gone independent stores and a few household names some of which are still with us and some dearly departed. when Kendals was actually Kendals and not just the name we still all use to refer to House of Fraser.

Over in Rochdale meanwhile, one very lucky child was getting a Silver Cross dolls’ pushchair from Ivesons for Christmas in 1964 (see below), but only if their parents had £13 and five shillings to spare equivalent to about £180 in 2017.

It would be unthinkable nowadays, but back in 1964, getting a fur coat for Christmas from Lowndes shop in Bury (below right) would have been the height of sophistication.

Father Christmas’s work is never done. Back in 1964 he was doing the rounds at Heywood Co-op, maybe even picking himself up a record player for 14 guineas (far right).

This Tesco advert ran in the Rochdale Observer back in December 1973, the same month the store opened for the first time in the town. The Kodak Instamatic camera sounds like a bargain at £7.95 - although that’d

Meanwhile, over at Asda (right), shoppers could find a host of modern, top-of-the range electrical goodies, from cassette recorders to radiograms. It was even open until 8pm for a bit of evening shopping.

Rochdale town centre shop David Greig (second right), meanwhile, has all manner of tipples on offer from just 29p, as well as milk for 8p and even Christmas crackers for 45p. page) promised ‘the widest selection of gifts in Middleton’, including a fragrant Hai Karate talc and aftershave combo for a bargain price of 99p. Customers were even encouraged to bring their neighbour shopping with them to help save petrol.

We love that this charming pinny advert from Beech Tree (bottom right) could have come right out of the fifties, but is actually from 1989.

It’s reassuring to know that some things never change. We wonder how many men woke up to a Lynx shower gel and deodorant set in 1989? Yours for the bargain price of £2.69 from Wilkinson in Middleton (bottom of page).