Wednesday 22nd February 1984
Woke up at 9.15 and got up at 9.45. Then I rang Doug to see if he could come down and go to Stockton and he could so I walked Poggy Doggy down and met him. We got the 11.00 bus to Stockton, and first we went in Smiths and saw an A Team book.
On the way down to Uptons we saw the knight rider car in the shopping centre and in Uptons we looked at the videopac games. Then we got some grey paint from Woolworths and some stickers from Dressers. Then we got some red paint from Leslie Browns. Came home at 1.30, Had a bacon sandwich then went to Dougs and touched up K9 with wood putty.
Then we started a cricket program on the ZX. After that we went on Conyers field and played football, Then we had tea. At 7.20 Doug’s mam came for him and I played on the videopac. Then I read my MAD and played on the ZX. After that at 8.40 I tidied some Dr Who mags up and at 9.00 I watched Minder. 10.00 Went to bed.
What a daring leap into a very alien world of retail! We visited four high street shops on this ambitious expedition to Stockton, and… wait for it… none of them are there any more. Yikes.
Well, alright… there’s still a WH Smiths in Stockton, but it’s not in the same place. In 1984, Smiths was a cornerstone of the town’s thriving High Street, but it recently moved to smaller premises in an almost-but-not-quite-out-of-town retail park away behind the opposite side of the street. It now looks like it’s hiding from the rough, tough bullies of Pound Shops and discount bars that seem to have taken over the main part of the High Street.
Of the rest… well, I’m sure anyone but the most dedicated troglodyte (who, as we all know, do all their weekly shopping online) knows about the demise of Woolies.
I walked past the old Stockton branch last week, and it was a sad sight… the classic Woolworths sign still hangs forlornly over a completely empty and desolate shop unit. It looked cold, and old, and lonely… and several times smaller than the bustling, busy shop that I remember as a kid – filled with colours and toys and sweets and exciting Star Wars goodies. And, of course, grey paint… for our model K9’s wooden body, in case you were wondering.
Uptons was a North-Eastern department store pretty much next to Woolies in the Castlegate Shopping Centre. It had a thriving electrical department where my parents’ friend Alex worked… a funny, dapper little man with Kenny Everett’s beard and, on his desk, a pile of home-made TDK D90 compilation tapes labelled ‘Now That’s What Alex Calls Terrible Music’ with a Berol Handwriter pen. I thought this was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen. I’d like to say I didn’t get out much, but my 1984 diary pretty much proves otherwise.
Dressers was another small North-Eastern business, a stationary shop (as in it sold stationary… although let’s face it, it didn’t move about much either) crammed full of oil paints and coloured pencils and exciting piles of sticky-on Letraset. The stickers that we bought were just plain, coloured labels to put on top of K9’s control box to give the impression of brightly flashing knobs and buttons. Anyone who laughed there at the phrase ‘brightly flashing knobs’… go and sit at the back of the class. And face the wall, we don’t want to see your horrible face.
And Leslie Browns!!!!! Oh, bestill my beating heart. Leslie Browns was a family-run toyshop right at the heart of Stockton High Street, and I LOVED IT WITH ALL MY HEART. Half of my 1970s and 80s Star Wars collection came from here (the other half from Middlesbrough’s similarly brilliant Romer Parrish shop) and – in 1980 – I got my Empire Strikes Back book signed here by Boba Fett. Yes, the REAL Boba Fett. He tramped down the stairs (from the model train department) and was mobbed by a throng of horrible kids waving Star Wars Imperial Blasters at him. I’ve no idea what he was doing in Stockton, but I like to think he went for a wander around the market afterwards, and maybe bought a side of beef, a fresh cauliflower and some sports socks (three pairs for a pound) for Darth Vader.
The red paint we bought was modelling paint for K9’s ‘eyes’. I love the above picture, by the way… although what it doesn’t show is that the ‘ball’ being thrown by the little boy to the little girl on the shop’s front actually ‘moved’… the lights lit up to show it going backwards and fowards. Hooray, it’s like a Pink Floyd live show!
Leslie Brown’s itself stayed open until 1991, and on its last day of trading I nicked off from sixth form and had one last look around for old times sake. I was eighteen, and on the way out a little tear ran down my face. I’m so bloody soft.
There is, of course, a huge elephant in the room here. Or, rather, a huge talking car in the Castlegate Shopping Centre. Hem, hem…
‘we saw the knight rider car in the shopping centre’
What?!?!??! How on Earth did this happen, and how on Earth do I have NO RECOLLECTION OF THIS WHATSOEVER? The Castlegate Shopping Centre is pretty modestly-sized, and it smells permanently of butchers shops and floor polish, so it’s hard to imagine that The Hoff himself made the journey (unless he fancied a swift half of floor polish). Presumably, then, the car was doing a solo tour in its capacity as the Art Garfunkel of the partnership. It’s gone from my mind completely, though. Can any Stockton-ites remember this at all?
I never watched Knight Rider mind you, I thought it was rubbish and too far-fetched. Much more realistic to have, say, an 800-year-old Time Lord pottering around the galaxy in a battered police box…
I tried to get onto Conyers field today to make a little film (it’s Yarm’s comprehensive school, and has huge expanses of football and rugby pitches) but it’s all fenced off and shuttered up these days. Until very recently you used to be able to wander around the fields and school grounds at will at all times of day and night, but now it’s like Stalag Luft. I’m not sure whether the intention is to keep the grotty bloggers out or the grotty schoolkids in.
And ‘went to Dougs and touched up K9’. Ha! Ha! Ha! Alright, I’m joining you at the back of the class. Facing the wall.
Wiffle Lever To Full! 
If you are anything like me then it possibly wasn’t the Knight Rider car. When I was a kid every black van belonged to the A-team and every camper van contained Sooty and Co.
Saying that, I was walking to work a few weeks ago and a little smart car drove past PAINTED ENTIRELY LIKE SCOOBY DOO’S MYSTERY MACHINE!