Great Western Coffee Shop

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3n3en7gppo

Jerome K Jerome, writing in the eighteen eighties:

"From Medmenham to sweet Hambledon Lock the river is full of peaceful beauty, but, after it passes Greenlands, the rather uninteresting looking river residence of my newsagent—a quiet unassuming old gentleman, who may often be met with about these regions, during the summer months, sculling himself along in easy vigorous style, or chatting genially to some old lock-keeper, as he passes through—until well the other side of Henley, it is somewhat bare and dull."

The house survives, as Henley Business School's 'Greenlands' campus.

https://www.henley.ac.uk/why/campuses/greenlands (https://www.henley.ac.uk/why/campuses/greenlands)

Mark

Sad in a way, but it's become a bit like Woolworths, a relic from a past era, with no real effort (or perhaps opportunity) to update.

I see the branches at stations and airports remain open to sell the most expensive bottles of water on the planet!

Alias Smith and Jones.

Its branches at motorway service stations aren't mentioned but perhaps they'll continue too. Heading home on the M54 after dusk I once made the mistake of developing a serious headache, called in at the service station and WHS sold me a 16 pack of very ordinary insoluble aspirin for around £86:90. (I exaggerate, but not by much...).

Another curious (non)transaction, day two of a return from northern scotland and after the Thelwall Viaduct, the M6 & M5 serially horked, so, headed off down the M56 intending an escape via Chester(ish) and mid-Wales**. Finding the vehicle's atlas to be woeful, called into a motorway service station for an A to Z UK map or similar. "Oh I'm sorry, we don't sell paper maps any more"... followed by the famous response to someone who has literally just asked for the item in question... "...there's no call for them".

Mark

** The escape was successful once Wrexham was in the rear view mirror. The entire two day journey was memorable for the number of road traffic accidents encountered, every single one at junctions onto major roads. Literally sat there and reflected that we'd passed three on the wales segment of the journey alone, all on a lovely summer's evening. I then contrasted that with the fact that in my entire life I've never encountered, face to face, a sniff of an accident involving moving rail vehicles, even on the occasion when Porthmadoc level crossing gates were being as provocative as they possibly could.

In my youth, WHSmith was where I used to go to buy books, records, cassette tapes, school stationery and just standing around reading their magazines. I have no need for any of that now. As MarkA mentioned they are so expensive now. To me, they have lost their relevance being undercut by other retailers. I will not mourn their demise like I did with Woolworths & Wilko.

Except they're not actually going anywhere. Just being bought out and renamed. I'm not sure what the new buyer sees in the stores. Maybe we'll find them all converted to something else in a year or two.

Blimey, that brought back a memory from childhood as I recall my father was sent on what seemed like a fairly lengthy residential course there in the 1960s.