Whatever happened to those friendly shops?

This hark back to a quarter-century ago - prompted by my 25th anniversary with the Comet - has been much taken up with the little independent shops that were such a friendly presence at that time.

There were so many of them, and they gave the town so much of its special character, that I must just mention a couple more.

Thomas's coffee, tea and tobacco business at 5 Eden Street had been in Kingston since Victorian times and John and Ralph Jones, the genial brothers who acquired it in 1968, retained all its old customs. Victorian scales weighed up the goods; teas were stored in fine old hand-lacquered canisters; paper bags rested upside down on 19th century metal cones so they were ready for use immediately; and customers could help themselves to a pinch of snuff from two containers mounted on rams horns that had once belonged to Kingston's Empire Theatre.

Now the brothers, and the scent of roasting coffee, have gone, and Thomas's Victorian time warp had been converted into an employment agency.

Another fascinating shop was 10 Thames Street. Here, in a 300-year-old building that was once the Blue Anchor tavern, the Harrison family traded as gentlemen's oufitters for more than 70 years.

The Blue Anchor had been a favourite tippling and lodging house for the hundreds of bargees and watermen who passed through the town when it was a thriving inland park. They slept in a series of little attic rooms, and Mr Harrison had these converted into a workroom where he carried out his widely advertised "superior tailoring for gentlemen."

That room was deserted by 1974, but all the accoutrements of old English tailoring at its finest were still there, just as Percy Harrison had left them. There was the long bench, where 15 tailors once sat cross-legged at their work. There was the vent which served the open gas range used to heat up the flat-irons. There were the square tablets of Hancock's chalk, used to mark out the fabric; glossy piles of real leather buttons; wooden shoulder shapers; bales of linen; and reels of pure linen thread, brittle with age.

Percy Harrison died in 1931, and his young son Ivan took over the business four years later, when he left school.

He could remember when Thames Street was noted as "the Bond Street of Kingston." It contained some of the most elegant shops in Surrey and included royalty in the "carriage" trade which flocked there.

By the time I got to know him, 25 years ago, Thames Street had been ravaged by planning blight (because of a riverside relief road that never materialised) but Ivan Chapman was doggedly hanging on so his faithful staff could reach their retirement there.

Younger customers had deserted him for the dressed-down casual look that was already taking hold, but he remained a haven for what he described as "executives of 35-plus who want to look just that bit more individual and elegant."

I can't remember what year Percy Harrison eventually closed. All I do know is that the erstwhile Blue Anchor is now Topaz furniture and lighting emporium, and yet another old family firm has become a mere memory.

The most surprising thing about looking back on local life 25 years ago isn't the fact that Kingston's Norman Lamont was famous for being Britain's youngest Tory MP, or that nude "streaking" was all the rage, or that even the most conservative of men sported bouffant hair and flares. It's the prices.

For example, Berni's Steak bar at 2 Kingston Market Place did a handsome steak dinner for £1.19.

Liquor shops offered good cheer - remember Fairdeal Vintners in the Market Place, Wine Ways in Fife Road and Victoria Wine in London Road? You could get good branded sherry for 99p, whisky and gin at £2.49 or four large cans of Heineken for 49p. As for the Mateus Rose wine, so much in vogue at the time, that was a mere 85p a bottle. Meanwhile Bentalls, the haunt of true wine connoisseurs, had very posh Macon at £1 and Fleurie for 98p.

By today's values, food shopping was a purse-watchers paradise in Kingston 25 years ago. Consider Tesco, which in 1974 opened the London area's second largest supermarket at the Eden Street/St James's Road junction.

Yoghurt in those days was 5p a pot; large eggs 18p per half-dozen; baked beans 10p per large tin, Kellogs cereal 6p a packet; butter 9 and a half pence and tinned peaches at 15p for a large can.

These prices were stiff competition for Finefare, which 10 years previously had opened Europe's largest supermarket in the base of Tolworth Tower. Even so, it had keen bargains such as Typhoo tea at 7p, legs of lamb at 49p per lb and oranges at 20 for five.

But neither supermarket lasted out the 1980s. Tesco left in 1985 and its premises, where no subsequent retailer prospered, gave way to Volts night club. Finefare quit Tolworth in 1987 and there's a Marks and Spencer food store in its place.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.