For a generation of Southampton people, those who came of age between the late 1970s and the early 2000s, the heart of the city wasn’t really in the big department stores. It beat in a special ecosystem of niche independent retailers – the hobby stores.
These little units weren’t just shops, they were refuges.
They were the places we wasted away whole weekends, the places where a few pence of pocket money could be transformed into balsa wood or lead miniatures or live bait, places where shared loves sparked friendship.
These were the hobby shops and they were the ligaments that bound our local subcultures. . The bricks and mortar may have changed but, for some, the memories are fresh enough to box.
Let’s step back into the unique realms that fed our curiosity and weekends.
Handleys – Romsey Road, Shirley
For anyone with a rod or a gun in the Shirley area in the 80s and 90s, the fun started at Handleys.
Located on Romsey Road, this was no shiny modern day ‘leisure store’. Handleys was an Institution and dealt in 3 basic items: fishing tackle, shooting and sporting goods.
Inside was a dense net of outdoor anticipation.
In corners stood resting fishing rods; reels sparkled in their cases like jewellery, and walls were laden with floats, line and hooks.
It had all the hallmarks of a tackle shop by smell alone: linseed oil, canvas and the brightly stinking fug of the livebait.
But if you were a kid fitting out your first rod, the staff, although seemingly sturn, were infinitely patient and willing to offer a helping hand.
Handleys sold the air rifles and the pellets for target shooting, and equipped anyone with the right kit for any species of fish known to inhabit the waters around Southampton.
It was a bullishly no-nonsense constant in Shirley for many years.
Pastimes – East Street Shopping Centre
Hidden away in the rear of the now demolished East Street Shopping Centre, Pastimes was a down to earth, unassuming portal to the fantasy realms of tabletop wargaming.
Before Games Workshop began its high-street dominance, this independent establishment was the home to Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts and mini painters alike.
It was the archetypal ‘old school’ hobby shop.
Slightly gloomy, cluttered with ceiling-high piles of boxes, and always with that distinctive odour of plastic sprues and volatile glue.
Pastimes was the place to go if you wanted to buy original Citadel Miniatures, D&D “red box” sets, or lead historical wargaming figures.
Most importantly, though, it provided a space.
You didn’t just buy a kit; you bought into a community.
It provided a crucial focus for pre-internet geek culture in the city, providing safe haven and a source of inspiration to hundreds of local adolescents before changing retail patterns and commercial competition eventually drove it to closure.
Tandy – East Street Shopping Centre
Also based in the concrete surroundings of the East Street Shopping Centre, Tandy was the undisputed home of 1980s electronics.
It too had high-street chains, but there was something about the East Street branch that seemed intangibly bound up with the building’s quirky energy. It was known above all for one thing – remote-controlled cars.
Entering Tandy on a Saturday morning at the height of its powers meant dodging a Tamiya Hornet or a Clod Buster zipping across the floor.
While toyshops sold remote control cars, Tandy had them constructed and often racing around the centre atrium of the shopping centre
There was every technical gizmo for someone looking to build a James Bond-style home; police scanners chattering away with whatever the local law enforcement was up to; CB radios for communicating with your other spy pals; walkie-talkies with more channels than you thought was possible.
Then there was the parts counter, staffed by people who could identify any resistor or transistor you melted or blew up within 30 seconds-flat, even when it was nothing more than just a flat-black lump of uselessness.
Tandy was a mad, messy, insane playspace for people who like to tinker, or imagined creating or controlling what they played with.
Beatties – East Street
If Handleys was the preserve of the outdoors type then Beatties was indoor modelers heaven.
While the Beatties empire stretched the length of the country, the East Street store was a real draw accounting for a large percentage of sales.
With its bright, clean, retail-is-king layout it was an antidote to the more established, and ultimately dustier model shop of old.
The front window was inspirational, and regularly included a working model railway layout or diorama that would take your breath away.
Inside it was disciplined hobbyist bliss. Whole rows of plastic Airfix and Tamiya kits,(from Spitfires to complicated battleships.
Endless packs of Humbrol paint and brushes lined the shelves, Scalextric sets enticed fans and a huge area was given over to Hornby.
Beatties was where serious modellers went for their balsa wood, dope, and individual engine components.
Its 2001 closure left a huge gap for many.
Forbidden Planet – East Street (Hanover Buildings)
Situated just outside East Street Shopping Centre, the original Forbidden Planet was a bolt of Lightning for Southampton’s comic book and fantasy fans.
Long before superheroes and vast universes dominated pop culture, this was the high-street mecca.
The unmistakeable white hoarding with the red-and-black logo was your gateway to another world. The shopfront proper was a revolving gallery of comic book covers and movie posters.
Inside lay a concentrated hit of imported US comics, graphic novels, manga and sci-fi merchandising.
This was where you tracked down some obscure fantasy paperback or acquired your first top-of-the-range action figure.
Forbidden Planet was a physical space for fans to debate and chew over the latest storylines, a staging-post on the perilous journey from niche interest to dominant force in story-telling culture.
Forbidden Planet continues to trade in Southampton, but now from Hanover Buildings.
Games Workshop – East Street
By the late 1980s, there was a new king of the hobbying scene.
Whilst Pastimes was the original kernel, Games Workshop’s East Street dedicated store had become the new massive HQ for Southamptonites.
The shop was no longer a quiet shop; it was noisy, regimented, and largely about Warhammer.
The front window was always commanded by some gigantic painted army.
Inside, the smell was the mix of glue, plastic and paint.
The shop offered huge gaming tables, always in use, creating a hum of weekend noise that drew teenagers from all over Hampshire.
The GW staff were part-retailer, part-tutorial instructor – helping out with everything from complicated rules to advanced painting techniques.
For an entire generation, the GW shop on East Street was where weekends started.
Although Games Workshop is now gone, a Warhammer store lives on East Street and virtually every other town and city in the country.
Share your story…
Handleys, Pastimes, Beatties, and the literal concrete labyrinths of East Street and Shirley were ours; defined not by the commodities they marketed, but by the passionate communities they housed.
For a lot of us, they were who we were, who our friends were, and what our weekends were.
We want to hear your stories. Did you build your first model kit with glue from Beatties? Did you buy your live bait from Handleys? Did you witness the Furby riots in Tandy, or a massive 40k battle at Games Workshop?
Let us know the specific recollections you have in the comments, anecdotes and memories from you that you’d like to share with the group – or email your stories to ian.crump@dailyecho.co.uk.