The former Grangeway Shopping Centre in Preston Grange, North Shields, is said to be responsible for a little piece of retail history.
In the early 1960s, the national company which ran the centre, Allied Suppliers Ltd, was looking for a name for a new discount shopping store there. After a bit of head scratching, they decided to remove the ‘n’ from Preston and named the new store Presto.
It was an instant success and Presto stores would proliferate around the UK, with the brand becoming a household name for the nation’s shoppers. The new supermarkets would often open in newfangled '60s and '70s shopping centres. As well as at Preston Grange, they popped up in our region in new purpose-built centres in Newcastle's Eldon Square, Gateshead, Washington, Wallsend, Jarrow and elsewhere.
READ MORE: Then and Now - Newcastle's Newgate Street Co-op
The brand remained a major name in the retail world - with its own memorable TV advert catchphrase 'you'll be impressed at Presto' - until the late 1980s when many of the supermarkets became Safeway stores. The name was briefly revived before disappearing for good in the late 1990s.
Our full-page Presto advertisement from an Evening Chronicle in July 1972 shines a light on the shopping tastes and preferences of 50 years ago, as well as the ridiculously cheap prices by today's standards. It's worth noting, of course, that the average UK weekly wage for a man back then was £36, and £20 for a woman. And inflation, as the prices of goods and services constantly rose, was regarded as the chief economic woe of the times. Incidentally, according to the Office for National Statistics, today's average prices are nearly 15 times higher than the average prices of 1972.
Let's briefly step back to the shopping aisles of a Presto supermarket 50 years ago with our retro advert. First up, how about some of the unique '70s favourites on sale? Cadbury's Smash at 13p; Vesta Curries at 18½p; a tin - yes a tin - of Heinz Beefburgers at 18p; and a tin of Tyne Brand Sliced Pork at 16p½.
Plenty of the products are still supermarket staples in 2022. How about a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup for 12p; Bird's Eye Fish Fingers for 19½p; Bird's Eye Garden Peas for 13½p; and Bird's Eye Cod Fillets for 27p?
As '70s kids, we would have been straight over to the biscuits and sweets section where you would have found packets of McVities' Digestive Biscuits or McVities' Ginger Nuts for 5p each. A pack of four Mars Bars cost 14p; while a hefty ½lb block of Cadbury's Brazil Nut was 22p.
Moving to slightly healthier foodstuffs, 1lb of bananas was 7p, while you could pick up two large grapefruit for 14p. In an era when drinking alcohol at home wasn't yet the done thing, and before Britain had developed a taste for wine drinking, the 'wine and spirits' offers were somewhat limited, with Tennents' Lager at 11½p a can catching the eye. And at a time when around 45% of adults smoked, a pack of 200 Embassy Cigarettes would know you back £2.46.
READ NEXT:
