Summary
In 1986 in Gateshead the MetroCentre opened on the site of a former power station. Laurie Taylor talks to Emma Casey, Reader in Sociology at the University of York about a new study which charts the history and the impact of this mall which created space for more than 300 shops. They're joined by Katie Appleford, Senior Lecturer in Consumer Behaviour at University for the Creative Arts, London and researcher into UK mothers' shopping habits post-COVID. Has the promise of shopping, as represented by the Metro Centre, faltered in the wake of the pandemic?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | This is a Thinking Aloud podcast from the BBC, and for more details and much, much more about thinking aloud, |
| 0:12.1 | go to our website at BBC.co.com.com. |
| 0:16.0 | Hello, I can still remember my little sister's regular creed occur. |
| 0:22.2 | Mummy, when can we go to the big shops? |
| 0:25.6 | Well, at the time, I did rather share her concerns. |
| 0:28.3 | There were a couple of interesting shops in our little suburban town. |
| 0:32.3 | I particularly relished the OK kiosk across the road from our house, |
| 0:36.3 | where I could nefariously buy five woodbinds. |
| 0:39.7 | And up the road there was a wonderful cake shop with a name which already sounded like a scrumptious mouthful, satirthwaites. |
| 0:48.5 | But they were modest pleasures compared to the delight of going uptown to Liverpool's centre |
| 0:54.0 | and spending hours |
| 0:55.7 | wandering happily around Lewis's and Owen Owens. I remember those shops as being |
| 1:01.7 | full of different types of people, all sorts of people, I remember them as gregarious and as noisy. |
| 1:08.3 | I think one of them still had one of those overhead clanking cash carriers. |
| 1:13.5 | Well, I'd rather expected some of that adolescent excitement to return |
| 1:16.9 | when I was persuaded to visit a London shopping centre, |
| 1:20.5 | which boasted over 100 shops and over 20 restaurants and a big fountain. |
| 1:27.3 | I was sad to find it somehow lacking in soul, hustle and bustle, |
| 1:32.5 | yes, noise. And any individuality seemed to have been somehow squeezed out of the patrons. |
| 1:39.8 | We were all, well, one-dimensional shoppers. Well, that visit came back to me as I was reading an article |
| 1:46.3 | which set out to examine the significance and meaning of the Metro Centre shopping mall in Gateshead, |
... |
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