Old Photos of Scotland No.2 - Shops

Shops in the old days, when tomatoes were a speciality and there were no self-service checkouts.

A glimpse of Scotland's retail industry at a time when shop staff numbers dwarfed the number of customers, and good service was of utmost importance. This collection of old images ranges in date from the Victorian period up to the twentieth century, and shows a bygone era and way of life that has sadly gone.

In those old days shops were local, near where people lived, and you didn't have to travel miles to do something as simple as buy bread, apples or sausages. Today, we often build vast housing schemes or estates with no shops, and residents of these bland rectangular boxes have to get in their car and travel miles to the shopping centre.

This is Scotland in the old days - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Falkirk, Bo'ness, etc - good old days that in some cases was not that long ago.