Doesn’t sound silly at all.. I grew up going there in the late 80’s through to the late 90’s and it was an amazing place as a kid. A massive part of my childhood spent in the arcades and metro land. Totally agree know it’s totally soulless. Great memories though
A bit unrelated, but just this past few months the water feature at Designer Outlet, Livingstone has been removed and what was once a relaxing point would would lean on and admire is now a Costa. Soulless doesn’t even cut it. The same happened to Silverburn, Glasgow. It had an impressive high jet water feature that was again removed for floor space even though kids loved it.
@@MartinHannett_ I also feel that they took out these water features and fountains etc as of the last decade and more, it's been health and safety gone mad. So sad.
It's mental to think people in the video who were in their early 30s then are now in their early 60s!!!! Perfect example of never take time for granted because it's over before you even realise what happened!
Mad how we all get a small moment in time. These videos are like a time machine to the past. Wish i could go back to the 80s and have a look round again.
I wish I could've been around to see it like this. It looked so warm and inviting. I do still enjoy going to the Metrocentre now, but seeing videos like this makes me wish it still looked this way.
Born in Winlaton in 1985, spent much of my youth here. Lovely memories particularly walking round with my Grandma, shopping, helping her with bags then she’d treat me to dinner at Littlewoods cafe. 25 years since she passed away and this has brought it all back.
I really miss it looking like this, I liked the themed villages too, they should have kept it where it had fountains and plants but just modernised it and made the plants real.
As a kid (born 1986) this place was magic! Could spend a whole day there it was brilliant. Many MANY happy hours spent in Metroland or traipsing round after my mum in M&S. now as a 34 year old I’m in and out of there as quickly as possible it’s so clinical 😭
TMC has slowly but surely lost it's identity over the years and all that made the property special back in the '80s is now sadly long gone. Visiting the place back then was a magical experience. Not so in these dark days.😞
Developers (who don't use them) don't get why people like these things and always think they have to "modernise" it, but they wouldn't do that if it was a Victorian building... then you would embrace the place's history. With the whole Stranger Things look, they missed a trick keeping it 80s, and could've at least kept an 80s/90s look food court.
@@hallgos7319 Back then, there really was nothing else like it, and it was a breath of fresh air from the fairly dark, run down place that post industrial Tyneside was in the 80s. If we were kids, we were also looking at it through the wide eyed naive eyes of a child too. Interestingly, I remember a lot of adults back then absolutely hated it, and felt it was claustrophobic. Metroland went because it was attracting some very dodgy people. Nowadays, it really is a mess, but that's part of a trend across much of the western world. As things have gone online, bricks and mortar stores have disappeared. It's a shame, but I can well imagine that the Metrocentre will be a housing estate within a number of years.
It's interesting - I well remember a lot of adults in the 80s who felt the same about it back then. The common thing I'd hear was "it's claustrophobic, I much prefer the town". I think everything seems a bit more magical when you're a kid, although it absolutely is a terrible mess these days.
Was such a lovely place to work in, or to spend a few hours of leisuretime back in the day, and it had a certain classiness about it. And it was always kept spotlessly clean. Fast forward 25 years, and it's a lot different now, clinical, sparse, cold, and uninviting. Thanks Intu!
Loved going to Metro center in the 80s. Used to meet friends there and wed go to the cinema, MacDonalds, metroland, the computer game shops. Remember watching mivies such as RoboCop, Beverly hills cop, predator, fletch lives. Playing outrun, endro racer, wec le mans, teenage Turtles, steeet fighter in the arcade. Also playing the shooting gallery. You could spend ages there having fun. Was s great place.
1987 was my first year of freedom and independence from my family. I was 17 years of age and having fun. I lived in Cambridgeshire back then and used to travel regular for the next 13 years to Scotland by train passing by over the River Tyne and what a spectacular view!! I stopped in Newcastle once back then. I remember the Newcastle beer I drank while I was visiting. These were happy times and still are for me now at 51. Never right your self off and never take things for granted. Never waste your life away like many I knew did because your life could be over and you can regrett it. At least I can look back with good memories.
I remember when I was a bairn, and me mam used to take is there during the day. I used to love the little bridge over the river and big plastic rocks and water fall, where I'd hoy a penny in and make a wish. Good old childhood ey. Now with its white walls and empty halls, you'd be hard pressed making any happy memories there.
Back in the '80s TMC was a wonderful sight to behold. So unique. Now the place is so lifeless and soulless. Devoid of that special something it once had.
thank you for this fabulous wander down memory lane. we moved to Sunderland in 1987 and spent so many many happy days at the metro centre it was quite something special then, and metro land was phenomenal and awe-inspiring for kids! the 80s were such a fantastic time to be alive and for a short time you e transported me back. I was 12 in 1987, im 48 now!!
What an absolute nostalgic treat! I loved the MetroCentre as a kid, and it wasn't christmas for me if we hadn't visited. Santa's grotto was in middle, sunken in the floor with glittery polyester snow blankets. They should bring back the trees and water features
This brings back nostalgic memories of going there as a kid, however I can’t actually anything tangible that isn’t there now. 20 years from now kids will have the same nostalgic memories about today.
I never got to witness the metro centre in the eighties, I was a 90s child.. and even then the metro centre was a million times better than it is now, this actually made me feel sick to my stomach, just thinking this is the world my parents were living when they were my age, and to think most of the lovely people will be gone now, it's heartbreaking.
What a great video! Bring so many childhood memories back. There was always something to get up to as a kid whilst being dragged round shops by your parents here back in the day!
Great videos!! Liked the Interview in the cafe..Fantasy land became Metro land, it never had dry ski slopes and 30 years on the Metro line doesn't run to the Metro centre.
Who would have thought that filming this back then would turn out to be a bit of social history , In the early years it was an amazing place , rich with trees and foliage , a really great feel to the place it even had uniformed security guards patrolling the centre like a local police force watching out for antisocial behaviour and such ..they were from a company called "Burns security " as I recall ...not now though to expensive to have guys in unifiorms walking around not earning the owners anything ...many of the trees have gone the nice feel has gone now it's just a giant indoor space which just want people to spend and be consumers ..shame as in it's day it was a genuine "experience" to go there . thanks for the upload
The whole idea of it always *was* to get people to spend and be consumers. That's the whole idea of an "experience", Inthe MetroCentre's case it was short for "shopping experience". The trees etc. were there to get you to spend more time in the centre, therefore increasing your chances of spending more. In that sense, absolutely nothing whatsoever has changed, just the fashions.
This is brilliant! I love the way the mannequins have been captured showing what was ‘in’ at that time. About a year ago I was at the Metrocentre with my son and I started filming him and some of the Christmas decorations on a camcorder the size of my palm....minutes later I had security approach me telling me to stop. Sad.
Remember going as a kid with me mam Christmas shopping to spend the money she had saved all year fantastic memories back then I seem to go all the time now and can't stand the place
I’m 52 and OMG the song in the first few seconds I literally haven’t heard since the 80s. Really surprising how much info there is stored deep in the back of one’s mind. Ps these shopping centres could well be mostly gone in another decade or so thanks to Amazon and the internet.
My uncle worked for the cosntruction company that built the steel outta skeleton of the metrocenter, at the the time it was being built the main road hadnt been constructed yet and the company had to use the Dunston road to get to and from the A1. when the metrocenter opened my uncle told my mam to to use the Dunston road as it was now a backroad in and out bypassing the traffic conjestion on the main road to the A1, i still use this turn off to get there. Miss the water features and the hussle and bussle of the metrocenter, i still remember the christmas event they had and i think there was a superrmarket too, it was busy in 1987 unlike now with half closed shops.
After my gran died I read her diaries and she wrote about the Metrocentre opening and wondering if it would catch on, she also wrote about the huge Christmas tree she saw there. Simpler times.
Metroland was starting to attract some seriously unpleasant types and a lot of crime. I don't think they had much choice in the end but to remove it. In any event, the rest of the MetroCentre is enough of a mess as it is, reflecting the wider problems there are with shopping malls. Online shopping has made their future questionable.
I use to go to the metro centre nearly every Saturday with my little friends, couple of pounds in my pocket which got me full on Macdonald's, a big bag of pic n mix from butterflies sweet shop & some novelty toy or gadget ... Metro centre was brilliant in those days, going down hill now thanks to the economy & progression of technology. In another 20 years I can only predict it's closure in a very bleak world. Such a shame ... 😐
Great memories also with my mam and nanna was born in 1989 and have some fantastic memories of this place and eldon Square. Wow how times have changed for the worse
I miss the older Metro. Red Balloon café above ASDA. Bowlin Alley next to Lazer Quazer. Escalator goin up to Metroland. UCI cinema. Even Toys'R'Us over the way...
@@hallgos7319 some amazing times! 1st time on that rollercoaster I was brickin it. Such a shame that kids today wouldn't be able to experience or appreciate
@@Vargon7 Commodore 64... Memories. Used to be a small clothes shop upstairs on the left as you walked towards Red Balloon. Used to complain it was tiny. Now I think it of it as a quaint cozy cave of good clothing
This is when the metro center was a place you wire your best clothes to go and buy new stuff. Our family would make a day of it. Go first thing in morning and have our breakfast dinner and tea go to cinema do our shopping then go home. Happy memories.
This is so magical. I used to come here as a kid with my mam and dad and fondly remember it like this. I haven't been since the mid 90s but i imagine its a sad sight nothing like it was. I loved throwing a penny into the fountains making and wish and spent hours in metroland. Amazing footage, thank you for sharing!
@@zeddeka So sad, but we knew it was coming. Another dead mall in the waiting. You should check out Dan Bell's dead mall series, if you're into that kind of thing...
Also, my mam died that year, I seemed to have a mental block, and these things help jog my memory, as I was just walking around in a stunned state at the time, thank you, you don't know how much this helps me. Thanks.
They went because too few people were buying anything. It's a mistake to think that it's been "Stripped" as if someone took it away. The bottom line is that they went because we, the public, stopped spending enough money there to make the independent shops viable.
Shopping with me mam at Christmas when we had Woolworths when the body shop was just a corner section the old food court metroland and AMC cinema Athena by god the memories I want to go back and never leave 😢
@@hallgos7319wish I could go back to 1994… 11 years old.. parents used to take me every Saturday… wander round the arcades spending pocket money and going to shops like our price and beatties… unreal memories mate
I remember it being like this. I miss the water fountains. And I miss.metroland. Bring metroland back. Call it metroland 2! All the people in there 30s and me will be going back. Not all the kids. This our childhood... Not there's! 😂
I have fond memories of the metro center because i was 20 when it was constructed but it was always a bit souless. Now the old Grainger market was a totally different kettle of fish. I remember going there with my mam in the 70s, the place was alive with character. I can still taste those delicious sweets and the famous Russian cake,i think it had about 40% proof, or it tasted that way 😂 I've never tasted cake like it again. The heart and soul was ripped out of the Grainger market. Although to be honest, even if it had remained the same, i don't know if todays society would shop there. Those times have gone for good sadly.
Loved the Metro centre ,had my first baby in 1987 ,and lived in Durham..Moved back to Winlaton in 1988 so spent many hours there shopping , going for coffee ..the kids loved the fantasy land as they got a bit older.. I look at the lady in the white jacket having a coffee and I think it's my mam...she died in 1984 so not many years after this
Back then, you could never have foreseen the future of computers and internet, and neither could you have foreseen the effect that they had and that as a consequence, in just a few short years, iconic and legendary shops like BHS, C&A, Dixons, Comet, Woolworths, Debenhams, ToysRus, and countless others, would be out of business, never to be seen again. Those shops were rammed full, and today you'd be lucky to get 10% of those numbers. Like I said, who could have foreseen the future then? I miss those days.
I still looked similar in late 90s/early 00s, the fake plants and water features, plus metroland... I remember it as a teenager, and I wasn't even born when this was made (born 88)
@@dylendog bollocks. People shop online because they find it more convenient. If they didn't, the so many shops wouldn't closed down. Nobody is "pushing" anything. As with any era, technology changes and makes things more convenient and old ways of doing things increasingly obsolete.
i was born in 1995 i remember the metro as a kid it was amazing you had metro land loads of shops. To see what it was and what it is now is really sad. they’ve completely ruined it.
@@hallgos7319 I know now it's all boring really they could've kept it and modernized it now it's just boring I mean like the Ikea that's right next to it is better
Did the guy serving at the restaurant say that Fantasyland was opening soon and that next year the metro train line will run directly to the metro centre? Maybe Fantasyland was the original name for Metroland. Also those cucumber and salmon sandwiches were like £1.28 each!! These days they'd be like £8 each served with crisps or chips.
I've always been fascinated to see what this place looked like back in the day. Had fond memories of coming here with my parents during the early 2000s Funny one of the staff mentioned Carlisle and it's shopping center since that's where I'm from
i was only 6 around this time, £1.20 a sandwich haha class. i spent quite a bit of my teens in the arcades and metro land 94-98 ish!....thanks for the memories. cheers
Honestly i've just looked at this now and its so upsetting to see that things like the metro going directly there was scrapped and more, would be so much more useful! I honestly dont know how it never got one to be fair.
We've seen the metrocentre built and we'll see it knocked down the amount of empty shops and the land that was never used, now in 2024 its become a expensive white elephant.
I hadn't been for years, until 1st December 2023, what a thorough DISAPPOINTMENT!!!! Remember taking my youngest niece quite a few times. I was 23 the year it opened.
Back in those days people didn't bother about being filmed in public nowadays they panic and call the police if they see someone filming on their mobile phone
Do you know whats sad, is we have the ability to function malls this way still, we could design the malls this way with greenery, saturation. Everything nowadays is just so sterile and dull, I visit the metro regularly (1994 Kid) so I didnt witness this era of the metro, more so the tail end of it around the early 2000's when they were starting to remove most of the trees, water features and the demise of Metroland in 2008. I remember the theme of it still, green light fixtures and a warmer beige colour than the bright white we have now. It just looked so inviting.
i miss the water features, sounds silly but it was quite enchanting as a child, now it's just a sterile white generic shopping centre. :(
They want this generation less imaginative
Money a threw in there.. at least 10p in pennys as a child lol
Doesn’t sound silly at all.. I grew up going there in the late 80’s through to the late 90’s and it was an amazing place as a kid. A massive part of my childhood spent in the arcades and metro land. Totally agree know it’s totally soulless. Great memories though
A bit unrelated, but just this past few months the water feature at Designer Outlet, Livingstone has been removed and what was once a relaxing point would would lean on and admire is now a Costa. Soulless doesn’t even cut it. The same happened to Silverburn, Glasgow. It had an impressive high jet water feature that was again removed for floor space even though kids loved it.
@@MartinHannett_ I also feel that they took out these water features and fountains etc as of the last decade and more, it's been health and safety gone mad. So sad.
It's mental to think people in the video who were in their early 30s then are now in their early 60s!!!! Perfect example of never take time for granted because it's over before you even realise what happened!
Kev C yeah that's crazy
Wise words Kev.
Yeah , if I was my age then then I would have a bus pass now
The toddlers will be like 40 to 45
Mad how we all get a small moment in time. These videos are like a time machine to the past. Wish i could go back to the 80s and have a look round again.
I wish I could've been around to see it like this. It looked so warm and inviting. I do still enjoy going to the Metrocentre now, but seeing videos like this makes me wish it still looked this way.
Born in Winlaton in 1985, spent much of my youth here. Lovely memories particularly walking round with my Grandma, shopping, helping her with bags then she’d treat me to dinner at Littlewoods cafe. 25 years since she passed away and this has brought it all back.
I really miss it looking like this, I liked the themed villages too, they should have kept it where it had fountains and plants but just modernised it and made the plants real.
As a kid (born 1986) this place was magic! Could spend a whole day there it was brilliant. Many MANY happy hours spent in Metroland or traipsing round after my mum in M&S. now as a 34 year old I’m in and out of there as quickly as possible it’s so clinical 😭
TMC has slowly but surely lost it's identity over the years and all that made the property special back in the '80s is now sadly long gone. Visiting the place back then was a magical experience. Not so in these dark days.😞
Developers (who don't use them) don't get why people like these things and always think they have to "modernise" it, but they wouldn't do that if it was a Victorian building... then you would embrace the place's history. With the whole Stranger Things look, they missed a trick keeping it 80s, and could've at least kept an 80s/90s look food court.
@@hallgos7319 Back then, there really was nothing else like it, and it was a breath of fresh air from the fairly dark, run down place that post industrial Tyneside was in the 80s. If we were kids, we were also looking at it through the wide eyed naive eyes of a child too. Interestingly, I remember a lot of adults back then absolutely hated it, and felt it was claustrophobic. Metroland went because it was attracting some very dodgy people. Nowadays, it really is a mess, but that's part of a trend across much of the western world. As things have gone online, bricks and mortar stores have disappeared. It's a shame, but I can well imagine that the Metrocentre will be a housing estate within a number of years.
It's interesting - I well remember a lot of adults in the 80s who felt the same about it back then. The common thing I'd hear was "it's claustrophobic, I much prefer the town". I think everything seems a bit more magical when you're a kid, although it absolutely is a terrible mess these days.
I watch this from time to time for a nostalgic buzz. Others will never know how much this place shaped our childhoods ❤
Wow, just wow. I’d totally forgotten how it used to look with the balloons, trees and water feature (remember the chlorine smell from it😄)
When the Metrocentre was unique! These days it's just another generic shopping centre. That video nicely captures the centre as it was.
DistrictDriver Metro centre needs a good refurbishment, looking a bit tired these days
Tom Jardine Have you being Since Intu bought it? They have some many less empty stores, a huge next underway, and they have rebuilt the village.
I like the way it is now thanks 😳😂
DistrictDriver your completely right!!! 2018
Yeah then thee internet came along and fucked everything 👍
I wish it was still like that..
fragrancematt. I think we all do.
I couldn't agree more.
Was such a lovely place to work in, or to spend a few hours of leisuretime back in the day, and it had a certain classiness about it. And it was always kept spotlessly clean.
Fast forward 25 years, and it's a lot different now, clinical, sparse, cold, and uninviting. Thanks Intu!
Loved going to Metro center in the 80s. Used to meet friends there and wed go to the cinema, MacDonalds, metroland, the computer game shops. Remember watching mivies such as RoboCop, Beverly hills cop, predator, fletch lives. Playing outrun, endro racer, wec le mans, teenage Turtles, steeet fighter in the arcade. Also playing the shooting gallery. You could spend ages there having fun. Was s great place.
Everyone looks so content and happy. You would think it was Santa Barbara until you see the buses outside🤣 Thanks for the upload👌
1987 was my first year of freedom and independence from my family. I was 17 years of age and having fun. I lived in Cambridgeshire back then and used to travel regular for the next 13 years to Scotland by train passing by over the River Tyne and what a spectacular view!! I stopped in Newcastle once back then. I remember the Newcastle beer I drank while I was visiting. These were happy times and still are for me now at 51. Never right your self off and never take things for granted. Never waste your life away like many I knew did because your life could be over and you can regrett it. At least I can look back with good memories.
write
I remember when I was a bairn, and me mam used to take is there during the day. I used to love the little bridge over the river and big plastic rocks and water fall, where I'd hoy a penny in and make a wish. Good old childhood ey.
Now with its white walls and empty halls, you'd be hard pressed making any happy memories there.
Back in the '80s TMC was a wonderful sight to behold. So unique. Now the place is so lifeless and soulless. Devoid of that special something it once had.
God, how i wish i could step into this video and embrace my past again.
I would to if I could, question is though would you come back to now? I would personally stay there in 1987
@@TrevJericho
I'd almost certainly stay in a continuous time loop from around the mid-late '70s to '87 or early '88.😉👍
@@hallgos7319 85-95 for me.
thank you for this fabulous wander down memory lane. we moved to Sunderland in 1987 and spent so many many happy days at the metro centre it was quite something special then, and metro land was phenomenal and awe-inspiring for kids! the 80s were such a fantastic time to be alive and for a short time you e transported me back. I was 12 in 1987, im 48 now!!
What an absolute nostalgic treat! I loved the MetroCentre as a kid, and it wasn't christmas for me if we hadn't visited. Santa's grotto was in middle, sunken in the floor with glittery polyester snow blankets. They should bring back the trees and water features
thats probably due to the health and safety snowflakes that they are gone
I miss this so much! The memories 😭
Memories are the only thing we take with us when we're gone, cherish them.. there all that will be left 🥺
What a special period of time that has been captured here. Thank you for making this available; so many magical memories!
‘If you become lost or separated from friends or family, meet under the clock in town square one’
This brings back nostalgic memories of going there as a kid, however I can’t actually anything tangible that isn’t there now. 20 years from now kids will have the same nostalgic memories about today.
Why they took all the trees and water features out I have no idea! It was amazing back in the day, just how I remember it as a kid
This made me cry. Love it. Thank you.
I never got to witness the metro centre in the eighties, I was a 90s child.. and even then the metro centre was a million times better than it is now, this actually made me feel sick to my stomach, just thinking this is the world my parents were living when they were my age, and to think most of the lovely people will be gone now, it's heartbreaking.
A nice bit of history thanks for posting this gem.❤
What a great video! Bring so many childhood memories back. There was always something to get up to as a kid whilst being dragged round shops by your parents here back in the day!
Great videos!! Liked the Interview in the cafe..Fantasy land became Metro land, it never had dry ski slopes and 30 years on the Metro line doesn't run to the Metro centre.
Xt007 3 decades ago.
Why not bring it back
@@stewartchappell5534 I don’t think the metro ever went to the metro centre !
Brings back, so many memories of being a kid this place. Not the same as it once was
Brought back so many memories its not the same now
16 in 1987… Metrocentre was the place to be!🎉😂
Who would have thought that filming this back then would turn out to be a bit of social history , In the early years it was an amazing place , rich with trees and foliage , a really great feel to the place it even had uniformed security guards patrolling the centre like a local police force watching out for antisocial behaviour and such ..they were from a company called "Burns security " as I recall ...not now though to expensive to have guys in unifiorms walking around not earning the owners anything ...many of the trees have gone the nice feel has gone now it's just a giant indoor space which just want people to spend and be consumers ..shame as in it's day it was a genuine "experience" to go there . thanks for the upload
Someone famous once said that you should always take pictures of everyday life. As time passes, they'll always become of historical interest.
The whole idea of it always *was* to get people to spend and be consumers. That's the whole idea of an "experience", Inthe MetroCentre's case it was short for "shopping experience". The trees etc. were there to get you to spend more time in the centre, therefore increasing your chances of spending more. In that sense, absolutely nothing whatsoever has changed, just the fashions.
Love how m&s has been there from the start and in the same place ahaha
This is brilliant! I love the way the mannequins have been captured showing what was ‘in’ at that time. About a year ago I was at the Metrocentre with my son and I started filming him and some of the Christmas decorations on a camcorder the size of my palm....minutes later I had security approach me telling me to stop. Sad.
Authority doesn't like being caught on camera. All the more reason to keep on filming then.
as a windowdresser no shop would buy such rubbish they do today no realistics at all no glam
There’s laws against filming in kids playing areas
Remember going as a kid with me mam Christmas shopping to spend the money she had saved all year fantastic memories back then I seem to go all the time now and can't stand the place
I’m 52 and OMG the song in the first few seconds I literally haven’t heard since the 80s. Really surprising how much info there is stored deep in the back of one’s mind.
Ps these shopping centres could well be mostly gone in another decade or so thanks to Amazon and the internet.
My uncle worked for the cosntruction company that built the steel outta skeleton of the metrocenter, at the the time it was being built the main road hadnt been constructed yet and the company had to use the Dunston road to get to and from the A1. when the metrocenter opened my uncle told my mam to to use the Dunston road as it was now a backroad in and out bypassing the traffic conjestion on the main road to the A1, i still use this turn off to get there. Miss the water features and the hussle and bussle of the metrocenter, i still remember the christmas event they had and i think there was a superrmarket too, it was busy in 1987 unlike now with half closed shops.
After my gran died I read her diaries and she wrote about the Metrocentre opening and wondering if it would catch on, she also wrote about the huge Christmas tree she saw there. Simpler times.
I remember the smell of those water features and always wanting to chuck a penny in
Thank you so much for sharing these videos, what an incredible catalogue of local history you have captured for us! I tip my hat to you sir.
Love this. Captures a moment in time x
Metro centre is a load of bollocks now like. This looks like a proper enjoyable unique shopping centre and it was until they took out metro land
Metroland was starting to attract some seriously unpleasant types and a lot of crime. I don't think they had much choice in the end but to remove it. In any event, the rest of the MetroCentre is enough of a mess as it is, reflecting the wider problems there are with shopping malls. Online shopping has made their future questionable.
To be fair now by the yellow entrance it has this whole obstacle course thing that reaches to the second floor by the Odeon cinema.
I use to go to the metro centre nearly every Saturday with my little friends, couple of pounds in my pocket which got me full on Macdonald's, a big bag of pic n mix from butterflies sweet shop & some novelty toy or gadget ... Metro centre was brilliant in those days, going down hill now thanks to the economy & progression of technology. In another 20 years I can only predict it's closure in a very bleak world. Such a shame ... 😐
I was born 1988 and remember the metro looking like this. Great memories of days out with my granda. Thanks for uploading this
Thanks Claire, dad loved to video everything. He never would have guessed his videos one day would be seen by so many.
Claire h kkvbk
Great memories also with my mam and nanna was born in 1989 and have some fantastic memories of this place and eldon Square. Wow how times have changed for the worse
@@Rob-ze4ic You said it with your last sentence. I tend to nickname the North East 'Desperation Central' now.
@@hallgos7319 such a shame how it's going but good memories never the less 👍
Back in 1987 the metro centre was first 🥇 class I haven't been in 5 years friends who have visited have said half of the shops are shut ☹️🙁😲😳🤯
I miss the older Metro.
Red Balloon café above ASDA.
Bowlin Alley next to Lazer Quazer.
Escalator goin up to Metroland.
UCI cinema. Even Toys'R'Us over the way...
God, how i miss that escalator and what was waiting for you beyond it.
@@hallgos7319 some amazing times! 1st time on that rollercoaster I was brickin it. Such a shame that kids today wouldn't be able to experience or appreciate
@@tm5267 You said it. Amazing times indeed. Gone but never forgotten.
I miss Maughan Microcomputers (upstairs in Red Mall) where I bought my Commodore Amiga from, Gamestation, and Music Zone (mostly sold DVDs.
@@Vargon7 Commodore 64...
Memories. Used to be a small clothes shop upstairs on the left as you walked towards Red Balloon.
Used to complain it was tiny. Now I think it of it as a quaint cozy cave of good clothing
This is when the metro center was a place you wire your best clothes to go and buy new stuff. Our family would make a day of it. Go first thing in morning and have our breakfast dinner and tea go to cinema do our shopping then go home. Happy memories.
This is so magical. I used to come here as a kid with my mam and dad and fondly remember it like this. I haven't been since the mid 90s but i imagine its a sad sight nothing like it was. I loved throwing a penny into the fountains making and wish and spent hours in metroland. Amazing footage, thank you for sharing!
It's very clapped out now, sadly. Empty shops and large parts of it need a major overhaul. Really looking its age.
@@zeddeka So sad, but we knew it was coming. Another dead mall in the waiting. You should check out Dan Bell's dead mall series, if you're into that kind of thing...
It’s totally changed now
It’s totally changed now
Tremendous. Look at all the foliage!
It was all fake tbf mind 😂
The metro still doesn’t run to the metro centre 😂
Was wondering like ha
Lolol
There is hope yet XD
And as far as I am aware there were never any plans for it to serve Metrocentre
Also, my mam died that year, I seemed to have a mental block, and these things help jog my memory, as I was just walking around in a stunned state at the time, thank you, you don't know how much this helps me.
Thanks.
We never get over losing our mam 😢
Thanks mate, but it was a difficult time during that period, thanks much appreciated.
@@paulcrombie9623 👍
These were the best days! I loved the greenery and the independent stalls dotted all over the mall. Now it's been stripped of all its individuality.
They went because too few people were buying anything. It's a mistake to think that it's been "Stripped" as if someone took it away. The bottom line is that they went because we, the public, stopped spending enough money there to make the independent shops viable.
Because the rates just kept going up and up until it was impossible for small retailers to survive.
@@zeddeka I think you've misread my comment. I said that the Metrocentre has been stripped of all its individuality, not its shops.
Shopping with me mam at Christmas when we had Woolworths when the body shop was just a corner section the old food court metroland and AMC cinema Athena by god the memories I want to go back and never leave 😢
I know the feeling all too well.😞
Miss it so much 😢
@@jamesalderson6803
You and me both.😞
@@hallgos7319wish I could go back to 1994… 11 years old.. parents used to take me every Saturday… wander round the arcades spending pocket money and going to shops like our price and beatties… unreal memories mate
I remember it being like this. I miss the water fountains. And I miss.metroland. Bring metroland back. Call it metroland 2! All the people in there 30s and me will be going back. Not all the kids. This our childhood... Not there's! 😂
I have fond memories of the metro center because i was 20 when it was constructed but it was always a bit souless. Now the old Grainger market was a totally different kettle of fish. I remember going there with my mam in the 70s, the place was alive with character. I can still taste those delicious sweets and the famous Russian cake,i think it had about 40% proof, or it tasted that way 😂 I've never tasted cake like it again. The heart and soul was ripped out of the Grainger market. Although to be honest, even if it had remained the same, i don't know if todays society would shop there. Those times have gone for good sadly.
Loved the Metro centre ,had my first baby in 1987 ,and lived in Durham..Moved back to Winlaton in 1988 so spent many hours there shopping , going for coffee ..the kids loved the fantasy land as they got a bit older..
I look at the lady in the white jacket having a coffee and I think it's my mam...she died in 1984 so not many years after this
Back then, you could never have foreseen the future of computers and internet, and neither could you have foreseen the effect that they had and that as a consequence, in just a few short years, iconic and legendary shops like BHS, C&A, Dixons, Comet, Woolworths, Debenhams, ToysRus, and countless others, would be out of business, never to be seen again. Those shops were rammed full, and today you'd be lucky to get 10% of those numbers. Like I said, who could have foreseen the future then? I miss those days.
I miss the '80s with an unbridled passion.
Not a faultless or flawless decade for certain but definitely and infinitely preferable to now.
I was there last year and i could not belive how much its gone down hill
Wow fab video I'm a 1993 baby so it's really interesting to see these places before I was born
it's honestly quite sad looking at it now
this is vital history..thank you
The years pass by so quickly..
Too quickly.😞
I wish those days were back the traditional Metro Centre and I was born that year.
who knew there was mf trees
Kimberly xx I think I remember those trees been there for many years.
lovely, and thanks for the upload
Gold....no other word for it 👍
Nostalgia gold.
i miss this good times as a kid
You and me both.😞
Gone but never forgotten.👍
I still looked similar in late 90s/early 00s, the fake plants and water features, plus metroland... I remember it as a teenager, and I wasn't even born when this was made (born 88)
One year before I was born. This is surreal :) I remember metroland in the 90s.
Amazing vid mad to think it was filmed all them years ago, I might've been wandering round the place meself that day.
Much better back then than it is now. It was madness getting rid of Metroland and all the other features. Now it's just your average shopping centre.
Fully stocked boutiques, clothes shopping was a pleasure. Until Internet shopping ruined it 😔
They are pushing internet shopping on us. It's all about getting rid of CASH and it's better for them as most clothing you buy never gets returned.
@@dylendog bollocks. People shop online because they find it more convenient. If they didn't, the so many shops wouldn't closed down. Nobody is "pushing" anything. As with any era, technology changes and makes things more convenient and old ways of doing things increasingly obsolete.
Crazy to think 95 was only 8 years after this and the UK had changed completely.
?
@@liamb8644 4 people got it, whatever it was.
i was born in 1995 i remember the metro as a kid it was amazing you had metro land loads of shops. To see what it was and what it is now is really sad. they’ve completely ruined it.
Great video of Metrocentre.
It's good that you have these videos taken a while back. 👍
I agree and these '80s themed local VHS excerpts are a Godsend to me.
I only wish there were many more of them here.
metro land was my childhood playground lived only 1 mile from the metro
I was about 29 then now i am 65 where has time gone
Looked better then it had a theme, more novelty shops and entertainment. now it's all patched up and you dont wanna spend time in there
So much has changed even that waterfall lift
Changed and not in a good way.
@@hallgos7319 I know now it's all boring really they could've kept it and modernized it now it's just boring I mean like the Ikea that's right next to it is better
It was over 30 years ago, would have been strange if it hadn't changed!
Did the guy serving at the restaurant say that Fantasyland was opening soon and that next year the metro train line will run directly to the metro centre? Maybe Fantasyland was the original name for Metroland. Also those cucumber and salmon sandwiches were like £1.28 each!! These days they'd be like £8 each served with crisps or chips.
That is probably more than £8 allowing for inflation!
I wish it still looked like this, not the sterile place it is now. Back then you'd go for a day out, now it's straight in, straight out
I've always been fascinated to see what this place looked like back in the day. Had fond memories of coming here with my parents during the early 2000s
Funny one of the staff mentioned Carlisle and it's shopping center since that's where I'm from
Plants inside the MetroCentre. Couldn't have that now you'd have kids ruining it!
i was only 6 around this time, £1.20 a sandwich haha class. i spent quite a bit of my teens in the arcades and metro land 94-98 ish!....thanks for the memories. cheers
Honestly i've just looked at this now and its so upsetting to see that things like the metro going directly there was scrapped and more, would be so much more useful! I honestly dont know how it never got one to be fair.
A wee bit of dire straits, takes me bk to being a young 17yo lad in glasgow. And life was wonderful .
YO YO how was Glasgow in the 80s
We've seen the metrocentre built and we'll see it knocked down the amount of empty shops and the land that was never used, now in 2024 its become a expensive white elephant.
Before the metro centre I played tuggy with air rifles on the silt fields and shit ponds. My name is Darren.
What a cracking video thanks !
2:12 Smooth Criminal was a new release.
I hadn't been for years, until 1st December 2023, what a thorough DISAPPOINTMENT!!!!
Remember taking my youngest niece quite a few times. I was 23 the year it opened.
The Metro still doesn’t run there to this day.
Back in those days people didn't bother about being filmed in public nowadays they panic and call the police if they see someone filming on their mobile phone
And now all of it gone... gone forever. We can't have nice things.
I was 16. Can I travel back to that year please ? It felt such a nicer world to me then. 🤔
I know the feeling all too well.
God almighty, how I miss the '80s.😞
Do you know whats sad, is we have the ability to function malls this way still, we could design the malls this way with greenery, saturation. Everything nowadays is just so sterile and dull, I visit the metro regularly (1994 Kid) so I didnt witness this era of the metro, more so the tail end of it around the early 2000's when they were starting to remove most of the trees, water features and the demise of Metroland in 2008. I remember the theme of it still, green light fixtures and a warmer beige colour than the bright white we have now. It just looked so inviting.
It seems all so long ago now. I was 17 then, 52 now!
nice video great memories
Look at how well the clothing shops are stocked and the environment seems to have a real buzz about it. Every shop is now the same.
Thanks for the upload wow