REQUEST FOR HELP: We would love to do some follow-up videos about all these shops and any other computer gaming related shops from the 80s and 90s in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells. If you have photos or video of these shops from the period, that you own, please get in touch through either: backtotheamiga@gmail.com or facebook.com/005agima Or through any means you may already be in contact with me through (e.g. Discord/Reddit) Correction: When talking of Amiga game memories of Wizbit Games, the store in that period was actually known as Invicta Software.
Yep and I do regret forgetting to mention them when we concluded the video at the clock, as that is of course, right next to what was Dixons lol. It had been a long day. We actually filmed this after a 3.5 hour drive back to TW after having visited the @RMC Retro exhibit and Arcade Archive in Stroud.
If anybody is wondering, I'm the wooden plank in the Levis T shirt 😂, but despite that I had an absolutely amazing weekend with Chris, blows my mind that our friendship started 38 years ago, and here we are still talking about video games, brilliant!
My local game shop was called microtron in Pontefract, fairly sure the last game I bought was xj220. The chap who owned it was also the owner of alternative software, fairly sure he still publishes games for the current systems. Great to hear both of your memories.
@@ShishakliAus thanks mate. Kind of forgot to film between stores and wanted something to hold the locations together. Started with Google Street view and then grew the idea from there kind of accidentally lol. If you note, the movement arrows match the street view movements. Yeah that took some time to do lol.
But I'm here :D Dave And Rees have done a stella job in Neil's absence, and Neil is back now too. Glad you miss me though :) But they're doing a great job.
@005AGIMA Don't get me wrong! I really enjoy your channel on youtube it's just... if one of the trio left top gear, it just wouldn't be the same, and that's what happened to This week in retro. Anyway... I look forward to your next adventure. 👍
Thanks Jennifer. Had a bit of fun with that. Did you note the movement arrows matching the street view movements? (for the most part). Yeah I hate it when I have a "good idea" lol.
@@tim-moffy haha yeah man you delivered everywhere. I did stand in postman through an agency for one day and I couldn't hack it mate. So friggin hard. That was highbrooms area I had to do.
Love this! So I guess you went to Huntleys like me. You have cracking memories by the way, I listened and after a minute the memories came flooding back!!
I walk by the place I used to shop Amiga games and "hardware" quite often. It is a sad state the way it is now. Just a random book store (and not one of the cozy book stores). I really miss these kind of places. Was fun to get to see a bit of your town and history.
@@proteque it can be quite emotional seeing the old haunts hey. I guess for me it's compounded because I moved away, so I see a lot of changes in big chunks, rather than a gradual evolution of the area.
Thanks for the trip back to my childhood growing up there, also I used to frequent all those places and there used to be a sewing shop in Camden Road that sold the £1.99 Mastertronic games for mainly the Spectrum 48k and C64. Another places for second hand games was further down Camden Road called Climax, it mainly focused on PlayStation 1 and 2 games later on.
OMG thanks for your input. I'd totally forgotten about Climax, and I know the sewing shop you're talking about but I NEVER knew they sold the budget cassette games. I mean, those things popped up in odd places including corner shops, but a sewing shop? I never ever knew that lol.
@@005AGIMA I haven't forgotten about the old Transformers comics to give to you. I'm moving house soon so I'm extremely busy right now. Once settled I will find them and send them to you Chris. Cheers.
Funny, that's the thing I remember as a kid was going into my favourite computer store (long since gone now,) and playing games on the vectrex, and the speccy, and seeing all these tapes for the speccy, the Amstrad 464 and 6128, the BBC, Commodore 64 etc., and thinking it was amazing. I spent many an hours in there, but not much money. I never thought of it as a business that needed to make money, just a cool place to hang out. I was really sad when it closed. But that's the thing with commerce I guess. When you're a kid it doesn't come into it. It's just a cool place to hang out.
@@therealyogibear2k225 couldn't have explained it better myself. And I'd was still commerce. They were still selling to us and we in turn sold the concept to our parents who, hopefully at Christmas, did the spending on our behalf.
Thanks for the video! Coincidentally this dropped about the same time as a podcast episode around a rather nasty murderer and certain other crimes I wont mention on a family friendly channel) from Tunbridge Wells so a rather interesting contrast 🙂
@@JustTheShopLtd oh wow didn't know about the arcade. I want to get a couple of cabs myself. One for the garage, and the other I actually want to put on free play and move it around some local business like bars and fish and chip shops etc, to recreate that feeling for people.
I got my Amiga A1200 from WizBit. It was one of the original (limited) batch that came into the UK at launch and didn’t include a software bundle. The guys in the shop threw in some accessories free of charge as I recall. Over the following year a got nearly all my software from them. When WizBit went bust they paid some of their staff in games. I was fortunate enough to buy a box full of brand new Amiga games for £75 off one of them!There was also another computer shop up in nearby Southborough (can’t remember its name?). It was on London Road across from the library. It was very small and almost like walking into someone’s living room! However it had shelves full of cassette games and is where a got my first Sinclair ZX81 game…. An Astroid clone I believe. Many years later I opened a local computer repair shop on London Road (Geekos) and we use to sell classic retro games for lots of old consoles and computers. This was before prices got too silly!
Southborough and High Brooms were where I spent most of my younger years, I don't recall the computer shop but I do remember the video shop further down, opposite where tesco is now (used to be a petrol station) and they had a brilliant arcade out the back, that swallowed all of my pocket money at the time!
@@wkdarchaeology5653 man that's awesome that you opened your own shop. I recall some of the best shops down Camden road in the PC era didn't look like shops inside. They were a mess but the people knew their stuff and had the goods. Wizbit games always found a way lol. The one I recall was in the PS2 launch hype. They were pre order only through places like Dixon's. I had one on order myself. No shops had actual stock.... No shops.... Except wizbit that is lol. God knows where they got them 🤣
Wizbit Games were our tenant, sadly they went bust - twice. I remember helping my dad clear out the shop after they finally went in about 1994 I think. I remember them fondly, they were a friendly bunch. Sadly the premises hasn’t been looked after by the subsequent tenants. It spent a long time as a furniture shop, then a delicatessen attached to what was the Italian restaurant next door, and most recently a fish and chip shop. Would love to open the place as a retro gaming centre… if only.
WOW thanks for the added history. Would you happen to have any photos of it from back then? It may be a mixed memory but I thought they were still in business when the Play Station 2 came out, as I recall them having stock when no one else did. That was the year 2000 though. They also dealt in Playstation 1 games for quite some time as Lee mentioned, so that's 1995.
@@JustTheShopLtd yep upstairs. They even did toys and Casio keyboards. It was so much more versatile than it is now. I guess it's back to being a chemist really.
Damn, sorry for all the comments but I am doing it as I watch. Whites Bazaar, I wondered what you were going to say as they didnt sell games then you pulled out the Tomy Tronic. Yep, I remember doing the same, I lived above the coffee shop on Monson Colonnade for the first 10 years of my life!!
@@JustTheShopLtd Ah the famous coffee shop. Yeah look... The Tommy Tronic memory I "think" was there.... Or it could have been Weeks, or Hooper's, both of which had the toys section in the basement. But I think it was White's anyway.
Fantastic video, thanks for sharing 👍 some Photos and videos of when these stores were around would be great to get more of an idea how they looked at the time. ( not an easy task ) . Were there many stores here in Australia that you have fond memories of also that you could take us to also ?
Thanks mate. Yeah I'm really keen to keep pursuing this. We were close to getting some photos of one of the shops but the contact fell silent for some reason. TBH I moved to Aus in late 2002 so to me, it's all still "recent" here, and nostalgia hasn't kicked in for that portion of my life. Plus most of the stores still exist. Target, K-Mart, Big-W, and JB Hifi would be the main ones. Of course we've lost Tandy (also had that in the UK) and the Legendary Dick Smiths.
REQUEST FOR HELP:
We would love to do some follow-up videos about all these shops and any other computer gaming related shops from the 80s and 90s in Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.
If you have photos or video of these shops from the period, that you own, please get in touch through either:
backtotheamiga@gmail.com or
facebook.com/005agima
Or through any means you may already be in contact with me through (e.g. Discord/Reddit)
Correction: When talking of Amiga game memories of Wizbit Games, the store in that period was actually known as Invicta Software.
Dixons was also another place to visit at the time. They had the latest Panasonic 3DO and the Philips cdi on display.
Yep and I do regret forgetting to mention them when we concluded the video at the clock, as that is of course, right next to what was Dixons lol. It had been a long day. We actually filmed this after a 3.5 hour drive back to TW after having visited the @RMC Retro exhibit and Arcade Archive in Stroud.
If anybody is wondering, I'm the wooden plank in the Levis T shirt 😂, but despite that I had an absolutely amazing weekend with Chris, blows my mind that our friendship started 38 years ago, and here we are still talking about video games, brilliant!
@@bugulartell haha it was an epic weekend mate. Thanks so much for hanging out again. Here's to the next one.
Nicely done!
Thanks mate :)
My local game shop was called microtron in Pontefract, fairly sure the last game I bought was xj220.
The chap who owned it was also the owner of alternative software, fairly sure he still publishes games for the current systems.
Great to hear both of your memories.
Thank you, had a blast making the video 🙂
@@davidretrogamesplayedbadly3533 mate that's awesome. Thanks for sharing your memories. 😎
Loved this mate i love hearing and seeing other peoples memories
Cracking vid chris
Cheers fella. Funny how "shops" form fond memories over the years.
Omg it's great to see the wells with the shops mate 👍😎
@@stevegeorge6479 lots of memories Hey mate
Sure thing mate 👍 😎 @@005AGIMA
Captive scene change is truely inspired, bravo!
@@ShishakliAus thanks mate. Kind of forgot to film between stores and wanted something to hold the locations together. Started with Google Street view and then grew the idea from there kind of accidentally lol. If you note, the movement arrows match the street view movements. Yeah that took some time to do lol.
That sandwich in Fuggles looked great... Will pop in there on my next visit for sure matey... Great memories you shared buddy 😉😉
@@OGDuffy mate the beers there are on another level.
Please come back to " This week in retro" 😔
But I'm here :D Dave And Rees have done a stella job in Neil's absence, and Neil is back now too. Glad you miss me though :) But they're doing a great job.
@005AGIMA Don't get me wrong! I really enjoy your channel on youtube it's just... if one of the trio left top gear, it just wouldn't be the same, and that's what happened to This week in retro. Anyway... I look forward to your next adventure. 👍
@@3um3le3ees watch today's episode of TWiR. I hear from Dave it's going to be a good one 😎
@@005AGIMAGreat episode! The show really needs the chemistry of the three of you. Thank you.
If we had Google Street View in 1989. Hehehe... Love the transitions in the retro style.
Thanks Jennifer. Had a bit of fun with that. Did you note the movement arrows matching the street view movements? (for the most part).
Yeah I hate it when I have a "good idea" lol.
@@005AGIMA I did notice the arrows were used correctly. 😉
One of your best videos Chris! Really enjoyed this retrospective!
Thanks mate. I really appreciate it. I have so much love for this town even all these years later.
Now you've gone and started me reminiscing about my local haunts 🍻
@@GenerationPixel and that's why we do this 😁
There was a shop down Camden road for all models from trains and monster trucks from 👍
@@stevegeorge6479 yeah that was EM models
E M Models.
Nice to see my old stopping ground. I think I delivered to every house and business when I was a Postman
@@tim-moffy haha yeah man you delivered everywhere. I did stand in postman through an agency for one day and I couldn't hack it mate. So friggin hard. That was highbrooms area I had to do.
@@005AGIMA the job was crap mate but getting paid to keep fit whilst delivering was all I cared about, couldn’t do it now,, that’s for sure
Love this! So I guess you went to Huntleys like me. You have cracking memories by the way, I listened and after a minute the memories came flooding back!!
@@JustTheShopLtd glad I unlocked memories mate. That's why I'm in this hobby. Nostalgia is like a drug.
I walk by the place I used to shop Amiga games and "hardware" quite often. It is a sad state the way it is now. Just a random book store (and not one of the cozy book stores). I really miss these kind of places. Was fun to get to see a bit of your town and history.
@@proteque it can be quite emotional seeing the old haunts hey. I guess for me it's compounded because I moved away, so I see a lot of changes in big chunks, rather than a gradual evolution of the area.
Thanks for the trip back to my childhood growing up there, also I used to frequent all those places and there used to be a sewing shop in Camden Road that sold the £1.99 Mastertronic games for mainly the Spectrum 48k and C64. Another places for second hand games was further down Camden Road called Climax, it mainly focused on PlayStation 1 and 2 games later on.
OMG thanks for your input. I'd totally forgotten about Climax, and I know the sewing shop you're talking about but I NEVER knew they sold the budget cassette games. I mean, those things popped up in odd places including corner shops, but a sewing shop? I never ever knew that lol.
This was fun. I must discuss this with my friends about the same idea in my town as it used to be.
@@raggersragnarsson6255 glad you enjoyed it. Good luck with your project :) well worth doing imho 😎
@@005AGIMA I haven't forgotten about the old Transformers comics to give to you. I'm moving house soon so I'm extremely busy right now. Once settled I will find them and send them to you Chris. Cheers.
@@raggersragnarsson6255 Oh cheers mate. I'd actually totally forgotten lol.
Funny, that's the thing I remember as a kid was going into my favourite computer store (long since gone now,) and playing games on the vectrex, and the speccy, and seeing all these tapes for the speccy, the Amstrad 464 and 6128, the BBC, Commodore 64 etc., and thinking it was amazing. I spent many an hours in there, but not much money. I never thought of it as a business that needed to make money, just a cool place to hang out. I was really sad when it closed. But that's the thing with commerce I guess. When you're a kid it doesn't come into it. It's just a cool place to hang out.
@@therealyogibear2k225 couldn't have explained it better myself. And I'd was still commerce. They were still selling to us and we in turn sold the concept to our parents who, hopefully at Christmas, did the spending on our behalf.
Thanks for the video! Coincidentally this dropped about the same time as a podcast episode around a rather nasty murderer and certain other crimes I wont mention on a family friendly channel) from Tunbridge Wells so a rather interesting contrast 🙂
wow crazy. I'm not aware of the other video and I don't think I'll bother to look it up lol.
@@005AGIMA He worked in the morgue and a large number of crimes were committed there....!
Volunteers had the Daley Tompson arcade inside for a few months. Spent some good pennies in there!
@@JustTheShopLtd oh wow didn't know about the arcade. I want to get a couple of cabs myself. One for the garage, and the other I actually want to put on free play and move it around some local business like bars and fish and chip shops etc, to recreate that feeling for people.
I got my Amiga A1200 from WizBit. It was one of the original (limited) batch that came into the UK at launch and didn’t include a software bundle. The guys in the shop threw in some accessories free of charge as I recall. Over the following year a got nearly all my software from them. When WizBit went bust they paid some of their staff in games. I was fortunate enough to buy a box full of brand new Amiga games for £75 off one of them!There was also another computer shop up in nearby Southborough (can’t remember its name?). It was on London Road across from the library. It was very small and almost like walking into someone’s living room! However it had shelves full of cassette games and is where a got my first Sinclair ZX81 game…. An Astroid clone I believe. Many years later I opened a local computer repair shop on London Road (Geekos) and we use to sell classic retro games for lots of old consoles and computers. This was before prices got too silly!
Southborough and High Brooms were where I spent most of my younger years, I don't recall the computer shop but I do remember the video shop further down, opposite where tesco is now (used to be a petrol station) and they had a brilliant arcade out the back, that swallowed all of my pocket money at the time!
@@wkdarchaeology5653 man that's awesome that you opened your own shop. I recall some of the best shops down Camden road in the PC era didn't look like shops inside. They were a mess but the people knew their stuff and had the goods. Wizbit games always found a way lol. The one I recall was in the PS2 launch hype. They were pre order only through places like Dixon's. I had one on order myself. No shops had actual stock.... No shops.... Except wizbit that is lol. God knows where they got them 🤣
Wizbit Games were our tenant, sadly they went bust - twice. I remember helping my dad clear out the shop after they finally went in about 1994 I think. I remember them fondly, they were a friendly bunch.
Sadly the premises hasn’t been looked after by the subsequent tenants. It spent a long time as a furniture shop, then a delicatessen attached to what was the Italian restaurant next door, and most recently a fish and chip shop.
Would love to open the place as a retro gaming centre… if only.
WOW thanks for the added history. Would you happen to have any photos of it from back then?
It may be a mixed memory but I thought they were still in business when the Play Station 2 came out, as I recall them having stock when no one else did. That was the year 2000 though.
They also dealt in Playstation 1 games for quite some time as Lee mentioned, so that's 1995.
Upstairs in boots for the console games with my gift vouchers on boxing day!!
@@JustTheShopLtd yep upstairs. They even did toys and Casio keyboards. It was so much more versatile than it is now. I guess it's back to being a chemist really.
Damn, sorry for all the comments but I am doing it as I watch. Whites Bazaar, I wondered what you were going to say as they didnt sell games then you pulled out the Tomy Tronic. Yep, I remember doing the same, I lived above the coffee shop on Monson Colonnade for the first 10 years of my life!!
@@JustTheShopLtd Ah the famous coffee shop. Yeah look... The Tommy Tronic memory I "think" was there.... Or it could have been Weeks, or Hooper's, both of which had the toys section in the basement. But I think it was White's anyway.
Fantastic video, thanks for sharing 👍 some Photos and videos of when these stores were around would be great to get more of an idea how they looked at the time. ( not an easy task ) . Were there many stores here in Australia that you have fond memories of also that you could take us to also ?
Thanks mate. Yeah I'm really keen to keep pursuing this. We were close to getting some photos of one of the shops but the contact fell silent for some reason. TBH I moved to Aus in late 2002 so to me, it's all still "recent" here, and nostalgia hasn't kicked in for that portion of my life. Plus most of the stores still exist. Target, K-Mart, Big-W, and JB Hifi would be the main ones. Of course we've lost Tandy (also had that in the UK) and the Legendary Dick Smiths.
The more time you spent in the UK the more you lose the fake Australian accent 😄 Nice video and memories thanks for sharing
@@BlackOmegaUK yeah accents come and go with me for sure.