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Beaties Model Shop

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This is what is now at 10 Broadway where Beatties once was. A chicken shop. How times change....

55CCB6A5-E485-4177-90D8-EF19AEB68FB2.jpeg

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On 2/3/2010 at 5:36 PM, T. Smith said:

The Southgate branch was my local one and was the Beatties/Riko mail order centre. I used to go there quite a bit, buying all sorts of add ons for my Madcap. I also did 3 weeks work experience at that store during the early 90's. I was about 16 or 17, I think, which would make it either 1990 or 1991.

The Southgate branch was actually very small (the only other one I'd been to was in Holborn which seemed huge, comparatively).

10 paces from the front door at Southgate branch, and you were standing at the counter at the back of the shop where all the Tamiya boxes were stacked. Heaven. I can still see the Lunchboxes, Astutes, 959's, and Acoms radios. Working the shop floor were 3 other guys, Lee, Neil and Sam. Or was it Andy? Neil was the manager and later moved on to Modelzone, Holborn, where the old Beatties used to be.

The mail order room out back was even smaller than the shop. It was like a shed, but it had every Tamiya spare part available at that time. Each item had it's own pigeon hole. Every screw bag, every plastic sprue, every hop up option and body part was somewhere on the wall. It was brilliant.

The mail order room was run by three women - Aunty Jean, Pam (I think) and a blonde one who reminded me of Rose from Golden Girls. She weren't stupid, she just looked the same. Anyway, Jean and Rose were on the phones and Pam spent all day on her feet making parcels of the orders passed to her from Jean and Rose. A postman came round each day to collect everything, sometimes stopping for a chat (flirt) and a cuppa.

Those 3 weeks flew by, and I wished I didn't have to go back to school when it was finished. I wanted to leave school and work at Beatties. Still, it was great fun while it lasted.

The above post was written by me using another account, which I lost the details to.  I miss Beatties a lot, and had a great time working at that store.  It's sad to see every high street become soulless carbon copies of each other, where only the big names, selling the same stuff thrive.  At least we have the variety on the internet - as long as the likes of Amazon don't swallow everything up and the web becomes as soulless and as devoid of interest as the high street.

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On 6/26/2018 at 2:55 AM, Avante2001R said:

This is what is now at 10 Broadway where Beatties once was. A chicken shop. How times change....

Not just any chicken shop though, innit. It's a World of chicken (and pizza). :rolleyes:

Seriously though, it's very sad. Same story right around the world. We could have a whole thread devoted just to photos of where hobby shops used to be... and the chicken shops, hairdressers and pay-day lenders that have replaced them.

I still think a nostalgic style hobby shop that only stocked vintage goods, could be viable today - as a niche store and by someone who owned the building (hence, no rent). It would need to have a variety of vintage toys - trains, cars, planes. And some shops like this do exist already, they just don't tend to stock hobby-oriented goods, focusing mainly on other vintage things like comics, diecast models, dolls etc.

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I (my mum) bought my first Tamiya (TA03F Subaru WRX) from the Croydon branch on 15th Sept 1998. The shop used to have a train running around the top of the shop with fun stuff going on in the middle of the shop floor. 

I still have that TA03 and use the duffle bag they gave away with it for transporting cars. I think it’s an Ann Summers now? 

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Who remembers the chap with the beard at Beatties Holborn? I used to visit that place frequently also 1990-1992. Used to enjoy watching the Tamiya promo videos. 

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On 7/27/2009 at 5:51 PM, Jonny Retro said:

and for RC, Model Junction in Bury St Edmunds - round here, you weren't worth snuff without one of their big red carrier bags :)

Hooray! Model Junction was indeed the place to go and is happily still going strong. I have probably put more money over the counter of that one shop than any other, having been an afficianado of every section at one point or another: RC, plastic kits, Warhammer 40K and now the model railway section, as my Dad is building a layout in his retirement and it'd be rude not to pop in for a wagon or a lineside kit whenever I'm in town. I'm still using the RC section, too, as I'm rebuilding some old cars and Dave, the proprietor, remembers me and the cars I'm rebuilding from the first time round.

Bury St Edmunds also had a Beatties, though. It took over a large and long-established toyshop called Brigden's in the town centre I'm guessing in the late 1980s. It was a long shop with high ceilings under the Corn Exchange which had entrances at both ends. The RC section was in one corner at the Traverse end. It mostly stocked Tamiyas, so I didn't need to go there much as I almost exclusively owned Kyoshos. A lot of the new kids who turned up to race on our Saturday morning meetings would arrive carrying their pride and joy in a black and yellow Beatties car carrier bag, though. It was a shame when the chain collapsed, as it had turned a lot of new drivers on to the hobby. The building is still in use as an independent toy shop, now called The Toy Box. No RC section anymore, though.

Weirdly, for such a relatively small town, Bury also used to have a third RC vendor – a toy and model shop called Rogers' down St John's Street. This was a shambling, tightly-packed building which was clearly two or three shops that had at some point been knocked into one. It had an RC section at the back in an alcove and I seem to remember it selling things I had never seen anywhere else, although it closed when I was quite young, possibly before I got my first Grasshopper, and I don't remember buying any RC gear there. I was sad to see it go, though, as the RC and model side of the shop was a treasure trove of cool stuff, including paint, plastic kits, model railways, RC cars, boats and planes, all piled up in niches and on shelves that seemed to have been jammed into all kinds of oddly-shaped spaces. Proper old school.

I don't remember the shop in Linton, but I do remember a shop which sold a lot of RC gear in Trumpington just outside Cambridge. Me and my Dad would go there occasionally to see if they had anything which Model Junction didn't stock, as they primarily concentrated on Tamiya, Kyosho and Marui cars, with the occasional Schumacher. So if you wanted Associated, Yokomo, Losi or other gear you often had to look further afield. Plus other model shops often had other random stuff on the shelves and in bargain bins which you couldn't predict. The Trumpingtion shop had a Parma 1/10 Chevy Nomad bodyshell for sale for ages, stapled to the ceiling, which I desperately wanted. No matter that it wouldn't have fitted on anything I owned and that it would have made anything you attached it to handle like an eel trying to cross an ice rink, no one else had one and I wanted it. Eventually the shop closed down, though, and I never got my Nomad shell. Presumably someone bought it for pennies in the closing down sale. I still look out for them, even now.

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On 2/16/2010 at 12:44 PM, torino said:

I think Model Zone is the closest thing to Beaties now!

Sadly Model Zone is now another casualty to the internet's apocalypse on specialist retailers.

It was my contention at the time that when Model Zone went into administration, Kate Moss should have bought the chain. I wanted this to happen purely so that she could have posed in front of its headquarters after the purchase for publicity shots, and I as a subeditor could have used my favourite ever unused caption: "Model Zone: Model's own."

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Beatties Sheffield City Centre, then...

59a351383125d_BeattiesSheffield2.jpg.83a

 

And up until recently...

RNsb6RH.jpg

 

Doesn't seem a very lucky location...

 

It too, had a train set running around the shop

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I got my first tamiya (ford ranger) from Newcastle beatties and could well have travelled on this bus to get it🤔 brilliant times! When I first went in the ford ranger hadn't been released just posters of it and coming soon on the bottom of the said poster so maybe I was one of the first to get a ranger? Still remember that day when I got on the bus with my mum (god rest her soul😔)on Saturday morning sooooo excited to get a beatties super deal with the bright blue beatties bag😍 I actually painted the body that colour to go with the bag😄, were them yellow buses ever clean?

8332169369_41473c61f2_b.jpg

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12 hours ago, moffman said:

god rest her sole😌

"Soul" ;) 

Great story though. And I can almost make out kit boxes, in the shop window of that pic.

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I worked in a couple independent LHS in the 80's.  I worked on Saturdays, raced Sundays, worked a couple hours after school and on holidays.  I built literally hundreds of Sand Scorchers, Rough Riders, Holiday Buggy's, etc.  At Christmas I would have a production lines running :-)  I think 45 mins for HB and about 1hr15mins for a SRB.

I started off messing about in a church hall with other running XR3's and Cheetah's and few other Tamiya race cars, and then the SRB buggy explosion happened and 1/10th off-road racing started.  Then I had a go at 1/8th buggy racing in the very first days c1981 running Sankyo BMW/Kyosho Circuit 20's, I had one of the first Landjumps in the UK and then I moved into 1/8th circuit racing in W-S-M - Mendip Model Racing Track racing SG Columbia's and a Delta Eagle.

I can remember almost every item in those shops, I would spend hours searching through the drawers.  Love it.

I left the industry in 84 to join the RAF and didnt think about RC again until the early 2005, I then had a look on eBay bought a PB Racing X3 and then it all went a bit nuts.  Too much nuts really...  I ended up getting shot of it all within a year or so.  This time I am being more careful and only buying the stuff I once owned or built for the shop....  which still leaves a lot to collect.  This week I finally got a Tamiya F2 Martini Renault (58014), this is where it all started.

 

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On 8/29/2018 at 11:32 AM, Fizzy said:

Beatties Sheffield City Centre, then...

59a351383125d_BeattiesSheffield2.jpg.83a

 

And up until recently...

RNsb6RH.jpg

 

Doesn't seem a very lucky location...

 

It too, had a train set running around the shop

Same thing happened in Romford , was a Beatties then a Maplin and now empty , were opposite a Woolworths which became Poundworld , both now gone too ,Romford is a ghost of it's former self now . Even Hobbycraft which is still there has ditched the Tamiya RC models and Modelworld ( a good Tamiya RC kit stockist ) left a few years ago too . No good source of Tamiya parts in shops around there anymore - shame . 

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Just dug out this old thread, and wondered if anyone remembers walking into a Beatties store around 1996/7 and seeing the (then) newly released TA03F Pro Chassis Kit (58177). I understand that there was a special (possibly back-lit) glass cabinet or stand of some sort used for displaying a built example of the. model, and that the chassis was built with some special clear gearbox and damper parts fitted (rather than the kit supplied grey parts) to show the inner workings, parts that were only made available to hobby stores for this purpose.

Does anyone remember seeing this..? 

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On 9/5/2018 at 9:06 AM, KEV THE REV said:

Same thing happened in Romford , was a Beatties then a Maplin and now empty , were opposite a Woolworths which became Poundworld , both now gone too ,Romford is a ghost of it's former self now . Even Hobbycraft which is still there has ditched the Tamiya RC models and Modelworld ( a good Tamiya RC kit stockist ) left a few years ago too . No good source of Tamiya parts in shops around there anymore - shame . 

Old thread, but if your from that area, do you remember the rc shop on brentwood road in romford?

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Reeves Models , yes indeed . Adrian is the go to guy . I've bought lots of parts and a few chassis from him . He's not so active these days and you have ring up for parts and he meets up with you , as the shop isn't open much as it was.

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4 minutes ago, KEV THE REV said:

Reeves Models , yes indeed . Adrian is the go to guy . I've bought lots of parts and a few chassis from him . He's not so active these days and you have ring up for parts and he meets up with you , as the shop isn't open much as it was.

Was walkable for me as a kid, just remember loads of bodies hanging up. Glad to here it's still there in some form.

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Yes , the shop is still rammed with stuff , every time I go there it's like being a kid in a candy shop :)

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On 6/25/2018 at 10:18 PM, Fruitfly01 said:

The above post was written by me using another account, which I lost the details to.  I miss Beatties a lot, and had a great time working at that store. 

I've been trying to work out the location of Beatties in Southgate for a few weeks so thanks to you and the other member Avante2001, for helping me jog my memory.

I used to pop into Beatties in the 90's every now and then, I don't think I actually bought anything but it was nice seeing what Subbutteo and Scaletrics stuff was available. I actually knew a guy that worked there part time in the years prior to it closing.

Had to create an account because I don't think anyone has mentioned that the Southgate Beatties was the first one, presumably that's why the mail order dept was based there. According to Wikipedia Beatties was originally called The Southgate Model Shop and was owned by a Col. S N Beattie. Although Wikipedia says that originally they had two separate shops in Winchmore Hill Road a stones throw away. Beattie retired and sold the chain to Richard Kohnstamm Ltd and eventually it expanded to 60 branches

Someone who cares more than me might want to compile a list of all 60 branches or the original 19. 15 branches are listed on a carrier bag in this photo, 21 in this early 80's brochure, 32 from this late 80's brochure and around 60 on this Photo but knowing the internet it could disappear at any time.

If I ever get back on Ancestry I'll try and trace Colonel Beattie. I've found a Stewart Nugent Beattie who died in Enfield in 1981 and was born in 1897 which matches the name given and the location. He appears to have been from Sunderland but married a Gladys Clarke in Kensington and moved to Southgate where they appear in the 1939 register /geek

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I really miss going in to model shops.  Seem to be a thing of the past as far as living in Kent goes!

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