Shopping malls changed the way we shopped!

‘Did I see you at UCI?’ How many people had stickers on their cars asking this rhetorical question in the 1980s and 1990s?

The UCI at Crystal Peaks was a great cinema. It was the first with 10 screens in Sheffield, and you felt as if it was a proper night out. Especially as afterwards, you could have a meal at the Indian Restaurant nearby.

You were, however, subjected to extremes in the way of the air conditioning, feeling as if you’d come out of the cinema with frost bite! A good, hot curry usually solved that!

Unfortunately, the cinema closed in 2003, not able to compete with other multi-plex cinemas.

Crystal Peaks Shopping Centre was a place of excitement when it first opened in 1988. We hadn’t experienced this sort of shopping under one roof before.

The name Crystal Peaks came from the tower in the centre of the complex which had a glass top.

It was a bit like shopping in a giant funfair with waterfalls, and a model railway called ‘The Glacier Express’, and we’d certainly never seen anything like it , being used to the decorum of shopping in the City Centre or in our local neighbourhood

The grand opening of Crystal Peaks came with a bang! There were fireworks, there was Eddie the Eagle swooping down the Atrium and Chris Bonnington scaling the Peak. In 1985 he’d become at 50 years old, the oldest man, at that time, to scale Everest.

The UCI cinema was opened by Barbara Windsor, a big star through the ‘Carry On’ films, Robert Powell of ‘The Detectives’. and Ade Edmondson of ‘The Young Ones’.

Initially, there were a lot of food outlets and old favourites like GT News, Stead and Simpsons shoe shop and Fosters Menswear. But now it is a shadow of its former self with of course the obligatory phone shops, charity shops and the ever-popular Greggs! Happily, still with Next and M & S.

Once Meadowhall opened two years later in 1990, we had fully embraced the concept of shopping malls and never looked back, but Crystal Peaks was our first love.

There is no doubt that shopping malls are a very easy way to shop. There are no parking problems, and they are warm and dry, but they did signify the end of the High Street in Sheffield that we’d known for decades.

As children we looked upon ‘going to town’ as a treat. My mother would take us to C & A or B & C on Angel Street for clothes shopping, but where we really wanted to go was to Cole Bros on Coles Corner, use the exciting revolving doors, and gaze with wonderment at the wonderfully glamorous ladies on the cosmetic counters which were on the ground floor.

There were so many lovely and elegant department stores in the old days. Not only Cole Bros but also Marshall and Snelgrove, Cockayne’s and John Walsh. But like everything in today’s world, the way we shop has changed and Crystal Peaks paved the way for the change.

Funnily enough our three grandsons looked upon it as a real treat when we took them on the tram to Crystal Peaks and back again. Not that they were bothered about going in the shopping mall, being from the buying online generation, but they loved riding on the tram which made a change from going everywhere by car!