A story of recent Chorlton in 20 objects nu 1 ......... A Blockbusters card

Now most of us will have one lurking somewhere.

In my case the card made its way from my wallet to a cupboard long after the shop closed but never quite got thrown away.

And now of course it has passed into history and now even the shop has gone.*

But for a long time Blockbusters offered up a cheap way to see a film with the added bonus of being able to rent something for the kids at a knockdown price becoming as much a part of home entertainment as the old TV rental shop and the weekly delivery of the Beano and the Dandy.

It wasn’t the first such shop, that I think was  almost opposite Beech Road which is now an off license and for a time there was that other one on Wilbraham Road facing the Post Office.

Over the last thirty or so years we have used them all, walking out first with VHS tapes, then DVDs and later plenty of games.

So much did it become part of family life that it even provided work for one of our sons.

Now I am always a hoarder and can make an argument out for keeping  the oddest bits of the past and I am pleased I have kept the card.

After all it is now almost as obsolete as the telegram and the telephone card, but it has its place in the story of those Friday nights which became pretty much a ritual.

One of you went off to collect the takeaway while the other sorted out the kids movies, dodged the demands for three packets of popcorn and then argued about who took the films back the following day, which more often than not you forgot to do and so  incurred the fine the next time round.

Pictures; of the Blockbuster card from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the Blockbuster shop courtesy of Andy Robertson

*The Essoldo, Blockbusters and plans for a new Morrisons on Barlow Moor Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-essoldo-blockbusters-and-plans-for.html