Disappearing department stores

The lyrics of Joni Mitchell’s “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone?” may be a truism, but also apt. Particularly in the case of High Street Department Stores. Certainly journalist and author Tessa Boase thinks so and has celebrated some of the disappeared in a new book London’s Lost Department Stores – a Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams. HOT’s Lauris Morgan-Griffiths was fascinated to read her book, packed full of those overlarge shops, stories and gossip.