Daily Archives: March 8, 2026

80s Magic Shop in Northfields

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While at Gunnersbury Boys school in the late 80s in Boston Manor, we’d go into Northfields after school, or I would. Would visit the small magic shop and I’ve been thinking about it over the years.

I watch a lot of Michael Vincent who’s a master at slight of hand

https://www.youtube.com/@MichaelVincentMagic

He’d talk about Alan Alan’s old magic shop and searching for images fine this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Alan

The inside of the story just gave me images of the Northfields one but I just couldn’t find any images. Someone on Reddit knew it and found some. Unfortunately due to the new stupid ID verification law in the UK (that doesn’t work), imgur is blocked, so I grabbed them off them and have stuck them here.

First image is what the store front changed to (before it shutdown long ago). What I was remembering was the store front of the second image.

Carnival shop in Northfields, long shutdown.
Carnival shop in Northfields, long shutdown.

That 2nd one is the store front I remember from the 80s. I believe its also where I bought my original stripper deck cards (cards that are slightly tapered one end). Its also where we’d pick up the poppers that were popular end of the 80s.

Rubber Poppers
byu/SovietPenguins innostalgia
80s Poppers

Barclays Sports Ground – Ealing – Park View Road

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Had a vague memory of this but couldn’t remember where it was. Asked my sisters who suggested it was in Ealing. Eventually asking on Reddit and thankfully people knew it, knew its name and where it was. I looked it up, its a shadow of its former self and less grand than my memory was remembering.

All I could remember was the swimming pool outside that we got to use once or twice when my mum did the waitressing for events there. I remember the pool being freezing though. I remember the doors to the main building being all glass and grand but looking at the photos now, that appears to be a false memory.

Apparently it shut down a long time ago. Images taken from web searches but some behind paywalls as everything is an annoying subscription these days.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/EalingHistory/posts/1836037276528676

Barclays Sports Ground Ealing

https://www.flickr.com/photos/8225010@N03/3246787805

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Park+View+Rd,+London/@51.522229,-0.2976423,17z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x4876120f3e8faf93:0xa47bcaa8376d7998!8m2!3d51.5210028!4d-0.2956419!16s%2Fg%2F1tvt9v8d?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMwNC4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

80s Dance Track I’d been Trying to Find For Years

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Was looking for a track on and off for years that was on a mix tape I had in the 80s. A tape a family friends, friend had made who was a DJ. I had the owl noise part in my head and the sax sound.

On an web search for it, I could hear it on Trevor and Simon Montage but Shazam couldn’t pick it up. So I asked on there. Roll on about 5 years later and had no response, so I thought. Then randomly finding that vid again and scrolling the comments I found mine, and found someone had answered and knew the track! So for another 5 years I’d been looking for it when the answer was right there, having been answer 5 years before! I still don’t have comment notifications on, on youtube though 🙂

The track was 808 State – Pacific State

Southall 80s History

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Because I’ll forget again, I’m sticking it here. Have tried to link to where I got the images. Due to imgur now banning the UK (because of the stupid age verification law that doesn’t work, they pulled out of the UK), I’m putting the images here for if/when they disappear.

We grew up in Hanwell (we’ve all long left the area). Every year we’d go to the panto at The Beck Theatre (image from https://harrowonline.org/2024/12/17/beck-theatre-in-hayes-saved-but-how-did-we-get-here/)

Image of the front of The Beck Theatre
Beck Theatre

On the drive, we’d drive through Southall Broadway. I was very young then in the early 80s, 8 or 9 and we’d play a game. In the shops on the broadway there was always a little Indian model in certain shops. If you spotted one, you got a point. Roll on 2026 and I thought about this again and couldn’t find any info on it. Couldn’t remember what the model was, just remember it being a small, short model. So I turned to Reddit. Its not all that bad, its useful for asking questions like this (they also helped find the old magic shop that was in Northfields, more on that in another post).

And someone found it or remembered it. It was Air India’s Maharaja mascot. There were of course, larger models that this small one from Ebay as found on this blog post:

https://www.outlooktraveller.com/celebrating-people/air-indias-maharaja-memories-of-a-beloved-mascot

https://www.ebay.com/itm/286680592015

small model of air india's maharaja mascot
Air India Maharaja Mascot