Rewind and Return Before 2013: Farewell to the Video Shop

East of the M60’s rewind to the glory days of video hire shops

Thirty years ago, the home video recorder was our answer to the iPad or smartphone. It was an object of desire, but this very object of desire would cost about £500. Prerecorded cassettes were around £20 – £25, with recordable tapes slightly cheaper. It is hard to imagine how in 1983 a VHS cassette would cost the same as a 16Gb Secure Digital memory card would now. Today’s camcorders also take them – a far cry from the colossal things which took full size VHS tapes.