We tend to think of history in terms of long ago. How wrong we are. I recently completed my 25th year with the Surrey Comet, and looking back nostalgically has made me realise how profoundly Kingston has changed since then.

What made local life in the 1970s so different from now?

Trade Union power was a mighty, often disruptive, factor. I joined the Comet in the closing weeks of 1973 when industrial strife had brought trains to a halt, caused a severe energy crisis and a petrol famine.

Many pubs ran dry of draught beer and the run-up to Christmas was a dingy time for shops, with opening times limited, electricity voltages much reduced and all window lighting banned.

Bentalls managed to have its Christmas lights on for an hour a week, powered by the

firm's own generator.

Otherwise all festive illuminations had to be switched off.

As the situation worsened, Kingston Hospital, already in crisis by being 143 nurses short, was obliged to cut its heating to save oil.

By January, local industry was virtually at a standstill following the Government's three-day week order, which forbade firms to use power on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Thus the New Year began with more than 2,000 Kingston workers signing for emergency unemployment benefit as they lost half their weekly wages.

Meanwhile, Kingston Polytechnic students added to the chaos by organising demos for increased grants and staging a squatting campaign in protest at inadequate student accommodation.

Leaving this political maelstrom aside, the essence of Kingston was vastly different from now. This was largely because it still had many small shops who knew their customers personally. How lovely it was to see shopkeepers wave a friendly greeting as you passed by. It gave a warm sense of "belonging" in a town that still had an old-world atmosphere.

One of my favourite shopkeepers was Douglas Spears, who ran the Clarence Pharmacy in Fairfield West, later re-named Wheatfield Way. He had opened the business with his brother, Ronald, in 1928. But by the time I got to know him, Ronald was dead and Mr Spears (we didn't call all and sundry by their first names then) was carrying on as the only independent chemist left in central Kingston.

Supermarkets had made huge inroads into his trade, and he was forced to work a ten-hour day, plus most evenings and weekends, and to exist on the smallest possible profits to survive.

You could go into his old-fashioned shop with anything from a hangover to a cold sore and he would mix up a potion for you to drink there and then in the shop. It always worked.

Though elderly, he was very slim and trim, which was just as well. For his stockroom was down a stepladder in the cellar below, and he nimbly vanished and re-appeared through the floor dozens of times a day, fetching orders or putting away the piles of goods dumped on the shop floor by delivery men.

Poor Mr Spears. A passer-by spotted him motionless in his window one Sunday. He had died alone while re-arranging the display. His shop has long since gone - Garfunkels Restaurant is on the site now - but I miss him still.

Also missed is Robert Gausten, who kept shop at 48 Union Street.

This quaint little place, built in 1825, was the town mortuary for many years. That's why Robert Gausten had to remove some grisly fittings before opening up there as a master tailor in 1939.

It was just a plain little single-storey building then. But in 1950, when business was recovering from the war, Mr Gausten added another floor to house his workroom.

He also "Tudorised" the exterior with timbering and leaded windows, which makes many think it dates from the 16th rather than the 19th century.

It says something for Mr Gausten's skills that, even when customers left Kingston, they still ordered their bespoke clothing from him. For example, two suits a year went to an executive in Brussels, while others were despatched annually to customers in New Zealand, Australia, Chile and Peru.

His tailoring was also much in demand by members of the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.

I never go down Union Street without Seeing Mr Gausten in my mind's eye, standing in his doorway to take the early morning air, tape measure round his neck, greeting passers-by.

Now his shop sells bread and patisseries. For when Mr Guasten sold up and retired in the 1970s, he stipulated that the premises must NOT continue in tailoring.

"I couldn't bear seeing another tailor in possession," he said.

He gave his fine stained glass shop door, specially made for him by the celebrated Cliffords of Kingston, to Kingston Museum. But to his great regret it was never displayed. He died in 1982.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.