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I have never been a fan of shopping in town on busy days. The joy for me when working as a nurse, was my shift patterns usually meant I had days off in the week. Going to town on those days was a whole different ball game. No crowds, no queues and far better service.
Nowadays...if it can't be bought online...it doesn't get bought.
I have friends who organise shopping trips to Merry Hill, Lakeside etc etc....I would rather stick pins in my eyes 
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The only time I go in town now is if I need to go to the bank or a night out when my son visits me.
Bolton town centre is now a ghost town. As said, high business rate for stores who find decreased footfall doesn't cover the high overheads, no on-street parking without payment and over-diligent little fascists in uniform just waiting for your ticket to expire or checking if one of your wheels so much as touches a white line.
Pubs boarded up due to high prices and having to go stand in the rain or freezing cold for a cigarette. Buy cheap at the supermarket, drink at home and dodge all the beggars and thieves made homeless by uncaring councils and local services.
I too miss the record stores, the busy market days and the shear numbers of people that you knew and could stop and talk to. Supermarkets, business parks and free parking changed the way we shop. You can buy anything online and get it delivered without venturing out. Local shops went too unless you are an off-license or papershop and now they are even combined. All bought up by faceless people.
Town centres are incorrectly named. The business parks are now the town centre. Bolton has merely an admin centre now, such a shame for a town that once had grandeur's and was in the running to have City status.
Yes I miss the old days but I'm leaving them far behind....
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Living in London, I'm not familiar with the Saturday shopping thing, or the nostalgia for it, but I would probably avoid it like the plague. It's always crowded in London. I try to go food shopping at off-peak times, and if there's any tech stuff I'm interested in, I'll go look in a PC World or somewhere similar and do my touchy-feely thing, then I'll go home and buy it online, where 99.9% of the time it's cheaper.
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Long gone are the days when you could stroll around town and bump into many people you know. Now everyone I see is wearing Hejabs or Yashmaks, we all walk around hands in pockets staring at the floor lest we upset someone by having the temerity to look at them. The St George and Union flags no longer fly on the Town Hall and we are a costed by Big Issue sellers, catalogue surveys, street 'musicians' with their sidekick dog so we will pity them and of course the litter wardens who have to walk round in pairs. I swear their are more traffic warden and litter wardens than shoppers.
No going in town is not what it once was....
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BBC News: 10 High Street stores of 1976 that have disappeared
10 High Street stores of 1976 that have disappeared - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36148788
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Bit of a shock with BHS. We have lost the Co-op in the Midlands ....which in turn cost one of my lads his job as a delivery driver....
