...parachuted in from the Falklands..? There's an article about the 'decline' of Murray Street and someone called Karen Faughey refers to it as ....'the former shopping capital of Hartlepool' ....

It was a long long time ago, ask your nana

it was popular before they pulled most of the houses down and built those new drug dens at the hart lane end

I used to live right next to Murray Street and I'm talking about a long time ago when it was still in its original package.
There certainly weren't (and never had been) any "big" shops. A couple of chemists, some butchers/pie shops, Elcho fish shop, Stott's bike repair shop, three newsagents, Best's hardware shop, three or four general dealers, a shoe shop, an off licence, a gardening shop (Forster & Armstrong) , a dry cleaners that became a launderette ... not much else really.
It certainly wasn't Murray Street where my mam went shopping!