IT was always a bit of a moment when the Freemans catalogue arrived in our house.

It took some effort to leaf through the 1,000-plus pages of The Catalogue, as it was known - and I was quite prepared to put in that effort. This was the peak of Freemans - the 1970s and 80s - and I lived vicariously through its pages. The toys, clothes, shoes, the smoked glass sideboards and white leatherette sofas... it was a life I could only dream of.

Anyone who, like me, grew up with a mother who insisted on whipping out her sewing machine and running up homemade versions of high street fashions will know how it feels to yearn for ‘shop bought’ clothes. And Freemans was gloriously full of ‘shop bought’ stuff. I’d gaze longingly at batwing tops, pencil skirts and box jackets - clothes that looked far more fabulous in exotic locations than they ever would in real life. I was totally sold by the glamour: sun-kissed models with lovely hair floating through Italian villas, and the men, beautifully coiffured, in pastel slacks, often standing on rocks, pointing out to sea.

There was something great about The Catalogue. The weight of the thing, the smell of it, folding back the tops of pages of favourite items, so I could try and persuade my mum to get me at least one shop bought thing - “It’s only £1.50 a week for 44 weeks!”

Now Bradford-based Freemans is stopping the print edition of its catalogue after 118 years - the last of the big mail order retailers to do so. No longer will that massive buying bible land with a thud on doorsteps, as it did in millions of homes, twice a year.

More than one billion copies have been printed since the first Freemans catalogue in 1905. The likes of Twiggy, Lulu, Lorraine Chase, even Des Lynam have modelled fashions by the retailer. But now, with more than 30 million shoppers annually using Freemans.com, it’s the end of the run for the print catalogue.

Freemans was, as chief executive Ann Steer, says, “a national institution”, serving generations of families. Over the last century it was among the UK’s best-read printed material.

It had everything - bedding, furniture, electrical goods, homeware, lingerie, designer fashion. These catalogues were time capsules; showcasing our lives for more than a century - what we wore, how we lived, cooked, furnished our homes, the gadgets we used, the ways we listened to music, the toys we played with. It was standard practice to circle, in felt tip, toys we wanted for Christmas. Sindy caravan: Circled. Scalextric set: Circled. As a child, I used to cut out items from the furniture pages too, and stick them together to make rooms, complete with curtains, scatter cushions and sheepskin rugs.

From twin-tubs to tumble dryers, stack stereos to smart speakers, typewriters to home office tech, customers have over the years been able to spread the cost of household items. And the local agents (known to many as the ‘Catalogue Lady’) collecting the orders and weekly payments gave the process a personal touch.

It was, says Ann Steer, “one of the most successful retail sales tools the UK has ever seen”. Until, inevitably, the rise of internet shopping, and wider availability of credit cards, spelled the end for The Catalogue.

What began as a black and white publication, produced from a terraced house, has evolved into a thriving digital department store, offering 55,000 items for sale, with an inclusive approach to age, shape and size.

The final copies of the Freemans catalogue that rolled off the press are being donated to museums, including the British Museum, to be displayed as documents of retail history.

However inevitable it all is, to the generations who leafed through The Catalogue, and folded back its pages, it’s rather sad to see it become a relic of the past.