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Memories of a local Woolworths staff member c1979 - 2009.
I found my job at Woolworth's in the Jobcentre after being turned down to train as an SEN and I stayed 30 years. In my mind it was a temporary measure until I found another nursing course - products were very limited in the early days.
I loved weighing “Pick n Mix” for the old dears. You’d get a few frowns if you ran out of Devon Toffees or Rum Butters!!
Mrs Allen was in charge of the Gardening Counter and I helped weigh the spuds up on Saturday afternoons – they were seed potatoes. In my last few years at the store I got the gardening counter and we used to sell all sorts of products
The music they had was quite good. There were a few records and tapes, and then the singles and single tapes and albums plus 12 inch singles. I went to EUK Entertainment in Hayes in Middlesex to see how they picked all the orders. Entertainment and confectionary were the most profitable.
Gardening
Pick 'n Mix
Cards & Gifts
Hardware
Music
When I first went to work at Woolworth's, there used to be glass shelves with metal brackets, which progressed to metal shelves on brackets with a back of peg board for putting hooks in to display goods. We had to fill in for all departments –laying up hardware I had to do the second section it made the job more interesting. On the last refurbishment the shelves were much better.
The first tills were like the ones on “Open All Hours” with keys like a typewriter. Checkouts had a change giving machine which had to be filled with half pennies, 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, etc. The till would give all the change into a little cup and the customer took their change from the cup. This progressed to a more electronic system.
When Woolworths in Rushden closed for the last time, original safe was still in the store. I remember one time when I hadn’t been there long – it a morning, I had just started in the office working with the cash. My boss had shown me once how to undo the safe but myself and the relief boss couldn’t do it!! We couldn’t get the floats out or remember the combination and how many times to twiddle the knob. The store was late opening that day because we had to ring up and ask the boss what to do!
Originally we had a Stock Room man who did all the lifting and helped us with the shelves. There was a lot of lifting in the stock room. The lift had so much stock in it, it regularly broke down – a regular thing. So the stock had to be run up and down the stairs by the staff.
The shop opened from 9am until 5.30 pm. The sales floor staff had to be there at 8.50am without fail and at 5.30 pm when the shop closed we had to tidy up and would often be there until 5.40pm or until the boss said we could go!!
We would close the door at 5.30pm and often the last customer would be hanging around. The boss would say “We’re closing” and if they didn’t take the hint he’d turn the lights off!! We had no extra pay for staying later to clear up. At one time when the company was doing well we had a couple of Christmas bonuses.
We had various uniforms over the years: blue with two little pleats and poppers down the front – they used to pop open when we bent down! Also a navy pinafore with striped blouse and tabard for dirty jobs. When Kingfisher took over, everything had to be changed to “Kingfisher”. The Kingfisher uniform was blue with trousers or skirt and red blouse, shirt or polo neck and the bosses had to dress the same – they hated it! We had to wear name badges too. When they realised there was no profit they pulled out and it cost the company a lot of money
We often had themes on the counters – Halloween, Xmas , Easter, Valentines, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day – all those.
5 years ago I was the stock room manager and we had a gimmick uniform – red pinafores with “Santas Little Helper on it and I wore mine every Christmas.
The locks got stuck on the front doors regularly and when you turned up for work no-one could let you in. Once when locking up - we had the alarm set, locked the doors, and started for home. Within a few seconds by the time we reached West End Stores, the alarm went off and we had to go back again and sort it out. They used Rushden as a training store for new managers as good all round experience for them – they certainly got some that day!!!
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