Woollies

The news of the demise of Woolworths brought back many memories for me. I haven't set foot in Woollies for years so it was hardly part of my emotional landscape, but it provided me with my earliest work experience, so I have some long-ago, fond memories of the place.
I was 14, and in those days you could work legally for 2 hours a dayso I did Friday evenings. It was a small branch in a typical 60s shopping precinct and opened until 7pm on Fridays only in those far-off days before extended opening. Even that was considered pretty revolutionary.
The staff consisted of a handful of embittered regulars and the rest were schoolgirls. We had few customers, and our most frequent visitors were a gang of Rockers (we're talking about the mid-60s, so there were still Mods and Rockers, in the days before there were hippies) who would loaf around, shoplift and drop off stink bombs.
My memories are pretty fragmentary, but I seem to have spent most of my time there working on the biscuit counter, where we had those old-fashioned tins ranged in front of us, and we'd sell them loose. And of course there were the famous tins of broken biscuits. It seems unimaginable now, but people used to buy them! Why can't we be as frugal nowadays? I suppose we may have to be in the coming months as the credit crunch starts to bite, but Woollies will be long gone.
After we'd finished work, we used to go over to Lewis Separates which stayed open a bit later, and spend all our wages on clothes. We were Mods, of course, or tried to be - anyway, clothes, and music (increasingly) were all we thought about (boys weren't quite so important). Looking good, and knowing the latest dance steps were what was really important. I do remember vividly the exhilarating feeling of having my own money after years of a few coins pocket money and the unconfined joy of spending it on whatever I wanted - bliss! I felt I had the world at my feet.
So, while I can't feel much emotion at Woollies demise, I have fond memories, and I'm sure I'm not the only one as not many places were willing to employ girls as young as us. I know my brother found it much easier to work, and he seemed to have loads of jobs.
Anyway, once I was 15 I graduated to working all day Saturday, but that didn't last long. I got a much-coveted job usheretting at the Oxford Playhouse, but that's another story.....