Woolies aldershot was a nightmare for shoplifting... three floors ...doors in two separate roads... when Millwall came to play aldershot one Saturday the crowd came in from the union street entrance and went out the other doors with virtually anything they could pick up on the way through... by the time the police had arrived they were on their way to the Burger King and the boys in blue were having a right old time just trying to keep them from wrecking that place....fun times... I chased a good few shoplifters up the road so you probably dealt with a few of mine ... my office under the stairs doubled up as the store security office... I left in 1977 and I was there for 2 years before that... the manager had a nervous breakdown (not surprisingly in that place) and I was catapulted in to take over.... 25 years old with a workforce of 80 women and three blokes ... the girls in the first floor would not talk to the ground floor girls the ground floor girls would not work with the girls in the basement.. the front of the store girls had a long running argument with the back of the store... planning meal breaks and avoiding getting the wrong people in the staff canteen at the same time was a nightmare. The goods lift came down to the pavement on the corner of Victoria road and union street with no loading bay... everything had to be guarded whilst unloading or it disappeared... half the staff were thieves... it was like I'd been dropped into a warzone ! The ghurkas were great though....always immaculate and polite and honest ... unlike most of the other customers !
That all made me smile. Thanks for the memories. Small world
Yes ... it's a small world ... it was a baptism of fire for me that store. You may remember one event - I had just got home on Christmas eve 1976 at about 7pm and I got a call from the Aldershot Police to say they needed me back at the store as there had been an attempted break in ... I sighed, got back into the car and drove up there ... what they didn't tell me was that it was a drunk who had tried to smash his way in through the plate glass window and a piece of the broken glass had cut his jugular but he had managed to crawl into the store through the broken window and bled to death in the front of the store ...
Very true!!
I could go on but I think we are hijacking this thread!
Did you have a fishmonger? Woolies Wrexham had one in the basement (by the only escalator in town). Now I think about it fishmonger in Woolies seems bizarre but I’m sure I’m not mis-remembering.
Yerrrs, last time I was down at Garn cottage, my lifetime pal (who's now taken over the home after his mam died) called me over and bade me look into the garage where, in pride of place his as good as new Chinese AJS motorbike proudly stood ' 'my midlife crisis has finally arrived - more nearer to end of life now' he said.
No ... but there were a couple if stores that at one point were designated as prime food stores and had butchery and fishmonger counters installed alongside the deli ... I had deli counters in most of the stores I worked in but the butcher and fishmonger experiment never took off and they were quickly disbanded... in fact over the course of my years with woolies all the food counters were removed and they gave up the fight with the likes if Tesco etc. They were when I joined the biggest seller of groceries in the UK but Jack Cohen put paid to that... same with hardware, electrical and paint... from the biggest to lost the lot when B & Q started up... I well remember my area managers words when the first B & Q opened in 1969 in Southampton... 'they won't survive just selling hardware in a unit that size ' ....beginning of woolies downfall as they lost their market leading positions in records, toys, baby goods, hosiery, China and glassware, petfood, gardening.... all just dropped away as senior management wallowed in their past glory .... sorry thread diverged...
The one thing that always thrived in Woolies was the shoplifters
I remember back in the seventies, my uncle was teaching in one of the less select secondary schools in Llanelli, one day, some of his pupils walked out of Woolworth's with a compete electric organ!The one thing that always thrived in Woolies was the shoplifters
I had a complete watch display stand go out of the front of the store and whilst I was outside looking for the culprit the manager if Timothy Whites which was next door came up to me and asked if I had seen anyone carrying a Burco Spin dryer as someone had picked it up and walked out with it ... this was Southsea and my store was a through store to the car park behind palmerston road ... my staff supervisor had seen someone walking through the store carrying the spin dryer and thought it was a bit odd ! You would not believe what we lost sometimes...if you have enough nerve and look the part you can get away with daylight robbery!
I know which web site that was......now I am interested in who you are
