Woolies

[poliphilo]

Woolworths has gone into receivership. The news shocked me slightly.  It had always been there. It was a fixture of the British high street.  Not that I'm sorry- except for the staff, for whom its a bummer- because I never loved it.  I had my reasons. One reason is I'm a snob, another is I don't like my shops brassy, ugly and fluorescent and a third is that in 1959 one of their shop assistants grabbed me,  told me I looked a mess, straightened my collar and rolled my sleeves up neatly- and if there's one thing I hate it's being fussed over by mother hens.  Ailz's pa says it's her fault for doing all her shopping online and- while we've never ever done our real-life shopping at Woolies so can't be accused of deserting it- he does have  a sort of a point. Woolies is the lazy store, the one that that refused to move with the times. It was the prototype of both the budget shop and the supermarket, but stayed exactly where it was- continuing to offer the mid-century shopping experience- cheap, cheaper, cheapest- whilst the fully-evolved budget shops and supermarkets under-cut and outstripped it.  When you think about it ,"The wonder of Woolies" (remember that slogan?) is that it lasted as long as it did .

Comments

[aellia.livejournal.com]

My aunt worked in Woolworth in the 1920/30s.
I used to love reading her copies of the staff magazine. They were all so prim and proper in those days.
Do you watch the tv programme about the independant department store. My daughter works in one like it. Family run,very old fashioned but hanging in.

Have an earworm for the day :-)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RJNJCarL5ik&eurl=http://lj-toys.com/?journalid=142928&moduleid=140&preview=&auth_token=sessionless:1227870000:embedcontentiurl=http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/RJNJCarL5ik/hqdefault.jpg

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That ad must have cost a packet. All those TV stars! Doesn't Bill Oddie look young!

I haven't see the department store show. What's it called?

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Are You Being Served?

We get it here in the culturally deprived States, too.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I used to enjoy that show.

"I'm free!"

[aellia.livejournal.com]

It's here
I really enjoyed it,but then my whole working life has been in shops apart from a short stint in a factory to earn more money!
x

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00fqpn0/The_Department_Store_Peters/

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I must check it out.

[dadi.livejournal.com]

I remember Woolworths too, in Germany.. when we were really tight with the money when I was little, we would shop there sometimes, but I remember the feeling of misery I always had in their shops. I haven't put foot into one for what.. 30 years?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Misery. Exactly. Woolies is a depressing store. It's extraordinary that they've never really tried to brighten up their act.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Here's a bit of trivia for you - the person who opened the first Woolworth's was from Watertown, NY (where I was born) and opened his first one in Utica, NY (about 35 minutes from here). That store failed, but he opened another one a year later in Lancaster PA and it took off from there.

Nancy Griffith wrote one of my favorite songs (of hers) called 'Love at the Five and Dime', she claims it was inspired by seeing Woolworths when she flew back 'home' for a visit.

Woolworths closed, here in the States, back in the 80's. All that's left of what's left is the Foot Locker stores.

And
Woolworths Group plc originally was the British unit of F.W. Woolworths, but has operated independently as a separate company since 1982. On 26 November 2008 Woolworths Group plc anounced that they are in too much debt to maintain their outgoing payments and went into administration with many stores expected to close within weeks, meaning the loss of thousands of jobs.

AND

On February 1, 1960, four African American students – Ezell A. Blair Jr. (now known as Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain – from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, a historically black college/university, sat at a segregated lunch counter in the Greensboro, North Carolina Woolworth's store. This lunch counter only had chairs/stools for whites, while blacks had to stand and eat. Although they were refused service, they were allowed to stay at the counter. The next day there was a total of 28 students at the Woolworth lunch counter for the sit in. On the third day, there were 300 activists, and later, around 1000.

This protest sparked sit-ins and economic boycotts that became a hallmark of the American civil rights movement.

That Woolworth's counter is in the Smithsonian.

Sorry, I get carried away sometimes.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

So what you're saying is that Woolworths needed to become the focus of a nation-wide rights movement to re-invent itself?

After all, I bet that lunch counter wasn't serving 1000 meals a day during normal times!

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

well,no, at that time Woolworths WAS an institution, but you're probably right. I'll bet all together they weren't serving 1000 meals a day.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Woolworths is so much of a British institution we forget it started off in America.

I'm glad that the lunch counter has been saved for posterity.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I started to reply to your post, and it grew into an essay. This happens a lot when you stir the pot.
You caused me to remember out Woolworth's stores, where I could get a hot fudge sundae for 25 cents or a banana split for 50 cents. A hot dog and a cola cost only 25 cents for both.
Our Woolworth's stores disappeare around 1980.
I have moved my longer post to my own LJ.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'll check out your essay.

I don't believe our Woolworths ever had ice cream counters.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Some folks stateside have already commented upthread on the demise of U.S. Woolworth's.

I loved Woolworth's -- do you remember the one at 13th and Chestnut here in Philadelphia? When I was young and had little money, and my friend Sally was similarly straitened, we used to allow ourselves $5 for our discretionary shopping for the week. We would roam the aisles of Woolworth's choosing our purchases, often taking things out of the cart and putting them back as many as five times before proceeding to check-out.

My friend Sally and I got together last summer at a discount store, Marc's, in her home town and reminisced about the old days in Wooworth's. Our budgets are a little more generous now but we still filled and emptied our carts repeatedly.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was innoculated against Woolworths by my British experience. Have I ever visited one in America? Possibly in Kentucky- but I really don't remember. I get the impression, from the responses I'm getting- that the American Woolworths were jollier- and less associated with post-war austerity- than the European ones.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

The 13th and Chestnut one was about five miles from your old Kingsessing stomping ground -- just across the street from Wanamaker's. That's why I thought you might have gone in. And it was pretty jolly, at least in the 60s and early 70s.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I must have passed it then.

But my British training would have prevented me from going in. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Our Woolworth's stores (in Boston) were not stark and cold, but nicely lit, with no piped in music. The counters were neatly organized, the sales clerks were polite, and as I noted earlier, once one grew tired from shopping there was the lunch counter where one could get a coffee or a snack or ice cream treat.
Since I am a "post-depression" "pre-war" baby, I associate Woolworth's with post war prosperity here in the US, coupled with the now long-gone Yankee "thrift".

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

It was me in this post. Sorry I forgot to sign in.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I associate Woolworths with austerity, not prosperity- but that's because the British post-war experience was so different. The war pretty much wiped us out- and it took a decade or more for our economy to recover. As a small boy I looked to the USA as a land of fabulous riches. You had skyscrapers, you had cowboy movies, you had instant chocolate pudding!

[(Anonymous)]

I'll be sorry if Woolworth's doesn't make it through receivership. I worked there for a couple of years when I was at school and met some nice people, well let's be honest, girls. Jo started and carried on the baton.
Woolies is definately in a difficult position in terms of what they sell, especially with shopping moving out of town and online. Their biggest day of the year is just before Easter, and there stores are very large for glorified sweet shops. P.s. don't touch the pic'n'mix.
Tom F

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Pic'n'mix is their strongest "brand". Maybe someone should buy up the name and open a chain of Woolies pic'n'mixes.

I'd forgotten you'd worked in Woolies. I should imagine that was pretty good fun.

[(Anonymous)]

Great idea. If you've got a spare pound you should give the receivers a tinkle :)
The trouble with pic'n'mix is that small children tend to "pic" out sweets 'n' mix them with their saliva, then put them back in.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can see how that might happen.

Yeuk!

Sorry for the essay

[treehavn.livejournal.com]

I was going to say, surely any Brit schoolchild's strongest memory of Woolworth's is being accused of shoplifting from the Pic'n'Mix? Even if you were, say, only opening the bins and having a good old sniff of the contents... ;)

It was still a shop where you could get crap that you couldn't think of where else to buy. That said, the past 2 or 3 I've been in for things (a pie dish, A4 padded envelopes, apple-flavoured bootlaces) they were out of stock and the store was poorly organised. It's a shame to see such an historic company go under (especially counting the US Woolworth's) but no, like you I'm not sorry.

Re: Sorry for the essay

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've been in our local Woolies a few times- and used it as a handy cut-through from the high street to the market. Ailz says I was very pleased with a mug I bought there once- but I must say I'd forgotten.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I stopped caring about Woolworth's when it stopped being red and gold. Besides, judging by the windoes, the shops have gone from selling useful things cheaply to selling useless things cheaply.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hadn't noticed that they'd changed their colours.

I wonder what happens next. There's a very large Woolworths in Oldham town centre. It will be depressing if the premises has to be boarded up for any length of time.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

It happened about forty years ago!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Ha!

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Our Woolworth stores have been gone for a long time. The company eventually became K-Mart.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We're waiting to see if anyone will take over the British Woolworths. At the moment it seems unlikely. There are huge debts.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately that is happening to MANY companies over here. :^(

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And here too. Woolworths is simply the best known- a household name, in fact.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Actually, it was Kresge's, another five and dime store chain, that become K-Mart. Kresge's did well with its metamorphosis. The K-Mart stores are much bigger, something like the old intown Boston Woolie's. Lots of variety, low prices, even a lunch counter. However, now they are located in malls rather than in the center of town.

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I believe that Kresge's bought out Woolworth's.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Did you punch the shop assistant in the stomach? I'm afraid I would have.

Here is OZ, Woolies is a muscle flexing monster, one of two chains who dominate the market, set prices, bully delivery networks and screw fresh food suppliers by setting ruinous prices which they then jack-up astronomically for re-sale. They are very powerful and exceedingly ruthless ... it's obvious that they share only the name with their British namesakes.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I was a very well brought up little boy. I just stewed inwardly. And have gone on stewing ever since.

That doesn't sound at all like the British Woolies. I'm not sure exactly how things developed, but it seems the overseas Woolies are/were independent of the parent company in America (which no longer exists) and of one another.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

I was very well brought up too ...well, strictly brought up at any rate ... but on certain occasions, a wild streak that never would be contained boiled up ... being molested by a shop assistant would have been one of those occasions.

I was such a compliant little thing that, on the rare occasions when I said "NO!" and meant it, it left my parents in a state of total disbelief.
Twosuch occasions were my absolute refusal to keep going to boy-scouts where I was bullied, and my point-blank refusal at the age of 12 to continue with the haircut that my father approved.

That one provoked scenes like the "Please Sir, I want some more" moment in "Oliver Twist".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I hated the boy scouts. I wasn't bullied- I just didn't have any friends there and couldn't see the point.

Later I got thrown out of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme for failing to get any points and embarrassing the school by an act of trespass (which was really the teacher's fault for not checking beforehand that the land he was sending us orienteering across was private property- I was the victim of a cover- up!)

[currawong.livejournal.com]

A cover-up ... how glamorous.

The only thing I have ever been thrown out of was the Griffith Arts festival concert ... this incident bagan when two Isadora style dancers in their white gauzy greco costumes performed an Arcadian interpretive dance that left my companion and I primed for a giggling fit.

They were followed by a contralto of a certain age, ample figure and extreme buxomness who proceeded to sing "Climb Every Mountain" ... (to understand the effect you will have to sing it to yourself with the final word of each line sung absolutely flat) ...the effect is hilarious. Needless to say, we were the only ones in the audience who cracked up, and we and were escorted, howling with laughter and very much ashamed of ourselves, from the auditorium.

[silverhawkdruid.livejournal.com]

I am sorry for the staff, but not the company. I rarely shopped there, but the last time I did, I bought a set of cutlery that went rusty after one use, and though it was obviously not fit for the purpose it was sold, they refused to refund my money, and the manager was bolshy and threatened me with the police when I stood my ground.
I left, after being forced to exchange the cutlery for something else, and never set foot in there again. Told everyone I knew what had happened too, and some of them also stopped shopping there. You want to keep your customers, you don't treat them like that!

I do remember once upon a time that woollies was a decent shop, but no more. I shan't miss it at all.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a real horror story. It's no wonder they went bust if they were treating their customers like that.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Woolworths isn't here anymore.

To me it was wooden floors, popcorn smell, glass bottles of pill-sized round candy hard as rocks, ten-cent Japanese figurines in big bins, plastic flowers, rings with red-glass rubies for 29 cents, pencil boxes, Whitman puzzles, Big Chief notebooks, glass windchimes, Evening in Paris perfume for Mother's Day.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The British Woolworths was modelled on the American five and dimes. That gave it a unique place in the market. Unfortunately times changed and Woolies didn't.