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

[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!