When my brother and his family were about to move to Australia in 1995, his wife was horrified to discover that she would be expected to do her local supermarket shopping at Woolworth's. However, the format of the shops in Oz is completely different from how they have been here in the UK and presumably how they used to be in the States. I guess the management over there twigged onto changing conditions and undertook the changes necessary to ensure they continued to have customers coming through the doors.

Sad to see it disappear here, though.

Anybody remember a chain called Wellworth's? I believe it was Manchester-based. It's stores were almost a mirror-image of Woolworth's. One of them enjoyed unopposed prime position on the Diamond, Enniskillen, until Woolworth's opened up across the road in the late sixties. Wellworth's turned itself into a supermarket and moved out of the town centre, only to disappear a few years later. Its successors, Safeway and Morrisons, have also since disappeared from the town.

I've been trying to think of any songs/poems/stories that mention Woolworths. The only song I can come up with is "Fisherman's Friend", from Fleetwood's Ron Baxter, which refers to the "Woolie's perfume" worn by the unfortunate lady of the title. I'll try to get it into the next post.

Ross