BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close

Subject: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: GUEST,Comrac
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 11:38 AM

All Woolworth stores will close in January. An end of an era.

What memories do you have of a store that was a childhood memory to all of us.

Do you recall Woolworths own brand of toys ? "Chad Valley". I got my first clockwork trainset here, and a Chad Valley monkey, always bought my Airfix kits here and my blank audio cassettes.

Their own brand of very glossy paint "Household"

As for sweets, "Pick and mix".

Most of all I recall buying "Love me do" by the Beatles, it was on a red label.

Happy days, thank you Wollies for happy memories.

The news today.

All Woolworths stores will close in the New Year after a massive Christmas sale.

Administrators Deloitte said the all 807 branches of the high street giant will shut by January 5, with 22,000 permanent staff and 5,000 temporary workers affected.

The firm said it has received interest from alternative retailers for more than 300 Woolworths stores.

Deloitte will flood stores with 50 million extra items over the next week in the final run-up to Christmas. Discounts already running at up to 60 per cent will be even heavier as the administrator looks to clear stock.

Last week shoppers formed huge queues and stripped shelves at a closing-down sale following the failure to find a buyer for the struggling firm.

Woolworths has been in business for almost a century but was forced to call in administrators three weeks ago as debts and losses mounted in a worsening high street climate.

Deloitte has held talks with the likes of former Woolworths chief executive Sir Geoff Mulcahy and Dragon's Den star Theo Paphitis but no deals have been struck.

Signs in stores will show a countdown to their final closure dates to encourage shoppers as Woolies' staff brace themselves for redundancies.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 11:44 AM

wOOLWORTH'S WENT UNDER YEARS AGO IN THE us. i WORKED EVERY SUMMER AT THEIR MAIN OFFICE IN THE wOOLWORTH bUILdING WHILE i WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE.
dAMN!!!!!
Two memories - the soft serve counter in the center of the store where you could get vanilla or chocolate with strawberry of choclate syrup and HUGE gumdrops at the candy counter.
Hard to believe it is gone. Woolco And Worthmart were their downfall.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 11:44 AM

In the US, our five-and-dimes across the nation -- Ben Franklin Stores,Butler Brothers, W.T. Grant, Kresge's, Kress Stores, McCrory Stores, J.J. Newberry, TG&Y, McLellan's, H.L. Green, G.C. Murphy, Woolworth's, Walton's Five and Dime, and what-have-you--have been suffering a similar fate over the last thirty years. Kresge's and Walton's went on to become mega-retailers Kmart and Wal-Mart. We still have a few chains of what are now called "Dollar Stores". That's inflation for you.


A

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 11:44 AM

I don't think we've had any of them left over here for a long time, that I can remember. I do have wonderful memories of two of them. One had a lunch counter and booths. My girlfriends and I were allowed to go there on Saturdays when our housework was done and we thought we were sooooo grownup, being there all by ourselves, about 11-12 years old. You could find anything you needed there!

The other one, when I was younger even, I remember, now wait, I think it was a Ben Franklin Five & Dime, my dad bought me my first cap six-shooter there.

Sad to see these old ones go.

We have a dollar store which is closing down. The gal who owns it paid for a whole truck load of Christmas goods and the company she ordered from promptly went out of business with no return of her funds and no goods!

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: GUEST,Comrac
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:20 PM

I really thought Woolworth was still up and running in the states ! I love the line in "Oh Brother where art thou" when the guy wanted to know if he was barred from all Woolworth stores or just the one for fighting !

That is so sad Kat about that lady having toclose due to the fault of others, ah the world we live in indeed.

I never realised America had so many budget chain stores.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: fat B****rd
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:22 PM

Embassy 78s
A range of plastic Viking toy soldiers

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:29 PM

I remember when the last "Wools-woith's" store in New Orleans finally closed. "Seems like yesterday," but I'm sure it's been several years.

I remember that they all smelled the same, whether at Canal and Bourbon in New Orleans, on West Front Street in Plainfield NJ, or anywhere in the country. It must have had something to do with that candy counter always sited in the center of the main floor, plus the lunch counter over against one of the side walls.

On the trad-jazz radio program I heard this morning in the car on the way to work, the DJ played a version of "I Met My Million Dollar Baby in the Five and Ten Cent Store," and then commented, "I don't think I've ever been in a five-and-ten cent store." That's when I knew the guy was younger than me!

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:36 PM

I remember the Embassy records mentioned above. It was a cheap line of covers of hits of the day. I remember, at the time, that I thought some of them were better than the original. I bet they wouldn't sound so good now!

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:39 PM

LOL, Poppa. I shoplifted my first 45 RPM single from a Woolies, and also bought "Lady Chatterly's Lover" there in my first adventure in literary eroticism, long before Henry Miller was legal. I know that smell--a cross between hamburgers, stale bon-bons, outgassing plastics, and the granualar medicated sawdust they used to clean the floors (which were usually long boards heavily varnished). There was a wonderful constancy to Woolworth's--whether in Maine or Illinois, you knew where you were, in the lap of shlock luxury.


A

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Becca72
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:40 PM

Our Woolworth's here went out years ago.
My favorite section was the pet department. I would stand there watching the hamsters while my mother and great aunt did their shopping.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:41 PM

In the 40s my mother would take one child with her to shop and to help carry packages. It was a really big deal- we were farm kids and there were a lot of us so outings, especially alone with a parent, were memorable.

My mother has said that she used to take a $5.00 bill for the weekly shopping. We had a large farm and grew just about everything we needed. Exceptions were yardage (Mom made our clothes) and shoes and staples like sugar, flour and rice.

Anyway, after the shopping was done Mom would take the child to the lunch counter at Woolworths and buy him or her a milkshake or sundae. Heaven.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:48 PM

I can still walk into the older buildings in downtown and know by the design that it was once a Woolworth or Newberry's. It has been a long time, though.

The Woolworth Building in lower Manhattan used to be an open space and you could walk through and look at display windows of products the store carries. Last time I was by it a few years ago with my daughter in tow I couldn't get inside the door except to a front desk a little way under the pretext to query the guard about the disposition of the building while said daughter did what she could to crane her neck to see some of the ornamentation and ceiling mosaics. So disappointing that that marvelous building is now off-limits, even in the foyer, to the public. Photos from Bryn Mawr academic architecture site.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:52 PM

SINSULL, I don't know where you are, but I don't believe there has been a Woolworths in southern California, certainly LA County, in over ten years.
As a kid, I used to buy stamps and collectors' supplies in the toy section.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 12:53 PM

It is God's wool.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: PoppaGator
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:01 PM

Amos, thanks for reminding me of those wooden floors common to all Wollworth's-es.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:02 PM

Got news for you....many well known, and even large businesses, are going to disappear....replacement parts for items that need them will be scarce as well...but the corporate heads don't worry, they'll be moving to Dubai, where the wealth is going. The large Corporations, do not respect, nor have any particular reason to feel 'nationalistic' about America, as we might. It bothers them not to sell us out,..if there is a buck, or Euro, or yen, or pound in it for them. When it is profitable for them, they'll do it. I know several business CEO's that are moving to Costa Rica, to get away from here...as the change will be nasty. .....Good thing about it though, when times get really rough, it may well 'fashionable' to think about asking that silly notion of 'God' to intervene, and help us....so we can live to our acquired, and accustomed, irresponsible 'lifestyles'...then turn our backs on Him, AGAIN, ..and return to being so 'Tragically Hip'!!
Idiots!!!
Oh well, sing Kumbayah, and leave your hearts in the Arctic, and you understanding in the toilet!

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: number 6
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:04 PM

I thought they had closed down years ago.

I always found that they had a lingering odor of (badly) grilled cheese sandwiches.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:09 PM

many years ago in Wichita, Kansas

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:10 PM

I see that Guest from Insanity is as ill-lucid as usual. There was a point behind the remarks, but he always manages to embed it in a snarky presentation.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:10 PM

Jaysus, GfS, your handle is SUCH a misnomer.


A

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:11 PM

Oh heck, Woolies! :0)

Garden gnomes! I used to love them as a little girl. I'd save up my pocket money and get ones that fished, ones that smoked pipes, ones that sat under toadstools, but my most exciting one was my little gnome on his garden swing! I spent hours in the garden, pushing him back and forth whilst Dad gardened around me.

And the sparkly jewellery. Mum had sparkles every birthday, brooches, bracelets, the sparklier they were, the better I loved 'em. It wasn't until I was grown up that she confessed to not liking sparkly jewels. :0)

And the monkeys! (Chongo, are you out there?) Oh, how I used to stand and stare at the huge toy monkeys they had hanging from the very top shelf in the toy section. I longed for one of those, but Mum would never let me have one (I never recovered!) lol.....Every time I went past Woolies, I'd go in and look at him with eyes brimful of tears, but he was too expensive.

Oh...and the Sun Pat salted peanuts, that were always warmed...and they had a little light in the glass container they were in. You had tiny greaseproof paper bags that they'd fill up with peanuts for you.

And the bubble gum stands. I was never allowed to have bubble gum though....deprived child, me, no bubble gum and no monkey. ;0)

I eventually bought my own bubble gum, wear the sparkles myself these days, and just last year bought a big toy monkey from Paignton Zoo, who looks almost real and took me right back to those days in Woolies. Chongo would be so impressed! In fact, he may fall in love...

You'll be relieved to know that I've grown out of the gnomes though....well...almost........... :0)

Subject: ADD: Love at the Five and Dime (Nanci Griffith)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:45 PM

The Woolworth Building is an architectural delight. I used to treasure my set of Woolworth dominoes, that had the image of the Woolworth Building embossed on every piece.

Woolworth's was gone from most places in Wisconsin by the time I left Wisconsin in 1970. I was stationed in Berlin 1972-73, and the Woolworth (no apostrophe-s) stores there seemed to be very prosperous. No lunch counters in the Berlin stores, though.

There was still a Woolworth's in Sacramento when I moved there in 1973. I think it closed in the 1980's. I remember the U.S. stores as being a little seedy, while the German Woolworth stores were shiny and clean. Since I was born in Detroit, I always thought Kresge was the best five-and-dime store.

Reminds me of one of my favorite songs:

LOVE AT THE FIVE AND DIME
(Nanci Griffith)

Rita was sixteen years... hazel eyes and chestnut hair
she made the Woolworth counter shine
Eddie was a sweet romancer, and a darn good dancer
they'd waltz the aisles of the five and dime

(chorus)
They'd sing, "Dance a little closer to me... dance a little closer now
Dance a little closer tonight
Dance a little closer to me... it's closing time
And love's on sale tonight at this five and dime
Eddie played the steel guitar and his mama cried 'cuz he played in the bars
And kept young Rita out late at night
So, they married up in Abilene... lost a child in Tennessee
still, that love survived

(repeat chorus)

One of the boys in Eddie's band... took a shine to Rita's hands
so, Eddie ran off with the bass man's wife
Oh' but he was back by June... singin' a different tune
And sportin' Miss Rita back by his side

(repeat chorus){He sang}

Eddie travelled with the barroom bands... till arthritis took his hands
now he sells insurance on the side
Rita's got a house to keep... dimestore novels and a love so sweet
they dance to the radio late at night

(repeat chorus)
(repeat 1st verse)

they'd waltz the aisles of the five and dime
they'd waltz the aisles of the five and dime



Source: http://www.nancigriffith.com/lyrics.php?track=324


Here's the Wikipedia article on the company. All that's left of Woolworth's in the U.S., is the Foot Locker chain of sporting goods stores. www.woolworth.com leads to Foot Locker.
-Joe-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeU4KJJPpqU

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 01:53 PM

Amos and Silly trivia Rage are drinking the same Kool-Aid...singing Kumbayah, between chugs!

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: GUEST,Comrac
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 02:04 PM

Just talking about the breakfast bar in Woolworth, I recall the one in Worcester had a great big dining area and the only place I could get bread crumbed triangler fish !

Check out the prices of Chad Valley toys (Woolworth's own brand) and Woolworth vintage Christmas decorations on ebay. They will prove a good investment.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 02:22 PM

but...but...if Woolworths is gone, who will then be out of Brasso?

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Sooz
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 02:32 PM

Chad Valley toys predate Woolworths by about 50 years.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Comrac (troll alert contact max)
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 02:57 PM

Thanks Sooz, I wasn't aware of that, I always thought they were an exclusive Woolworth brand. I see Woolworth bought them over in later years.

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 03:08 PM

I was just given a Woolworths Advent Calendar as a present... but it is of no use as all its windows are boarded up and there is nothing inside!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: number 6
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 03:21 PM

Good one Georgiansilver !   

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: Amos
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 03:50 PM

GtS:

Why bother coming in at all if all you can do is sneer in your deep and secret superiority? Stay home and gloat into your pillow.


A

Subject: RE: BS: All Woolworths stores to close
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 04:03 PM

This thread really should be an obit. I remember being sad when the Woolworth's closed in downtown Hopewell, Virginia when I was a kid.

But it is different here in UK. Woolies is iconic High Street family store. Its closure throughout the UK is going to contribute to killing the High Street the way downtown America died the death with the buidling of shopping centres. Now those 1970s shopping centres are outdated and seedy compared to shopping malls.

I blame the 24 hour Walmarts and bargain basement Asdas of the world. Sucking the breath out of communities.

This is bad and very sad.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 04:21 PM

Evening In Paris perfume in a lovely deep blue bottle costing from $.25 to $5. And the glitzy earrings. My brother and I covered every relative for Christmas for under $2 total.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Comrac (troll alert contact max)
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 04:34 PM

SINSULL, You just brought a memory or two rushing back, I had forgotten "Evening in Paris" I always got it for my mum (don't think she ever wore it). Just checked ebay, the vintage box sets are very collectable and expensive.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Pwitz
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 04:57 PM

I always remember going with my mother when I was a kid and buying 'broken' biscuits (displayed in square tins) sold by the pound, as they were cheaper than the perfect ones. For a treat we would get cream ones!

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Acorn4
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 05:40 PM

I grew up in Crowborough, East Sussex, and every year would go Christmas shopping in Tunbridge Wells with my mother. It had three department stores, Marks and Spencers, British Home Stores and Woolworths. Marks and Spencers committed the heinous crime of having NO TOYS. Thus I have a lifelong hatred of M and S which survives until this day - run by bossy looking women who look like they have been on "Songs of Praise" and had those chains danging from the corners of their glasses.

BHS and Woolworths were a cornucopia, a child's paradise - a reminder of a gentler age, which, I fear, will never return, when there were customers rather than "consumers".

RIP!

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: SussexCarole
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 06:26 PM

Back in 196?, while I was at High School I worked as a 'Saturday girl' in the Horsham Branch of Woolies. The pay was 2/3d per hour (12p in new money). These were the days of the old fashioned cash registers when all purchases had to be added up in your head. So many memories.....

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 06:43 PM

The "woolies" picture that BillD linked up above has labels added for Woolworths, and for Dockums.

It might be notable that the Dockums Drug Store barely in the picture was the site of a "sit-in" in 1958 that preceded most public awareness of the "civil rights movement."

I can't make out enough detail in BillD's picture to date it, but it appears to have a few ca. 52 - 54 cars on the street(?). That's not too accurate a method since most people in Wichita then drove cars at least 5 years old, as I recall; but the number of people on the street would indicate early 1950s.

Relative to the Woolworths history, ca. 1958 there was still enough "downtown" (as evidenced by Dockums still having some business) that I believe Woolworths was still open; but it closed down within a few years after. (Business downtown was so poor by the time it closed for good that few people noticed or noted its "official" passing.)

BillD's picture for reference.

NPR Retrospecitive 2008 for the story about the sit-in.

Forgotten History shows fair pictures of the "public art" currently in downtown Wichita commemorating the sit-in. (One still has to explain what they are to many life-long natives.)

The S.S. Kress store, much larger than Woolworths and arguably more popular, was "catiwampus" across from the Dockums, and probably was close to terminal by 1958, although I don't remember an accurate date for when it closed. The Kress storefront is still identifiable, but I'm not sure any sign now indicates that there used to be a Woolworths across the street and a half-block down.

John

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 07:05 PM

In this town it's now down to just K-Mart and Walmart. All the others went under quite some time ago. It amazes me to watch the flood of lemmings pour into Walmart every day. I don't know why they do it. The place does not attract me at all, in fact it repells me.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Comrac (troll alert contact max)
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 07:41 PM

In our town Woolworth always offered good quality household items at reasonable prices. Sadly the introduction of "Pound Stretcher" and Budget crap shops offering cheap imports and poor qualty goods. A reflection on our society today.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: RangerSteve
Date: 17 Dec 08 - 07:43 PM

We had a Kresge's and a Newberry's where I grew up, and one independent 5and10 called Smiler's. Neighboring towns had Grant's and McRory's. Oddly enough, I don't remember a Woolworth's anywhere near where I lived as a kid. But I loved those stores. They had everything you could need or want. And I miss the lunch counters. Nice simple food. SRS - thanks for posting the site with the pictures of the Woolworth Bldg. I used to pass it every day on my way to work. I love that building. I did get into it once, as a friend of mine had his law office on one of the top floors. He had the best views of lower Manhattan from there. I'm sorry to hear that it's closed to the public these days.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Dec 08 - 06:34 PM

My Grandma was a great fan of the bags of salted peanuts, which were served hot, smelled delicious and made your fingers greasy. One day she saved up her bag of nuts for later, and sat down to eat them at the zoo where were having a day out.

I'll never forget the woebegone expression on her face, when an ostrich put its head over the fence and grabbed the bag of nuts out of her hand.

I remember buying a winfield biro on the way to school for an history exam, getting in the exam room and the bloody thing wouldn't write. My teachers were very unsympathetic.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 08 - 08:13 PM

Sad for all the people losing their jobs at Christmas, and sad that Woolworths can now never get back to what it once was. But they've been total tat shops for years.

The strange thing is that the original Woolworths trading model of the single price shop is booming - the Pound Shops in towns across teh UK are doing brilliantly, crowded out and selling constantly. And the other abandoned Woolworths idea of the shop where you can expect to find juist about all the small stuff you need at a fair price is going great guns too in the Wilkinsons chain.

So quite how Woolworths managed to screw up so badly is a puzzle.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 02:42 AM

Like Sussex Carole, I was a Saturday girl, and got my first ever pay packet (25s)from the Harrow branch of Woolies. Started on the hardware counter selling screws and ended up on the grocery checkout with an electric till... memories of freezing Florida orange juice cans, selling Coco Pops to boys from Harrow School (the tailcoats were a dead giveaway), learning how to judge how much to cut from a slab of Dundee cake on the cake counter...... but lately haven't found anything worth buying in Woolworths for years.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 02:52 AM

In 1970... I worked as store detective for Woolworths.... in Lincoln UK. Not a bad company to work for at that time. Sad to see its demise but I guess everything changes eh????
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Comrac (troll alert contact max)
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 03:53 AM

It's good to read people's personal memories of the store. Thanks for sharing.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Jim Lad
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 04:44 AM

There are a couple of Christmas gifts for my mother up in the attic now that I bought for her in my pre-teens.
An amber coloured glass decanter and a statue of a horse that looked a lot like Trigger.
Manys the fireplace was adorned with a portrait of The Green Lady taking the spot which was traditionally kept for The Sacred Heart in Catholic households such as ours.
On another note. Woolworth's entrance was the standard meeting place for a Friday date when few of us had our own transportation.

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 05:09 AM

As for the cheap 'Bling' mentioned in some posts, it is just a reminder that:

"Diamond bracelets Woolworth's doesn't sell, Baby!"

Happy memories
Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 09:02 PM

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

Subject: Lyr Add - FISHERMAN'S FRIEND (Baxter)
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 19 Dec 08 - 09:14 PM

FISHERMAN'S FRIEND                Lyrics Ron Baxter;
                                                       Tune Ross Campbell

On my three day's leave, I never had the time
To court or to wed any lady so fine;
But down there in "Deadun's", where I would wend,
I found there my Fisherman's Friend.
My Fisherman's Friend she'd be waiting for me
Each single time I came back home from sea;
Each trip she'd ask for, and each trip I'd lend
All my brass to my Fisherman's Friend. (2)

Well, she took all my pay but I didn't care;
I loved her tattoos and her bouffant hair.
Her Woolies' perfume it sent me round the bend -
O the smell of my Fisherman's Friend!
My Fisherman's Friend she'd be waiting for me
Each single time I came home from sea;
A "Telemac" message to her I'd send
To my lovely Fisherman's Friend. (2)

But one day I landed to find she was gone;
I went down to "Deadun's" to see what was wrong.
They told me the tale and I knew 'twas the end
For me and my Fisherman's Friend.
For my Fisherman's Friend wasn't waiting for me
That dreadful day I came back home from sea;
No longer together our kisses we'd blend -
Me and my Fisherman's Friend. (2)
        
She'd fell down in Lord Street, maudled with gin -
There the trams ran across her - agin and agin!
The ambulance came, but they couldn't mend
The bits of my Fisherman's Friend.
But my Fisherman's Friend will be waiting for me
On that Heavenly Quayside when I dock finally;
We'll be together in that Heavenly "Deadun's" -
Me - and my Fisherman's Friend! (2)

Ron created this as a monologue for one of our "Fleetwood and Fishing" shows a few years back. I couldn't resist putting a tune to it - we now take turn about to present the alternate versions. "Deadun's" is the nickname of the Royal Oak, a long-time haunt of fishermen on Lord Street, Fleetwood, just yards away from our local Woolworths.

Ross

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: heatherblether
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 06:18 PM

Hello Carole and Kitty
Yes Woolies in Lewes was my source of Paris Nights scent and Bourjouis rouge in the early sixties when the Pug O Junch was also thriving in a pub I can't remember the name of. Things were just beginning to burst out all over - the sixties were happening.
Any chance of the chocolate song details Kitty?
regards Heather

Subject: RE: BS: All (UK) Woolworths stores to close
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 21 Dec 08 - 06:39 PM

Heather - I've PMd you the words.

Kitty