Went out on the bright, cold and sunny boxing day for a walk, to show my baby son where I grew up. Sat opposite Woolworth’s in Burnt Oak Broadway to record this soon-to-be-departed store in the throes of its death. I think we all enjoyed Woollies at some point, particularly as a kid, when they had pick’n’mix, toys, records, chocolates, and stationery galore. Whose knees would not go weak at all those fountain pens and geometry sets? Plus it was the only place you could find to get passport pics done (the one in the tube station never worked), in a photo machine hidden inexplicably at the back behind the t-shirts and gym slips like some dark secret.
And by tomorrow, or maybe the day after, it will all be over, at the start of it’s 100th year. When I first saw the news reports about it online, there were people queuing for aeons just to get some nick-nack slightly cheaper, and then moaning about the lack of bargains to over-pressed staff who had all just been told, just before Christmas, that they were all losing their jobs. What will replace this bit-of-everything high street store? And who will go next? MFI, Zavvi (the old Virgin Megastore), Whittard’s, all closing shop. There goes the High Street. The times they are a-changing.
petescully 
Good bye, Woollies :-( I went there last year and bought picnic rugs. The red and blue checkered ones.
We have had the same heart breaking changes across the pond from you in the little New England towns that I grew up in as well as in the little Texas towns where I now live.
The larger chain stores can NOT replace these centers of a community where you have enjoyed the staff of friendly persons for a generation or more.
annie3
Hi Pete,
in my early teenage years, ‘Woollies’ used to be my Saturday morning outing with my friends. You could go in there in those days and get hot roasted peanuts in a greaseproof paper bag for six old pence. We’d go in, check out the make-up counter, try out all the ‘testers’, get our peanuts then go to a local coffee bar for a hot blackcurrant, listen to the music and chatter like starlings, perched on bar stools at high tables shaped like artist’s palettes. Aaaah! the good old days!
Happy New Year Pete, when I was a lad everything I had came from Woolies including my first girlfriend.
presumably not from the pickn’mix..? Happy New Year!