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The Plunder of Woolworths


Charles Bannerman

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Not a shop I've tended to patronise much of late (hence my contribution to its demise) but I thought I'd take what's probably a final walk through what's been an Inverness institution just for old time's sake and also to take a look at the bargains available in The Plunder of Woolworths.

Actually the mainly 10% reductions weren't all that spectacular, and somewhat short of plunder, but what does that matter when people are losing their jobs?

But my visit did spark off a few memories - such as the bags of broken biscuits which you could buy for 1d, although I'm too young to remember "nothing over 6d". I also had one last look at the Pick and Mix and a final trip up what I think was the first escalator in Inverness. Certainly when I was very young, the promise of a visit to Woolies at the end would keep me quiet in the town all afternoon. And then when I started buying Christmas presents myself, I used to inflict all manner of cut price crap from Woolies on friends and relatives alike. They were ace for Christmas decorations too and then in a later era, I started to take my own kids there when they needed toys. The "backawoolies", like Boots Corner, is long gone since they closed off the back doors years ago and soon the whole place - a veritable institution of fond memory - will be no more.

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Aye, tis a shame,but unfortuneatly woolies left themselves in a time warp and really didn't appear to even try to catch up and join the 21st century.The feel of all Woolies stores is firmly entrenched in the seventies with a mish mash of sweeties,cd's/dvd's and miscellaneous hardware and toy's.I will miss the odd wander round, but usually found i wandered out again without actually buying anything!

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Hands up who had a pair of winfield trainers (Woolies own brand) in the 70s

Woolies is singing from the same hymsheet as the Co-op. Both are behind the times and not pleasant shopping experiences. Will be sad to see it go tho

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  • 4 weeks later...

It was always so busy and this brings to mind a situation that could not have happened in recent times, due to lack of customers.

We finished work in Queensgate at 5ish and walked, as a group, up to High Street passing Woolies back door on the way. One work mate(sheltered life type) always disappeared into Woolies using the back door, with a cheery wave of the hand (little did we know that this was him in training!)

He failed to turn up at work one morning which allowed us an insight into his 'little' secret, we later learned that he had been lifted, in Woolies, sexually gratifying himself by 'squeezing past' the crowds of ladies in the aisles.

Woolies, crowds, narrow aisles, .....now all memories, varied, as you see from the above!

.

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Hands up who had a pair of winfield trainers (Woolies own brand) in the 70s

Woolies is singing from the same hymsheet as the Co-op. Both are behind the times and not pleasant shopping experiences. Will be sad to see it go tho

Aye, winfield trainers with the 4 white stripes caused me a bit of heartache when i was a youngster, i wanted a pair of Adidas with 3 white strips from Coutts for my birthday, and yes the old man bought winfield because they had FOUR stripes...... oh the pain.

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The lad from Curry's who moved into the company 10 years ago destroyed them at every turn.

First of all he claimed the average household income of a Woolies family was ?34,000 a year (this was 10 years ago, nevermind it being way out now), so he got rid of all their cheaper toys and filled the place with big screen TV's and Computers, expecting the untrained staff to sell them with ease.

They then turned their back on stocking back catalogue CD's and DVD's, sticking to current chart efforts.

They got rid of all of their DIY section as they couldnt compete with the likes of B&Q or Wickes, despite being the only retailer in the city center who provided a range of gardening/DIY gear,

They cut back all of their cheap choldrens clothes and school uniforms, replaced them with mobile phones!

What they shouldve done is gone down the road all the Pound shops have, theres hundreds of them all over the country now, wouldve saved a hell of alot of jobs and maybe even made them some money.

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