Farewell Woolworths – you were well worth it

The demise of the household store FW Woolworth, or Woolies is not a happy event with which to begin 2009 which should have been the shops centenary year.

Very quickly Woolworths became renowned for the variety of goods that could be purchased at an affordable price.

Albert carried his “Stick with the horses head handle, the finest that Woolworths could sell” and everyone knew exactly what Stanley Holloway was trying to describe in the monologue.

During the war my youngest uncle (aged about 9 at the time) was apprehended in Woolworths in Northampton trying to steal an atlas. He didn’t like his evacuation billet and wanted a map for his plan to run away and find his way back to Bethnal Green.

My earliest specific memory of Woolworths is of my father buying me a Airfix model making kits of Joan of Arc and Henry VIII. He later added Richard the Lionheart and Edward the Black Prince which I spent happy hours arranging in mock minibattles. Joan and Richard usually won. 

  Woolworths became a solidly working class shop. Unlike the stigma attached to the relatively recent arrivals the “Poundshops” Woolworths was respectable and sold some quality goods. There was a range of crockery called Homemaker, a typical 1950s style of cups saucers and plates decorated with a transfer print of furniture and kitchenware. I didn’t like it then, I still don’t like it now but it has become very collectable for those with the retro taste and pieces in good condition command a good price on e-bay.

was This was a very fortunate line. The Simplicity stand was by the front entrance on Lea Bridge Road Leyton, opposite the Bakers Arms pub. My best friend and I could stand there for ages without causing suspicion, ostensibly engrossed in selecting something for the next needlework project but really watching for the boys getting off the buses.

In anticipation of a night out with the said boys there was make up. They stocked Rimmel which is still available in Boots and Miners. Their own brand was first Evette which was inexpensive; later they had a better quality range called Tu.


The fact that many Woolworths stores still have planning permission for retail food is one of the reasons the supermarket chain Iceland is so interested in some sites. I believe that in Australia the Woolworths name is associated purely with food and provision sales. I discovered a very strange Woolworths in Nairobi in the 80s. The story, as I was told it, is that a Kenyan businessman decided to register the Woolworths name in Kenya so that when, as he anticipated, the chain decided to extend operations into east African they would have to pay him a tidy sum for the name. Meanwhile he decided that as he had the name he might as well use it and so he opened this odds and ends general store on the corner of Mama Ngina Street. It did rather well such that he was believed to be of the opinion that should the international chain want a business in Nairobi “his” name would not be for sale. My husband also remembered the shop and the very courteous doorman from a spell in Kenya some years earlier. I believe that there are now several shops with the Woolworths name in Nairobi alone and that they are all now part of Woolworths South Africa, a chain which is at great pains to emphasise that it has no connection whatsoever with the ailing UK company. But the very name retains such prestige.

In recent years Woolworths has aspired to develop as the place to buy music and film. Originally they only sold cover versions of the well known bands. Like Funky Junction’s tribute to Deep Purple. Funky Junction achieved their own success a few years later under their real name of Thin Lizzie and that album (above) is a minor collector’s item. However, whereas later I was able to buy Beatles singles early, and that sale would contribute to that record’s position in next week’s hit parade, and could buy LPs by artists like Joan Baez and Brian Prothero that were never Number One the focus at the end was only on records already in the charts. For anything else people have got into the habit of shopping online at the likes of Amazon. The selection of DVDs was generally quite good and as none of us play games I can’t comment on them.

They also sold guitars under the brand name “Top 20” (and sold very inexpensive acoustic Yamaha’s on line until recently). These were not very good but for some young men they were a beginning for something much, much better. One guitarist I was told of decided that during his next gig he wanted to emulate Pete Townsend by smashing a guitar at the end of the set. His younger brother was persuaded to bring out his redundant Top 20 from the attic and sacrifice it for the greater good of rock and roll. However the guitar was so sturdily made that it refused to smash and dented the stage.



This last few weeks watching the shelves empty has been sadder than the demise of any other High Street name. I may have got some bargain printer paper and a half price milk pan but some of my friends are out of a job. And the High Street will be poorer for it.  

A selection of pictures taken of several branches in Suffolk, Essex and London over the last two weeks.
.
.
.
 

To comment on this article, please click here.

Esmerelda Weatherwax is a regular contributor to the Iconoclast our community blog. To view her entries please click

To help New English Review continue to publish articles such as this one, please click . 

If you enjoyed this piece and would like to read more by Esmerelda Weatherwax, please click .