Woolworths is part of the nostalgia of our child hood and youth. It is the place we spent our pocket money, it was somewhere our mums knew they could buy anything from buttons and zips to a plastic bowl for the kitchen to toys at Christmas to cards to stationery before you went back to school. It was cheap, it was cheerful and it was there. I remember my brother buying a pack of 5 biro pens there and wrapping them individually for everyone for Christmas (not over generous my brother). Lately it has been the place to buy your choclolate; at Easter for the best range of eggs and at Christmas for selection boxes and big tins of quality street.

Woolworths was generally to be found on every highstreet near to the butcher, greengrocer, smallish supermarket and newsagent. You went to different shops for different things. That then is one of the problems. We don’t shop in that way any more, our supermarkets are massive and they contain everything you need for the fridge, cupboard and home and they stand alongside great big fashion stores so you can get everything in one trip. They buy is massive bulk and they sell products at low prices to entice you in and make you spend as much as possible. A tin of quality street in the supermarkets has been apprently half price at £5 for weeks now. In short they can undercut stores like Woolworth, they give us cheap meat and veg and they give us convenience. One day though, following the closure of shops like woolies will we wonder where our highstreets went and how we ever allowed the big supermarkets to tell us that they would best meet our needs? I wonder?