but I used to buy bin liners there in my twenties. Cheap and durable... highly recommended.

When I was nine or ten years old, my mate Roger's mother worked in our local Woolies. Roger had noticed how easy it was to 'liberate' a sweet or two from the pick'n'mix display, and this seemed to me an excellent way to supplement my meagre pocket money funds.

So there I was one Saturday afternoon, pockets primed, biding my time, waiting for a quiet moment in which to swoop. And waiting. And waiting. Until at last I was spotted loitering with intent by an off-duty policeman, who led me - sobbing - home for a good talking-to in front of my horrified mum.

Suffolk Constabulary 1; Small Frightened Boy 0.

Thus ended my criminal career.

Probably the half price ex chart singles - picked up a few good ones back in the day when bands would go in a 37 and then drop out the following week. Wouldn't normally buy records in there though - preferred the excellent David's Records round the corner near the market.

that was only ever good for one thing.

Builda

First LP with my own money, a Monkees compilation on MFP for
1.99!

They used to hang up the top 40 singles on display, meaning there was a hole punched in the top right corner of each sleeve.

Had a cigarette machine outside.

though I did look forward to their star studded Christmas tv adverts.

I'll never forget my sense of abject loss the day I discovered that Woolies, Corn Flakes and Heinz Baked Beans were all American. There was something about Woolworth's that was so English - so Northern, even, like Yates's Wine Lodges or UCP tripe shops - that I felt conned.

You're bang on about the wooden floors and the hundred-yard-long counters of loose sweets, all wrapped in impossibly shiny paper, like an explosion in a Quality Street factory.

(Denis Norden R Us. Can we do the X-ray machines in shoe shops next?)

I grew up in a small town in New Zealand called Johnsonville, and Woolworths was where a) I bought something with my own money for the very first time (10 cents on on grey plastic Boeing), b) I was caught shoplifting for the very first time (a set of darts) and c) I developed a taste for milkshakes. Every day, after school, vanilla.

News reports suggest that the Antipodean version of Woolworths is safe for the time being.

I never really shopped at Woolies in the UK.

and shamefully, Sam Fox's 'Touch Me (I Want Your Body)' on 12" vinyl.

'Children of the Revolution' by T.Rex. 49p as I recall.

There must have been some sort of sixth form stoner working at my local branch around the late 70s early 80s - supplying a discreet selection of non-chart bothering albums (always only ever on cassette though). Including The Doors, Hawkwind and even It's A Beautiful Day..

For me it was mainly 50p sound-a-like albums Pickwick, Hallmark TOTP releases and endless Elvis impersonaters along side the ever-present real Elvis 'Seperate Ways' comp' (featuring a El' straddling a motorway 'Gulliver' style).

...but it was always there, on every high street. And a lot of folk still buy their top 40 choices there, top 100 CDs in bigger stores. That is a bigger selection than most supermarkets, so choice, as ever, slides further down in favour of hype and big business. And who will/can buy all these soon to be vacant shops, let alone employ all their staff.

Went there lunchtimes with mate when in 6th form and got the likes of:

Specials - Gangsters
Stones - Fool to Cry
Public Image - Public Image

among others. So thanks for the music Woolies.

Once left school never really went in one, well hardly ever.

Squeaky wooden floors, the pervading whiff of fairground confectionary and rubber sandals... and that object of unreasonable desire for any 14-year-old in 1974. The "Audition" guitar. Many's the Saturday morning I'd shyly fondle and swoon.

http://www.theguitarcollection.org.uk/gallery4/audition-p.html

Made in Japan by Teisco, they sold for around the £25 mark and actually weren't too bad at all. I'd hazard a guess that more than a handful of twanging careers kicked off courtesy of said Woolies plank.

did you know that the couple waltzing on the cover are one Mr Lyle Lovett and one Miss Diane Warren?

It really was the best place to buy singles - used to go in there and pick up loads of indie 12 inches. It was obvious they'd order in bands who would crash into the fun 40 for a week and then sink like a stone leaving them twenty copies of 'Three' by The Wedding Present or something similar.

my first singles and finding a variety of gems in the ex-chart section in the late 70s. Curiously each single had the shop's branch number printed on them (ours was 178). My sister used to work opposite my hometown's branch, and if you were to flick through our combined record collections of that time (79-81) - Blondie, Kool & The Gang, The Whispers, Chic, ELO, Specials, Dave Edmunds - you would know where we'd bought them. These days I pop in when I'm back, and pray it'll make it to Saturday so I can get my mum some Just Brazils for Christmas (woolies seemingly being the only place stocking them).

Whenever anyone at my school got caught using five-finger discount it was always at Woolies. Ah, happy days.

I only ever bought one thing in Woolies. Duran Duran's Greatest Hits. About 2 years ago. For 8 quid.
They won't be missed.

It is very sad to see it go of course, but how many of us regularly shopped there? Very few I'll wager. The reason? Somewhere else did the same thing, better and usually cheaper.

I'n grateful to Mr Valparaiso for the link to the picture of the Futurama 111. This was also my first (and only) electric guitar, purchased for £12 in about 1974, but secondhand, not in Woolworth. I had forgotten what it was called so very nice to see it again.

Shine up your buttons with Brasso,
It's only three ha' pence a tin,
You can buy it, or nick it from Woolworths,
Providing there's no one looking.

My lifelong addiction to confectionery was nurtured by the tinselly delights of Walsall's Woolworths. A whole paper bag of handpicked chocolates for the same price as the equivalent weight of mere sherbet lemons. Bliss it was to walk in with your pocket money and walk out with a big bag of hand-picked chocs.

Just before Christmas each year, my mom and dad would take me there to select paper streamers for the living room ceiling, baubles for the Christmas tree, and - you guessed - loads of chocolate decorations to be hung on the tree and fought over on Twelfth Night when the tree was dismantled and the thick carpet of pine needles swept up. Funny, there were never as many chocolate decorations taken off the tree as were hung there a couple of weeks earlier. Can't think why.

And Woolworths had all those counters with a myriad glass partitions, each containing fuses, screws, nails, buttons, cotton reels, mysterious bits of wood, and an infinite variety of other sundry household bits'n'bobs that other shops deemed too tiny or low-value to sell.

Finally, the holy grail of a trip to Woolies was to persuade mom and dad to let me have a go on the huge red Weighing Machine on the stairs between floors. The one with a giant circular scale and mysterious chromed weights that swung around when you stepped on the platform.

Truth to tell, that Woolies died a couple of decades ago, when the "bits and bobs" mostly disappeared, in favour of the same mundane consumer goods that every other cheap department store sold. The one consistent factor was that they proved just as inept selling CDs, DVDs and computer games as they used to be selling singles and LPs. Wilkinsons cheapo shops are probably the equivalent of Woolworths to the kids of today, though without the legendary pick'n'mix.

Armando Ianucci's replacement in the Observer is David Mitchell, whose first 2 or 3 columns have been pretty good. Below is a link to the most recent one, which is very unkind about Woolies, and made me chuckle...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/23/woolworths-recession...

As for me, I'm another one who will always be grateful for the flogging for 40p of ex-chart singles, which I then played on Universtity Radio Exeter. Strangely enough, the only one I can definitely remember buying from Woolies is Two Minutes to Midnight by Iron Maiden.

but imagine my suprise at entering my 1st south african woolies in 1986. Exactly the same as marks & sparks in about 1974. Much improved these days luckily.

And for all I know the whole of Eire, there is, or was, a chain of shops modelled upon M&S, even down to a saintly brand name. It tickled me that in the UK we had a St Michael, but in Ireland they had a St Bernard in their pants.
(I have only within the last year or 2 been told that M&S ditched the st Michael brand some decades ago, should younger readers, hi JJ, be looking confused at this juncture)

that never charted in the first place (remember picking up some Korgis, Kursaal Flyers, Dan Hill).

Automatic change dispensers - your change slid down a black plastic slide and ended up in the shallow cup - fun!

Lings Turkish Delight - the only vendor in recent times - accept no substitute.

And more recently, baby clothes, mops and buckets, and large slices of nostalgia...

Once bought Marble Index in Woolies for 69p. Thought I was cool until I actually played it

The original designer label....

I loved it when they mispriced 12" singles when they realised they weren't albums.

I also loved buying those K-Tel compilations with so many tracks on them the grooves were incredibly compressed and many tracks were faded to fit them all on the thin vinyl and the day I found, 20 years after it was released, a rare Scott Walker cassette. It was dusty but unused and when I got it home to play it, the glue on the leader tape gave way instantly. Maybe it made up for the time when they sold me one of The Police's albums released as a set of 10" records for a song!

Couldn't we get the guy behind Fopp to buy it up - I know he's had his troubles but he had the eye to see quality in a retail sea of crap.

The day people stopped doing DIY repairs to their shoes. Every shop boasted a truly staggering range of heels, insoles, laces, dyes etc; my favourite Woolies, the wooden-floored museum piece in Tenby, still did only a few years ago. I also remember the shame of being made to wear their hopelessly uncool Ladybird kidswear until my early teens.

As a child with a powerful love of the Tornados, I once made the fatal mistake of asking my dad to pick up a copy of their new single Globetrotter. An inveterate cheapskate, he thought he could save a bob or two by buying the Embassy version. I was horror-stricken and threw a major tantrum. But worse, much worse, was the dawning realisation that I actually preferred the Embassy excrescence to the original. Not that I ever admitted it to anyone - until now. Ah, the relief.

I also remember Woolies' chaotic record sales. These consisted of heaps of albums tipped pick 'n' mix-style into wire cages, where they would be mauled and mutilated by customers hungry for a bargain. Unlike the record sales of today, though, where you might get a few quid off the last REM album, there were heart-stopping treasures just waiting to be unearthed. I remember the sheer joy of finding (in 1972) the Blossom Toes' We Are Ever So Clean and Andy Pratt's Records Are Like Life - both staggeringly rare records even then - for the mouthwatering sum of 29p each.

Hmm, whatever happened to Worthwhile Record Sales?

The memories have I think been erased by the awful piles of tat and really not nice smell that seems to have pervaded the stores in recent years. Having said that I cannot actually recall the last time I was in one.

When at university in Leicester there was a Woolco up the road for the hall of residence - was this under the same ownership? I DO remember picking up a cheap copy of UFO's Stangers in the Night there - still have it actually. Also a set of Christmas tree lights that me and the at the time future Mrs Diz bought there.

My only memories from younger years are the pick n mix and the record counter but in my impecunious state as a young teenager can't recall buying (or shoplifting come to that) a single thing!

Thanks for the memory of the giant scales though - had forgotten that.

I remember Woolies from when I was very young for the Pick n' Mix, but then, one day, it vanished. No rhyme nor reason for its disappearance (that I could fathom at the time).

Several years passed, and, as quick as it had gone, it was back - at half its original size, but chock full (as noted above) of cut price singles and wrongly priced albums.

They also didn't seem to mind to much if your age didn't match the requirement on the Video case.

Woolies Bargains over the years include:-
The Byrds ' Sweetheart of the Rodeo' - 6/- or 30p
The Who 'The Beat' (German Pressing) - 6/- or 30p
Eddie Cochran Greatest Hits - 14/6 or 73p
Dylan's 'Another Side...' - 16/3 or 82p

Trouble was they never knew what they were selling.

Novo model kits for 22p. The decals usually broke as soon as they entered the water, and the moulds were usually worn-out ones purchased from the defunct Frog, but they were far cheaper than anything from Airfix.

Getting a gift voucher at Christmas, and finding that the local branch had virtually nothing left come January.

And now onto music:

The record department in the late 1980s, before they started to fiddle their charts. All kinds of stuff would appear in the new releases rack, including some really weird indie releases. Luxuria, anyone?

Strange albums on budget labels. The local branch once got in a job lot of Italian sourced vinyl compilations of older material, all for a couple of quid. I bought one by Elmore James, the only one in the entire series to not have an artist photo on the cover. The vinyl turned out to be pocked marked, and everything was in fake stereo.

The twice-yearly clearout sale, when the distribution channel would get rid of all overstocks and other rubbish. Finding the first Beefheart album in my small local store in one such sale was bizarre.

Occasional promotions when a lot of back-catalogue mid-price stuff would appear. I bought a lot of WEA's Prime Cut range on vinyl.

The end of vinyl, when the last of their catalogue was sold off for 99p, with albums with slightly damaged sleeves reduced to just 49p.

Then they changed their charts, and from then onwards they'd only stock albums in their current chart, which was based on predicted sales and hence made up. The music department died there and then, as new releases were guaranteed to be fairly mainstream, and the clearout sales would from then onwards only contain the crappy various artist compilations.

The only thing I used to buy from Woolworths was audio tapes as it was about the last place that still stocks them; went in yesterday and now there are none. The place was absolutely heaving. Pick n' Mix will always be a memory from childhood, it is still always tempting to nick a sweet when you walk by the mix selection.

So farewell FW Woolworths. Cannot recall buying any records there but do remember they sold plastic Beatles wigs. Could do with one of those now...

If the chain is for sale at only £1 you would have thought they would get more putting it on Ebay.

Better memories of Boots in Blackburn flogging loads of ex-chart singles for 30p in the mid-eighties.

'Strange Little Girl' by The Stranglers from Woolies in Lee Green, South London. Inexplicably, at the same time I bought two Haysi Fantayzee singles from the bargain rack.

Woolies in Motherwell (where I grew up) holds great memories for me. The big scales. Own brand football boots (Adidas Woolworths as we called them). The glorious Pick n Mix. Buying `The Model` by Kraftwerk in 1981 for less than 40p. Getting `One Step Beyond` by Madness for my birthday (in 1980?) minus the original outer sleeve and `re-drawing` the artwork myself on the replacment white cardboard sleeve.
If my local store in Bellshill closes our little main street will die some more. Then Tesco will open their new store round the corner and no one will remember Woolies anyway.

With the demise of Woolworth's it's notable that people's fond memories are predominantly from way back. Like a demented loved one, the character of the shop we loved disappeared years ago, while the body lived on. The thing that has just died is a pale shadow of the one we used to love.

I wonder whether anyone shares my more recent experience which has happened at least twice when I've been in there with my son. After long deliberation he chose the video game he wanted, so we joined the queue and when we finally got served he was told
"We don't have that in stock"
"So why is it on the shelf?"
"So people know we sell them"
"But you don't sell them"
"We do when we have them in stock"
etc, until
"It's our orders, I'm afraid"

With customer experiences like these, few in his generation will be mourning the passing.

If businesses must go to the wall in this recession, please let it be the ones who treated their customers with this kind of contempt during the good years.

Remember being dragged round Erdington high street as a kid kicking and screaming.The redeeming point of every saturday was that if I behaved myself I would get some airfix soldiers at Woolies before getting back on the bus. The store is still there and doesnt look as if it has changed - and possibly that was the problem. It was at least a real shopping experience however not like at Argos which is completely soulless. Funny comment I heard about Argos was that their staff had all failed the Woolworths exam.

The ultimate snidey own brand label.

Alan Ball "white" boots a speciality.

Plus getting "This Ole House" as my first single bought with my own money from Woolies at Hounslow West in 1981.

...a feature of my secondary school days. Conversion tables, pecks and bushels, gills and gallons, avoirdupois..........nurse !

...4 hours on a saturday in Woolies in Birkenhead (Merseyside).

Used to have great fun at Easter, carrying cartons of easter eggs above my head to get them on the shelves, only for them to be snapped up immediately by eager shoppers. We used to get 'breakages' sold to us for 10p a carrier bag full. Amazing how many of the nice expensive eggs got 'accidentally' dropped.

Was also the place where my love of music bloomed in the late 80's. Intriguing New Order 12" singles, Durutti Column cassettes in hessian boxes, markdown albums, plus staff discount!

Downsides - the 4 year old puking in the pick and mix, and yours truly having to first of all remove 8lb of fudge into a bin liner, then remove the vomit, then disinfect the whole lot. That kid held a lot of sick.

Made a lot of friends there, but to be honest, since the early 90s, it's just become another faceless shop on the high street - there's nothing you can get there that you can't get in the weekly shop at Tescos. Hence its demise...the true culprit not being the convenient credit crunch, but the convenient out of town supermarket (in my humble opinion, of course).

Rich

Woolies was the church of Pick and Mix.

I bought my first album there (Sparks - Propaganda), in sunny St Helens it was there Rumbellows or Boots.

Now it's HMV or HMV and I fall over the Friends Box Sets and get nasty chaffing from the T Shirts, fighting my way to what music is on display.

For the past few years my experiences of Woolies is spotting a bargain cd / dvd / game and going to the counter with the empty case to find they didn't have it in.

My abiding memory is as a 9 or 10 year old during the power cuts of the seventies.

Me and me gran were in Woolies as the power went. We couldn't get to the door quick enough because of all the old ladies filling their boots by piling stockings, oven gloves etc into their wheelie shopping trolleys.