I worked in the, then relatively new, Bitterne Road store. I was at college so this was a summer holiday job for two summers. I applied for the job to the Store Manager, whose name, I believe, was Mr Skellern. I then had a letter asking me to come for an interview and medical at the Stamford Street offices.
I was a general assistant for my first summer and wore a white top with a high, round neck; I was told that until recently these had a steel insert to keep the collar upright. Most of the job was opening boxes of cans [with a special cutter], pricing each can with a 'plonker' and putting them on the sales shelves, with all the labels facing forward. The plonker was a round rubber stamp on a long handle with a single price on; they sat as a set of all possible prices in a tray. Not a barcode in sight! That year all meat came into the store as sides with the butchers upstairs then preparing the joints for the sales floor. There was a telephone next to the meat display so that a customer could talk to one of the butchers and request a special cut or size. Cheese mostly came in wheels and was cut and prepared in its own section upstairs being wrapped in cellophane sheets which were then passed over a heated plate to seal them. I also spent one week helping in the staff canteen kitchen, peeling potatoes, washing up, clearing tables, and even made a bread pudding one day that went down well.
The following year I was assigned to the warehouse unloading lorries and storing the goods on the first floor ready to be called to the shop floor. That meant a change of clothing – I now had a brown suit. Another job was opening 'blown' cans of food over the sink in the loading bay and also opening the wooden cases that each contained two wheels of cheddar about 15" diameter and 12" high, stripping off the cheesecloth and scraping with a large knife ready to go to the cheese department for cutting. That year I noticed that bacon was then coming to the store pre-packed rather than sliced in-store. I was asked several times to accompany an Assistant Manager down the road to the bank at closing time so he could put a round leather case containing a large portion of the day's takings and placing it in the bank's night safe. I think on a typical Friday when the store opened late, the takings were around £3,000 for the day and £2,000 for a Saturday when the store closed at 4.30 [no Sunday trading then.]
The attached photo is not of that store but of Bitterne, West End Road, [just around the corner] for which you have no images on the website. I believe it was taken around 2015.
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