Wigan Album

Remember the advert on telly?....."That's the wonder of Woolworths....that's the wonder of good old Woolies". The sweet counter when you walked in where you could buy hot salted peanuts; the big red scales by the door where everyone going past could see what you weighed!; the tea-bar with steaming tea-urns and the Embassy-label records. Magic! We have loads of original Woolworths Christmas Decorations including a 1950s Woolworths Fairy.

When I was a little girl going into Woolworths with my Mam,she always told me that if I strayed and got separated from her to go and stand next to the red weighing machine..then in my teens remember getting my cake mascara from Woolies, my Mam also got her make-up from there..which she called her war paint.

Good job those scales aren't there, Maureen, after we've been to The White Crow next month! x.

Here's to The White Crow Irene....roll on. x

Used to go in there for a bag of broken biscuits.

Irene, your memory WOW!! Those big red scales. Your marbles are full intact, thank you very much ha!!

I'm a little bit older than you Irene but I am struggling to remember if there were stairs or even an escalator up to a floor above. Don't know if I'm imagining it or not - but I see myself with my mother as a little one coming down some stairs in Woolies and don't recall going up steps in later years. I remember the big red scales and the counter with the nuts and also the orange juice in the glass container. The make-up counter with everything laid out in compartments. It was great then experimenting with lipstick etc on both wrists!!!!

Kas, I remember it all like it was yesterday but ask me what I've gone in the kitchen for?.....Not a clue! Vb, I remember the escalator being installed and we thought it was really something! I remember stairs in Woollies but am uncertain what, if anything, was sold up there, But I remember food being sold on the top floor certainly once the escalator was in place. Do you know what I liked best about those old store?.....No piped music, and therefore no "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" blaring out in October. If they DID play anything festive via the record department it would have ben well into December. I remember the make-up counters and Woolies own brand was, I THINK, called Baby Doll?? Perhaps you can remember that better than me, Vb. I remember Pop-It beads which were plastic beads sold in all colours, each bead "poppsd" into the next one, so you could make your necklace as long or as short as you wanted. I remember the big wooden counters with metal frames holding the numbered cards showing the price of goods. The cards could be interchanged as prices changed from, say, 1/6d to 2/- .

Vb..Just in case Irene doesn't look in today,I can say that there definitely was an escalator on the left hand side..I distinctly remember taking my youngest on it..and having to pick him up as he was terrified of it.

Vb, you could go up an escalator, but not down, there were stairs on the back side and also stairs on the Station Road side that led down to the front of the store.

Thank you all -it was on the left side then which I thought it was!,,,, my mam must have gone up there for the broken biscuits! I'm talking 1950. What I also recall at that time was how very crowded it was ....almost suffocatingly so -I know I didn't like the crowds. It's hard for younger people to visualise how packed it was. All the counters had assistants on them. It seemed ages getting served...to me a little one! I understand your Mam Maureen telling you to go to the big red weighing machine if you got lost! It was later when a bit older that I appreciated Woolies. It seemed hard work in those days when mothers went shopping with their children- I know I always had something or other to carry from quite a young age.

Cyril, I remember those stairs on the Station Road side, leading down to the front doors, now you've mentioned them. Isn't it odd how some of us recall things that others have forgotten? This is what makes this site so special...we all remember different aspects of Woolworths and can pool our memories. I love it when someone brings to mind something I had forgotten, and I am thrilled when I can do that for someone else.

Hello Irene, I remember Miners mak-up, especially the mascara, it was in a block with a small brush that you had to moisten to put it on.

Thanks Rosie. And there was Outdoor Girl make-up too.

I'm almost sure there was Pond's lipsticks (not just the cream) there was one I liked called 'tangerine something or other'....could be wrong though! It's so long ago but I remember the block mascara I had to go to the doctors as my eyelids swelled up through using it!

Irene I bet you don't remember when everything you could buy from Rimmel was 2/6 be it lipstick,powder,foundation and even hair colour shampoo. It was in a little bottle -I used to buy mahogany- it lasted ages and was a lovely colour. That was when I was about eighteen- it might have increased in price by the time you were that age.

No I don't recall the 2/6d Pond's, Vb. And although I well remember the older girls using the block mascara, it came in tubes with a wand, as now, when I first bought it. I started work at 16 in 1969, (I turned 17 in the October), in a small family chemists and I remember 50p pieces being introduced the following year, even though it was still classed as ten shillings, to get people used to the decimal coins. Men always wanted one of the new coins in their change, but women were more cautious! I remember we sold the old names in creams and perfumes, like Yardley, Coty and Goya, but new names were coming in....Pagan perfume was popular, Aqua Manda stunk to high heaven, and men's fragrances started to be popular....Old Spice and Hai Karate, (what a pong!). This was in the early seventies when I used to buy Hoodwinks Extremist false eyelashes from Boon's. Disposable nappies started to come in, and there was a brand of them called Tufty Tails, and an elderly lady, (probably a Grandma), used to ask for "Toby Twirls"! We also, believe it or not, sold loose sherry from a barrel into the customer's own bottle. We sold British and Cyprus Sherry, and it was known as "Sherry from the wood", being served from a barrel, and one old man used to ask for "Wood from the trees"! Can you imagine us sixteen-year-old girls getting the giggles?!

The memories are flooding back! It was Max Factor Sheer Genius that did it for me and Yardley pale lipstick with a grotesque turquoise eye shadow. Underneath all that would be the giant pimple waiting to erupt if you were going anywhere special! What a tragedy that was Irene! I would give anything to go back and do it all again! Nowadays it's just my lipstick I can't do without....thankfully!

Yes, Sheer Genius. And Pan-Stik. And Rimmel's "Hide-and-heal" was always much in evidence in the ladies' cloakroom in The Monaco in Hindley! I put the full make-up on every day, Vb.....it takes five minutes and makes me feel better. I am used to a bright lipstick from attending the 1940s events. I have reached an age where I'm probably too old for bright lipstick, but I have also reached an age where I couldn't care less!

Remember the tea bar in Woolies? My mum worked in there maybe 65 years ago. I remember the plastic oranges floating round in the container thing they sold orange juice from, the Horlicks cups and the displays with cakes in. There was a kind of mini lift that they put the dirty plates in and off they went upstairs to be washed.