Ayeright's Woolworth’s Lament

A month on since the Nairn store closed its doors for the last time I was beginning to come to terms with my retail loss. A telephone extension cable was sourced elsewhere in town, and when the shed didn’t reveal a tin of paint I thought was hiding there, I thought for a brief moment ‘I’ll just pop up to Woolies’, only for my memory to be refreshed of its recent demise. I have yet to find another store in Nairn that allows you to browse at such a range of objects that you will probably never need (But might have bought), without someone in a grey coat launching at you with a ‘can I help’. Browsing is clearly not an acceptable pastime in some Nairn stores. Replying ‘I was just looking’ sounds both lame and daft, yet many Woolies customers were doing just that, looking to see what the world had swept into their Nairn store. Had we had more time maybe Lottery funding could have been gained for us to have bought both our Woolies store and it’s contents, lock, stock, and barrel. It could then have been turned into a Woolies museum into which we could all have freely gone and ‘looked’. Stock could have been rotated illogically just as when it was a real store, and Nairn would have had a unique selling point, a Woolworth’s museum to which the hoards would have made the pilgrimage. The museum could have sold small bags of pic & mix, and red coated museum staff could have greeted the happy visitors...My memory of Woolies was revived today when I up ended the toaster to shake out a stuck piece of crust, Woolworth's was the proud make of the toaster. Those were the days!