Unhappy new year for Woolworths Leamington Spa
While home seeing the folks, I took the opportunity for one last look at my old tramping ground - Leamington's branch of Woolies. As a spotty 16 year old, I spent my Saturday afternoons working at the store, initially upstairs on homewares, then "promoted" to the ground floor "Record Bar".
My great aunt worked on the deli at Leamington Woolies sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. Indeed, the huge, empty cold stores were still a big feature of the stock rooms during my stint at the store.
Today was the very last day for this Leamington institution. I'm sad because I actually enjoyed my time working at this trashy retailer of discount goods (I used to get told off for playing records too loud).
The only things I hated were sweeping the floors at the end of the day (although you might sometimes find loose change that had been dropped by customers) and being asked to cover in the cafe. I still shudder at the time I was asked to make grated cheese sarnies.
There are a lot of prime spots on high streets around the country that will fall vacant with the demise of Woolies. It looks like many will be snapped up by pile-it-high-sell-it-for-a-pound retailers. I initially recoiled in horror at this thought, but then realised that this is exactly what Woolworths has been doing for decades, so no real change there. Alas, the rumour in Leamington is that Woolies will be transformed into that temple of teenage fashion H&M. And so the clone towns march forth...
As a kid, I remember Leamington being a veritable melting pot of independent retailers, with department stores including Rackhams (now House of Fraser), Debenhams (originally Bobby's, according to my mum, and now a boarded up shopping arcade), the extremely Victorian Francis's, Woodwards and Baileys. In the place of the latter two we now have River Island and Be-Wise. *Sigh*
Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Chiswick, Woolies was closed at the start of the summer, and in its place we now have the shining spectacle of a new Waitrose. So not all bad news - and I was never that much a fan of pick'n'mix.
To the South Coast and a belated visit to the East Beach Cafe, designed by Thomas Heatherwick. And pretty marvellous it is too, although a few things disappoint: It turns its back on the town, features forbidding looking blue shutters along the sea front (we incorrectly thought it was closed) and too close proximity to the car park. The cafe should be isolated, marooned on all sides by Littlehampton's wonderful beach gravel (which is liberally sprinkled with shells). Instead you get the car park, wonky paving slabs and asphalt cycle track, which all combine to rather downgrade a magical architectural moment to something more mundane and municipal. However, the food was fab.
