'JS Journal', October 1976

Table of content

• Big chief Sittingbourne opens
  01

  POW-WOW took on a completely new meaning at the opening of JS's new supermarket at Sittingbourne on September 21. Pow! Crowds of waiting people surged through the doors the moment director Peter Snow officially opened them, this...

• Contents
  02

  General news/pages 1-7
  Features/pages 8-19
  Letters/page 20
  People/pages 21-23
  Competition/page 24

• Grass roots pricing packages
  03

  THREE NEW PRICING PACKAGES go into operation at selected JS stores in early October. This new approach to pricing at JS aims to give a greater flexibility to vary prices at individual branches, and so put them in a better position...

• SuperShopper gets a page in The Sun
  03

  SUPERSHOPPER is the hero, or heroine, of the £150,000 campaign of adverts in the national press that will be promoting JS stores until Christmas. The adverts, with the slogan 'Sainsbury's—for today's SuperShopper: You', feature...

• Christmas is coming—it's official
  04

  THE JS CHRISTMAS COUNTDOWN begins officially on October 4. That's the date most of JS's range of Christmas goodies goes on display—traditional fare like puddings, cakes, mincemeat and confectionery, plus at larger supermarkets,...

• Savings or shares—the option's yours
  04

  THE CHANCE to dabble in the stock market or save for a rainy day comes up for over 10,000 members of JS staff on October 8. That's the date everyone who has worked full-time for the company for three or more years will be offered...

• Meet this year's 'Sainsbury Girls'
  05

  OVER COFFEE and biscuits at Stamford House, the latest sextet of 'Sainsbury Girls' met their predecessors to find out what working at JS was all about. 'Sainsbury Girls' is the descriptive tag that has been given to the half-dozen...

• Oh! Calcutta! JS style
  05

  Even in North-East India JS is turning people on, or so JS hardware buyer Mike Handscomb found when he went there on holiday.
  He photographed this advertisement for a magazine in the middle of Calcutta, and he describes the...

• Tea-up!
  05

  THE PRICE OF A CUPPA is going up. That is the outcome of the Government's decision to end the tea subsidy on September 26. Introduced in 1974, the subsidy accounted for £30 million of the total expenditure of £572 million on...

• Diminishing returns
  06

  'THE £5 MILLION problem is now a £3 million problem' says Derek Pretty, deputy chief accountant, as he congratulates branch staff on the great reduction in returns. 'In period five last year, returns were worth £386,000; for...

• Push don't dial and note the new numbers
  06

  SIXTY POST OFFICE ENGINEERS worked over the weekend to make sure that there was a smooth changeover to the new head office telephone exchange by the time staff arrived for work on Monday, September 27. The new exchange means a...

• Something to sing about
  06

  HAWK-EYED JS STAFF watching the last night of the proms on television, on September 11, spotted Ethel Coulson, operations manager of the textile department, at Blackfriars, singing in the alto section of the BBC choir. Its not the...

• Carrefour study doesn't slam hypermarkets
  07

  HYPERMARKETS MAY BE BIG but they are not the bad wolf many people think them to be. That's the main finding of a study of the Carrefour hypermarket at Eastleigh, near Southampton, carried out for the Department of the Environment....

• Sweet smelling thrifty tip caps the lot
  07

  FREE - A POT OF HERBS with every lens cap sold. That's how photography buffs see JS's own label range of dried herbs. They've discovered that the plastic lid on the pot the herbs are sold in makes a perfect push-on lens cap for...

• Thought for food
  08

  Pick up any daily newspaper of the past few months and you see headlines predicting escalating food prices, food shortages and general confusion, which if we are to believe the old saying about the way to a person's heart, will...

• We also heard ... go to work on JS salad cream!
  10

  EVER FANCIED salad cream with your boiled egg at breakfast? A German student, Susi Muller, visiting friends in Sussex this summer, discovered that this unusual combination greatly appeals to her taste buds. A local newspaper...

• Barking Cavalier steals the show
  11

  A VISIT TO CRUFT'S SHOW was what first prompted Peter Davis, a battery changer at Charlton Depot, to start entering Snow, his Cavalier King Charles spaniel, for a few dog shows. After seeing about 250 Cavaliers at Cruft's Peter...

• Braille-safe boxes
  11

  BOOKS FOR THE BLIND are on their way around the world, packed in cartons supplied by the cheese department at Buntingford depot. The Torch Trust for the Blind bought some used cartons from a carton salesman. Among those they...

• Motto, motto on the wall...
  11

  JB SAINSBURY'S MOTTOES graced branch dining room, shops and warehouse walls for years. Mottoes like— 'A place for everything, and everything in its place.' 'A man without a smiling face shouldn't keep a shop.' 'The trouble with...

• Guaranteed touched by human hand
  12

  FOOD TASTES much better when it's been cooked in a homely handmade pot; in much the same way as brown eggs always seem to be nicer than white ones. There is no proper explanation for it—it is just so. There is, however,...

• A potted history of the JS stoneware range
  15

  TODAY A CANNIBAL'S cooking pot is quite likely to be stamped Pearsons of Chesterfield for the pottery now exports to all corners of the world. It first went on sale at JS's not so far-flung store at Northampton, when the branch...

• A day in the life of...
  16

  A DISTRICT MANAGER is totally accountable for the branches in his area. For Norman Harding, that means 11 branches stretching from the north-eastern outskirts of Birmingham to Doncaster. His 'patch' includes some of the toughest...

• All bound up!
  19

  Now you can keep your copies of the JS Journal between hard covers. These binders, in red with gold blocked lettering, hold a year's issues of the Journal, and you can get them from the JS Journal office. The price is £1.50p,...

• Len's a good judge of wine—especially his own!
  19

  CONVERSATIONS over the garden fence with a neighbour set JS driver Len Hodder, of Buntingford depot, on the path to his fruitful hobby of wine making. Len, who for the past seven years has been making his own wine, took his...

• Your letters
  20

  Letters are welcome and should be addressed to the editor. Don't forget you can dictate one by using the Journal's phone-in service on 01-921 6221
  Crossroads?
  From: Stan Meekcoms, off licence department, Blackfriars
  There have...

• 'I've never been trapped by routine' says Dick Davis
  21

  DICK DAVIS was 15½ years old when he joined JS in 1931, as an egg boy at Stamford Hill. Forty-five years later, on September 25, he retired as AGM at JS's Romford area office.
  'In 1931 there was widespread unemployment' Mr Davis...

• Peace (and tongues) for our time
  21

  MYSTERY SOLVED—the glass dish from the archives that we showed in the September JS Journal was a 'glass tongue'. JS archivist Honor Godfrey had plenty of letters and phone calls, and she thanks everyone who got in touch.
  Glass...

• Appointments
  22

  D Smeaton, formerly manager of Kingswood, has been appointed manager of Bristol.
  R Burningham, formerly manager of Chippenham, has been appointed manager of Kingswood.
  R W Simpson, formerly manager of Wolverhampton, has been...

• Long Service
  22

  Brian Christmas, senior manager in distribution division at head office, celebrated 25 years' service in September. Mr Christmas joined JS as a draughtsman in the development engineer's department. He was responsible for the...

• Retirements
  22

  Charles Barwick, reserve manager at Ipswich, retired on September 25, ending a career with JS that spanned 44 years. Mr Barwick started at 61 Walthamstow as a learner. He then went on to work at 12 Walthamstow, 48 Ipswich and...

• Jill leaves to teach a millionaire
  23

  WHEN JILL MARA, assistant home economist, left JS she went to join the ranks of jet-setting European business people. She'll be travelling around Europe giving English business conversation lessons to a millionaire light aircraft...

• Jim's spare time job fires him with enthusiasm
  23

  GETTING IN AND OUT of uniform is an important part of life for Jim Jones. A security officer at JS's Buntingford depot for the past eight years, Jim is also a retained fireman with the Saffron Walden Fire Brigade. So when he...

• Obituary
  23

  Dorothy Nicholas, part-time cashier at Stevenage, died in hospital on July 28. She had been with the company for 15 years.
  Mrs Nicholas leaves a husband, two sons and a daughter.
  Katherine Barry, part-time display assistant at...

• The photo finish starts here
  24

  WIN A WEEKEND FOR TWO in Denmark - in a fraction of a second. That's the prize in the JS Journal's first photographic contest. And you can win it with just one picture. 'Faces and places' is the subject and you can interpret it as...