I well remember working at the Cannon Park Store as a Trainee manager. The store manager was a Mr Butolph as I recall.
It was when the store was closed on a Monday morning so we could put up the 'advertising' and Thursday and Friday were the only late nights, until 8pm, can you believe that.
I worked around the store in various capacities according to my Trainee Manager workbook, culminating in a year spent as the all night Nightshift manager which consisted of Wednesday/Thursday/Friday nights something like 9:00pm through to 7:30 ish am the following morning after you'd been round the store with the Manager.
After short stints at other branches I went to work in Head Office which at that time was based in Rennie Street and Stamford Street.
After a while at HQ I moved to the 'Scanning Team' moving around the country 'converting' new and existing stores to the new Scanning tills, after we'd been trained at the Wimbledon training centre above the Wimbledon store. My first conversion was Broadfield in Crawley but I went on to convert Swindon, Lancaster, Warwick, Ilford, Chichester, Walsall, Altrincham, Loughborough and probably a few others as part of a dedicated team.
I also worked out of the Coventry Area Office, which was above Allied Carpets in Coventry opposite the Coventry Theatre. They turned the fountain blue when Coventry won the FA Cup in 1987.
I was also on the Display Team that set up the Homebase on the Leeds ring road and stayed on as a Temporary Back Door Manager.
In writing this I was just trying to remember a few names, so here's a few that spring to mind:-
Store Manager Cannon Park : Mr Butolph
Grocery Manager Cannon Park : Barry (never kid a kidder) Thurlow
District Manager : Reg Weeks
District Manager: Mr Wigley
Area Manager : Mr Haynes
Grocery Manager Rugby : Rudi Cefai (1976)
Apart from the stores mentioned above I've also worked at:-
Coventry (City Centre)
Rugby (North Street)
Bell Green (Coventry)
Walton (Liverpool)
Morecambe
Comments (0)