Woolworths gets fleeced on final day

IT is bitterly cold outside. And inside the gaping empty shell of Edinburgh's last trading Woolworths store, it's even colder.

Because when you're selling off the entire stock – fixtures and fittings included – closing down and making around 80 people redundant, mere fripperies such as turning on the heating seem to have been quickly dispensed with.

Besides, no-one is coming back next week for more shopping – or tomorrow for that matter.

Time has finally run out for one of the most famed names in British retail. The last Woolworths – Big W at Milton Link – finally yanked down its steel shutters yesterday at 4pm, bringing to an end ten years' trading at the site.

Not that you'd know from the bustling car park that this was a shop in its death throes.

The first bargain hunters arrived nearly an hour before the shop opened, patiently queuing for the chance to snap up whatever meagre offerings might be left on the already almost bare shelves.

They headed inside to find what was once a massive store filled with stock, now crunched into a handful of rows of DVDs, a cluster of rails of school clothes, boxes of toys, stationery, books, luggage and lampshades, electric fans and kitchen utensils.

Inside, store manager Brian King is jumpy. "You can't speak to anyone in here," he twitches. "We've been told by head office. You've got to leave the store.

"We've got our redundancy payments to think of."

Later, when again asked to comment, he added: "I'd love to comment, but I'm not allowed."

Outside, the shop's frontline customer relations staff – Maureen Wicksted, 44 and Christine Bathgate, 43 – are taking a break from dealing with a phone that rings constantly with inquiries about what time the shop closes and what they have left to sell.

"It's been difficult," says Maureen, from Gilmerton, who has worked at the store since it opened in 1999. "It feels like a family that's being broken up. It's very emotional."

As she speaks, a couple make a dash to their car with their trolley piled high with several large white boxes. The sides of the boxes are stamped: Kleenex toilet rolls.

"People are buying everything there is," adds Maureen with a shake of her head. "They are even buying the toilet rolls and the soap dispensers from the staff loos. Everything – I mean everything – is for sale."

The shop's innards have been picked almost bare, yet neither can believe it's finally the end.

"We've watched the shop get smaller and smaller," agrees Christine. "But we didn't think it was going to come to the end of Woolworths. Who did?"

Still, at least dozens of shoppers who have braved the chill to snare a last-gasp bargain are happy – even if it means waiting in a queue 20 deep to pay for their haul.

Among them is Caroline Hall, 30, from Musselburgh, whose trolley heaves with a large Bratz doll, two Baby Chou Chous, an Xbox All-Pro Football 2008 game bought for £4, school clothes and a £4 Mi Digi World console that should have cost £40.

"I'm disappointed it's closing," she admits, "but I'm also quite pleased with my bargains. The Bratz doll alone should have been £40 but I got it for £10. The Baby Chou Chou would have been £35, it was £8.50. So I'm happy.

"But I'll miss this shop, it was great for picking up just about whatever you needed. There aren't many shops like it."

Woolies worker Danielle Brown, 22, of Whitecraig, heads outside to grab some fresh air. She's one of only two staff out of around 100 who have a job to go to.

"It was luck. I applied back in September before all of this happened," she says, "but it makes me feel really bad for everyone else.

"The manager came with application forms for a HobbyCraft that's opening at the Fort and handed them out, so everyone is going to be applying for the same jobs. It's horrible."

She watches as the trolleys wheel out, each more laden than the last. Avril Pryde, 43, of Mayfield, and Rosie Steven, 44, of Gorebridge, beam with delight at their haul of bags stuffed mostly with DVDs.

"Look," smiles Avril, holding up a box set of the first series of Sex and the City. "That should have been £17 but I got it for a fiver! And I bought the entire set of The Sopranos for £10.50."

The bags open further to reveal a Wall-E PlayStation 2 game down from £17.50 to £7, an Indiana Jones book which was £11.99 snapped up for £3 and more DVDs.

With her is Rosie, delighted with her three Blu-Ray DVDs for £6 each. The pair rummage through their bags, check their till receipts and squeal with glee at their bargains.

"It's sad, though," says Rosie. "You don't want people to lose their jobs. You feel sorry for the staff. And you wonder where it's all going to stop – if Woolworths can't survive then you wonder who can."

But if shoppers feel for the staff, they certainly have no qualms about relieving the shop of what little stock remains.

Out comes Kerry Anne Mortimer, 22, from Dalkeith, struggling to carry her bulky purchase. Inside is a 15ft swimming pool.

"It should have been around £50," she puffs, heaving the box into the boot of her hatchback. "I got it for £3. It's for my two Staffordshire terriers to play in – they'll love it.

"I'm quite pleased, but it is sad to see a big shop lying empty."

Meanwhile, Lorraine McGovern, 55, has arrived with her daughters from home in Niddrie to grab a late bargain and say goodbye to the staff she's come to know.

"I've just got bits and pieces, DVDs, CDs, that kind of thing. I've spent around £25, but I've probably got stuff that would have cost more than £100," she says.

"But it's horrible for the staff who don't have jobs. I've been coming here for years, you get to know the staff. The lad at the till, Christopher, it's a shame he hasn't got a job to go to.

"It's good to get bargains, but you feel bad for the likes of him."

The shop – the last of the Capital's five Woolies branches – continued trading after the others closed in order to shift remaining stock. Yesterday, even the shop shelves were available to buy.

Not that eager bargain hunters Kerry McGarvie, 33, of Lasswade, and Gillian Sutherland, 37, from Poltonhall, were going that far.

"We got here at 9.45, before it opened," laughs Gillian. "It's taken us two hours to get this stuff but it's been worth it."

Their trolleys reveal educational books for children at 20p a throw, an X Factor music deck slashed from £30 to a fiver and a £7 girls' diary for 40p.

"Of course it's sad to see a big shop like this close," says Kerry. "It's a shame for the staff but we're not too sad.

"Well," she adds, grinning ear to ear, "look at all our bargains!"

BRANCHING OUT
FRANK WOOLWORTH began his retail career in 1873 as a sales assistant in the Augubury and Moore Dry Goods Store in New York. He opened his own store in 1879, which, as he was one of the first to embrace mass production to keep the costs down, expanded rapidly into a chain.

The first British store opened in Liverpool nearly a century ago – long queues formed and the shelves were nearly stripped bare on that first day. It was such a hit that from the mid-1920s the company was inundated with letters from local authorities, asking it to open in their town. At one point a new store was emerging every 17 days – stores in Edinburgh included one in Portobello and one on Princes Street.

The chain came under British ownership in 1982 – the US stores closed in 1997.

A FALLEN GIANT
WOOLWORTHS' end came after it failed to get sufficient bank backing to weather a cash crisis.

News of its collapse in November sparked a pre-Christmas bargain dash at its 815 UK stores.

31,000 jobs have been lost, and Woolworths had stores in Lothian Road, Stockbridge, Corstorphine and Leith as well as the Big W at Milton Link.