Sir,
I was in Tenby 'Woolies' on its last day, January 2, and felt very sad to see this friendly and so familiar local store closing down, shelves and brackets being sold off for pence and ripped off the walls.
I hope the staff manage to get new jobs soon in this awful economic climate.
Shopping in Tenby High Street has changed so much over the last 40-plus years. I remember shopping with my granny (Bobby Colley) when I was a kid. We'd walk from Victoria Street and in through the Five Arches to Handicotts to buy fruit and veg from Rose and Bert Handicott... meat from Mr. Pullen the butchers, fresh fish from Lillycrops, medicine and soap from Enid Francis in Medical Hall.
And then onto the Koolabah or the Tatler for morning coffee with 'the girls' (granny's friends), Mrs Squibbs (from Squibbs men's outfitters in the High Street), Mrs. Ormond (Arthur's mum), Doris from the Clarence Hotel, Addie Howells, Lillian Bowler.
And after? A trip into the 'Wonder of Woolies' for pick and mix sweeties, more shopping and a chat with Mrs. Craig in Craigs delicatessen and dairy, a browse in T. P .Hughes (still there - keep going chaps!) and a chat with the friendly staff, into Atkins and Coombe to see the Diments for grandpa's tobacco and to the sweeties section next door for Auntie Pam's rose and violet creams... and if, as sometimes happened, granny put her glasses or gloves down and we got home and found they were missing, I'd run back to each shop, "have you got Mrs. Colley's glasses/gloves", and they'd have been put away safe waiting for collection.
Those were the days!
Nicola Bowen Rees,
Tenby exile,
Sevenoaks.