Picking the carcass at Woolies

I suppose I should pay homage to the jumbled up mess of crud that has become Woolworths, as it vanishes from our high streets.

I used Woolworths. Five years ago, it was a convenient half-way stop back to the car at the shopping centre. Here I bought Thomas the Tank Engine toys. Three at a time.

Not that I wanted to. I am a woman in my forties and each Thomas toy cost me a fiver. However, it was an easy solution to a horrible problem.

There was a point when pushing the triple buggy became too much for my weedy arms. Squirrel, Shark and Tiger were not exactly delicate and fragile babies. Here's one.*


About the age of two they became enormously plump and heavy. They looked like miniature washer women from Halifax. Pushing one of these bumpers was an ordeal. Pushing three in a triple buggy was a task of which Hercules probably said, Sod that. I'll do the stables job instead.

The solution was that Squirrel, Shark and Tiger had to walk, like it or not. The response was usually not. Grit, being a crafty child manager, knew that small children with little fat legs could manage so far and then would need encouragement. Carrying three at one, using electronic motors, strapping on rocket propulsion or administering discreet kicking were all out of the question. Instead, I detoured through Woolies and bought three Thomas toys.

Crucially - and apart from being the adored and wonderful Thomas for whom we would sell our souls to possess and chew his lovely face off - these toys had wheels.

From then on, the progress to the car was straightforward. I would rip open the packaging and give Thomas, Henry, James, each a firm shove, sending them careering forty miles an hour towards Debenhams, where the car was parked. Behind them would hurtle, screaming with delight, Squirrel, Shark and Tiger.

This technique had the added benefit of causing the crowds to part, Red Sea style, for fear of being annihilated by three small torpedos, totally oblivious to all the world except the departing rear ends of Thomas and all his little chums. For me, I just enjoyed seeing the childless women in heels run.

And those are my fond memories of Woolies. And this, my kind farewell.





* OK, that was just an excuse for a cute baby shot. But she's my cute baby, dammit.