The wonder of woolies!
No, not the knitted variety, although we do indeed need the woolly pully these days here in the UK, but the wonder of woolies going into administration. A sad day for Woolworths - what a pity that it won't quite make its 100th anniversary in the UK. When it opened its doors to the great British public in Liverpool in 1909 crowds flocked to buy its cheap goods and the chain store created by American sales assistant, F. W Woolworth, went from strength to strength. It seems rather ironical to me that the cheap sixpenny store that grew out of the era of mass production has succumbed to the financial crisis just when the country seems to be going through a revival of an austerity phase where cheap and cheerful will (or is) becoming once again more fashionable. But poor old Woolies made a loss of £72.5 million in the six months to August 2 and no shining knight in white armour came to its rescue. It is indeed the end of an era though the UK stores outlasted its US parent, which closed it...