Why its not sad to be sad about Woolworths

As a 21st century new man I am comfortable expressing my emotions. I cry at films, especially if they are very bad films, and my heart is broken every year by a football team. So I am not ashamed to admit that I am very sad to see the demise of Woolworths from the High Street. And its not just the 27,000 redundancies, or the impending absence of pick-n-mix (they stopped selling my favourite chewing nuts years ago). I am sad because we are losing more than a chain of stores, after all one in ten High Street brands are likely to go to the wall this year or next, with the demise of Woolworths we are losing part of our social history.

For 99 years Woolworths has been part of our lives - we've worked in their stores; bought their sweets, clothes, music, electricals, toys and everything else; taken shelter there from the rain; and complained that they no longer sell wool. But on Tuesday it will be all over.

As a child I never understood why my parents used to stop as we were travelling round Sheffield to explain to me that the Undertakers is where the fish and chip shop used to be that sold the best Mushy peas in Yorkshire. Or that the Hair Gallery is where they used to return the bottles of Dandelion and Burdock to get the 1p back when it was the General Store. But now I do. At some stage in the future we will be driving as a family through Uckfield and I will stop the car, make my children get out and explain that this is where Woolworths used to be.

As we drive away I will adress their looks of contrasting incredulity and boredom and explain to my girls why its not sad that their dad is still sad about Woolworths. I will tell them that this is where I started work at the age of 15, and that it was here that my mum had my O levels results were read over the store tannoy (much to my annoyance). I will explain that it was here that I spent one Saturday afternoon very gingerly searching through the soft toys for any suspect packages following yet another bomb threat; and here that I courted my first girlfriend; bought my first record; fought off the rising floodwaters; heard about the death of my schoolfriend; and worked off my first hangover.

I worked for Woolworths for less than three years. At the start it was only a Saturday job, and it was never full-time, but those three years were such important years that Woolworths helped shape the man that I am now. And that is why I, and countless others like me, will always be sad about Woolworths.