A Detective story:Working at Woolies on Lister Gate
There was this huge Woolworths store on Lister gate in Nottingham, two floors, maybe three if I remember right,
although the top floor was for staff.
I worked there one summer, back in the seventies. I was a student, up a Ruskin college in Oxford. The grants were
pretty decent then but I still needed to work in the summer to make ends meet, had a wife and two children so there
was no backpacking holidays in the sun for the likes of those mature students like me, trying, a bit late in life, to
improve their lot.
Got a job as a store detective. I was not a very good store detective and I reckon word got out in the city for every
shoplifter in town came down to have a go. It was not that I could not spot them, that’s quite easy when you know
what to look for, if there’s someone on the floor watching then they’ll catch you. It’s when there is no one there that
the big stuff goes out the door. My problem was that my heart was not really in the job. Done a bit of shoplifting
myself in my time, too much empathy with the lifters.
I did catch a guy, he may have been a student, mid-twenties, scruffy as hell, lifting tools, always a favourite to add to
your lifting basket. Watched him take a couple of hammers, set of chisels, pack of screwdrivers, several packets of
screws and nails, a set square, on and on he went. I Tapped on the shoulder and asked to come with me to the
interview room where he unloaded all the tools from his bag.
“Why are you nicking this lot” I asked.
He said he was building a boat.
“Don’t you need a saw to build a boat”
“I would ‘ad ‘ave ad one if yer ‘addnt caught me” he says.
“Well come on then” I said, “lets get you a saw” And we went out to the tool department and he chose a nice Stanly
saw and I sent him on his way.
He was very grateful.
I said “Yer can name yer boat after me”
I don’t know if he ever did build a boat or if he did what he called it. But if you see a boat on the Trent called John,
don’t let the guy who owns it near you’re toolbox.
And one day I spotted a pair of real pros. Young couple towing those big shopping bags on wheels that old ladies
use. One was keeping watch while the other loaded up the bags. They would not have suspected me I was the
scruffiest store detective you would ever have seen. I watched the bloke load pairs of men’s jeans into his trolly bag,
by the dozen, 28 pairs to be accurate, as I later found out.
I spotted the manager and signalled to him to go and stand by the exit door. Mr. Pepper. Then I followed the couple
out onto Lister gate and tapped the bloke on the shoulder, asked him to return to the store as I believed he had goods
in the bag that had not been paid for.
He took a swing at me, missed, I was quite nimble in them days, just out of the army. And he runs off, at high speed,
belting up through Lister gate, abandoning the bag, me in hot pursuit.
We were both panting hard and he is yelling at me to “back off yer fucker”
Well I would not back off and I moved towards him. He dropped the bottle and was off again running up Castlegate
He veered right onto Spaniel row, running past the Salutation turning right again onto Friar Lane racing down
towards Slab Square. I was close now and he realised I was fitter than him and was not giving up, he ran hard and
fast into the square. There were two constables walking their beat, Tug Wilson and a probationary woman P.C. they
saw the chase and just stopped him. No fuss, no struggle, he was quite exhausted ad there was nowt left in him.
Same for me really. Knackered.
The court case came on pretty quick, October if I remember right. I had to attend the magistrates court at the
Guildhall on Burton street, complete with the trolly bag of 28 pairs of blue jeans. I was hanging around in the lobby
with me bag of jeans waiting to be called when this solicitor comes over and tells me he’s pleaded, and I was not
required. Apparently, he was wanted for major shoplifting raids in Sheffield, Mansfield, and Derby.
So, there I was with a trolly bag of 28 pairs of men’s blue jeans. No one seemed interested in them. For the cops it
was all over. Mr. Pepper from Woolworths had moved on somewhere else and I didn’t know anyone down at
Woollies anymore. So, I took them up to Ruskin and most of the first year got a free pair of blue jeans courtesy of
Woolworths!
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