90's Nights in Brighton

THE PARADOX IS BEING DEMOLISHED!

Another slice of our youth bites the dust.

The building that housed The Paradox, Tru, Creation, Pink Coconut, Sherry’s etc. is due to be knocked down and rebuilt into a hotel apparently. Not that West Street in Brighton doesn't need a HUGE makeover though. During daylight hours it just looks totally run down, and at night time it looks anything but classy… but maybe it’s always looked that way? I’m sure I didn’t care much about it when we were sloshed up, walking (staggering) up or down it back in the 90’s!

I did previous writings about pubbing and clubbing days a while back, which ultimately became one of my most read blogs:

November 1993

...but it only really mentioned a couple of venues, so what about the other haunts from back in the day?

I’d not even made mention of The Paradox in that earlier blog, but it was absolutely somewhere I often ventured to, amongst many other locations during the 1990’s. I’m sure I drank in most places around Brighton at least once during those formative years, but the below are a few that most spring to mind:

Alley Cats / Ali Cats?

Funny little bar, which in my mind’s eye always used to be showing films on a big screen – and often it was ‘The Empire Strikes Back’!

Very pokey when busy, but if you could get a seat it was quite cosy and you could settle in for the night. Full of students, Goths and Emos’, so it was wonderfully eclectic and very friendly. That said, I probably stuck out like a sore thumb with my curtains haircut!

Berlin Bar

Never really got on with the Berlin Bar, and whenever I did go, I never stayed very long. It always seemed too dark? Imagine having a night club in Hollister, and you’re on the right track

Memorable Song?

I'm not sure about memorable, but the first time I heard N-Trance murdering Stayin’ Alive was in here. The Bee Gees are probably still turning in their graves.

The Biscuit Factory

Had a very strange toilet that played ghostly and haunting sounds whenever you went for a slash. That’s assuming the noises weren't actually coming from the adjacent female toilets? A chap got shot in the doorway during the 90’s so it had the label of being a rough pub, which I don’t believe it ever really was.

Black Lion

Another fairly small pub, but was quite popular. It used to have a video jukebox (quite impressive for the time) which played chart hits. I remember falling out with a ‘mate’ of mine one New Year’s Eve, when he reneged on a prior agreement made between 6 or 7 of the group we were in to rotate seats (as there were not enough to go round) when we went to the bar to get rounds in. I’m not bitter much usually, but he was being a total berk...

I saw him recently. He went bald first. Unlucky! 

Memorable Song?

Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai was often on the screen:

The Cricketers

Only worthy of a mention due to the weird upstairs. It was like a dark, dank boudoir with no apparent purpose. Always found it to be a really boring pub.

Is it still the same?

The Event (renamed ‘The Event II’ from Spring 1995, now Pryzm, via Oceana!)

Probably the venue I attended the most, though I didn’t really enjoy it so much when I first started clubbing. As I grew older I much preferred Tuesdays and Fridays to Saturdays. Such a different group of people would go out in Brighton on a Friday night compared to a Saturday night. The atmosphere was so much more relaxed and you didn’t have to actively try and avoid the people who couldn’t handle their shandies.

We always tended to congregate at the same spot at the top left bar over all the years I went there (not counting its Oceana refurb as they ripped the backside out of the place doing THAT overhaul!)

It was a good vantage point, overlooking the dance floor and stage etc. Guaranteed that no matter what night you went on, you’d know someone in that area.

I get mocked, but I’ve no shame in saying I had some absolutely brilliant nights up there with my friends – it was cheap and cheerful, but a really good laugh. Often on the Tuesday nights I’d be there ‘til chucking out time (230-ish), eat a Subway or Cheeky Chicken on the way home, get a couple of hours sleep at most, and be at work setting up the Deli counter at Sainsbury’s by 545am, clearly still drunk.

I remember one such morning, the deputy store manager summoned me into an office to discuss my ‘state’… and he promptly shook my hand, congratulating me on coming into work in spite of my excesses!

Anyways, there are so many Memorable Song options, but I’ll be brutal and stick to two for each of the main nights:

Memorable Friday Songs?

I Think We’re Alone Now – Tiffany

Live It Up – Mental As Anything

Memorable Saturday Songs?

Moving On Up – M People

Boom! Shake The Room – DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince

Memorable Tuesday Songs? 

Parklife – Blur

Born Slippy (NUXX) – Underworld

Font & Firkin

I used to like going to The Font to watch football, and remember getting soaked with flying beer when Beckham scored his famous last minute goal against Greece in 2001. The music in here would not often be my particular choices when it was forced upon the punters, but when they turned the jukebox on I’d fill it with stuff I liked!

Memorable Song?

Smoke – Natalie Imbruglia

The Gloucester

I loved The Gloucester. I honestly don’t think I ever left the place sober!

Every time I went there I had a great time, even the night when someone threatened to kill me if I spoke to his girlfriend again.

The current incumbent is called The North Laine, which is still the same building, and is indeed a very decent bar, but it doesn't have the same feel like the Gloucester used to. Besides, the Gloucester always had sticky floors!

I remember the first night I ever went there, I was having a heavy moshing session and back then, pre laser surgery days, I wore glasses. Amongst the colliding, my glasses went flying, so I hit the deck desperately trying to find them. Miraculously I grabbed them before they got crushed, but then this huge guy (a bouncer?) hoyed me up and threw me off the dance floor area to safety. I think he was doing me a favour!?

Memorable Song?

Too many! I can’t narrow it down to less than these three:

Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana

Don’t Look Back in Anger – Oasis

Live Forever – Oasis

The Hungry Years

Another venue where I stuck out like a sore thumb, but I always found it a really friendly and inclusive club, whatever clique or group you felt attached to.

We usually went there if we ever left The Event early on a Friday, to meet up with other friends who had been there for the duration.

Memorable Song?

Faith – George Michael… but it wasn’t his version they played

Midnight Blues (under the Grand Hotel)

Gets a mention as it was where I had a party for my joint 21st birthday.

The party was a great night, and we had about 120 people show up. It would have been more, but the other birthday boy neglected to invite more than 10 other people...

I think I might have been there a couple of times beforehand, and just felt it was a fairly decent and cheap (free) venue to hire. That said I don’t think I’ve ever been back since!

O’Neill’s (now Seven Stars)

Always really enjoyed the atmosphere in this Irish bar where, incidentally, Brighton and Hove Albion was formed in 1901.

One night in particular stands out in early 1996, when I met up with a tremendously funny Irish guy I worked with at Sainsbury’s on a Tuesday evening for a few drinks, as his brother’s band were playing a gig at the venue.

The company, banter, music and booze was a total joy that night. I’ve generally always been a spirits drinker, but after I’d hit 10 Guinnesses in about 2 hours, I stopped counting. That’s not a boast, it was just one of those nights when everything seamlessly flowed.

I ended up singing Irish folk songs that I didn’t know the words to, and then we went clubbing to The Event where they had to hold me up to get me in!

How can all that be more than 21 years ago!?

Memorable Song?

Wild Rover – My mate’s brother’s band!

The Paradox

I generally went here on Thursdays as I think that was student night?

It didn’t matter if you were actually a student or not, but this night generally meant cheap booze, so it was the equivalent of the type of night that The Event had on Tuesdays. One advantage that The Paradox had over The Event was that there were definitely pockets where you could actually have a conversation with someone, whereas the sound at The Event used to boom around everywhere (apart from maybe the back stairs)

The balcony around the top was good too, giving a bird’s eye view of the place (no pun intended), plus you could get some decent food at the back too.

The least said about the dodgy staircases the better. I don’t quite know how more people didn’t lose a limb going down those. The pic below of me (circa 1998), shows that I’m either dancing or, more likely, trying to regain my balance having walked down said stairs…

There was also Club Barcelona underneath, which offered an alternative, but there may have been an older age restriction there? Occasionally we’d go on a Monday when they hosted Austin Powers themed nights – always a good laugh, and with added 60’s music to boot.

Memorable Song?

Earth Song (Hani Club Remix) – Michael Jackson

The Pav Tav

Sorry but I never liked it, and found it quite boring frankly, but many raved about how good it was. Just couldn’t see it myself!

The Polar Bar

Worth a quick mention of this teeny bar along Western Road as they served all kinds of bizarre cocktails and flavoured vodkas. Used to love the sherbet vodka combi.

The Pull and Pump

This compact pub was usually the first place we headed to on our nights out in Brighton. It always had a buzzing and friendly atmosphere, and would set us up for the night ahead.

Generally we’d get there at about 7ish and spend an hour or so dabbling with a healthy dose of Absinthe, Tuaca or Aftershock before heading off elsewhere into town (usually The Quadrant – see below)

Miscellaneously, I broke up from my first girlfriend in The Pull – there’s irony for ya!

The Quadrant

I got the impression that we owned the jukebox in The Quad! It’s fair to say that they played what we demanded or insisted on every time we went in there. Friday nights always seemed a bit more retro, as when we went there on other nights, we might as well have been on a totally different planet; such was the different vibe and clientele.

The staff were a good laugh – one lad looked like Take That’s Mark Owen and we ribbed him mercilessly for it. Sadly I heard that the landlord Gary Ockwell passed away at quite a young age…he loved being a bit of a misery and banned Christmas one year, which attracted the interest of a couple of national newspapers.

And we’ll never forget the night that Bryan Ferry walked in…

Memorable Song?

Lazy Sunday – The Small Faces

The Revenge

The Revenge in the 90’s was (and still is) Brighton’s most popular gay club. I have to be honest in my writings and say that it was never really a place I was keen to go to, as firstly I felt I wouldn’t meet any girls there, and somewhat ashamedly the younger me was unnecessarily nervous about going to a club labelled (unjustifiably) in my mind as ‘non-straight’.

I obviously know now just how ridiculous that sounds, but I just wasn’t enlightened enough to process it at the time. What totally swayed my views on everything the lifestyle encompassed, was when I was persuaded to go to Revenge for the leaving ‘do’ of a colleague of mine. He mockingly said he would look after me, but within a few minutes he needn't have bothered. It literally clicked that it was all fine.

Any homophobia I might have had, which I genuinely believe stemmed from a fear of the unknown rather than any hatred, vanished instantly. It WAS just another club, there were men, women, straights, gays, bisexuals, unknowns, those who did not identify, and everything in between, labelled or not.

I was initially very embarrassed about why I had not simply adhered to live and let live, but ultimately I put it down to my immaturity and ill education on the matter.

Actually I was just pleased that I wasn’t still stuck in an archaic view. Bizarrely, one of my friends admitted that he would say he lived in Worthing rather than Brighton, so as to avoid being tarred with the ‘gay’ brush. How pathetic is that? Hopefully he has grown somewhat since then!

Anyways, back to the point, and I can say that the club was great, and played the sort of terrific music that I loved – i.e. 80’s music, and whilst I wasn’t a prolific visitor, I always enjoyed going.

Memorable Song?

Summer of Love – Steps, or anything by ABBA!

Smugglers

This was one of the first pubs I went to regularly in Brighton. Good atmosphere, plenty of drinks choice, and nice décor split into two staggered levels… and then bizarrely they ruined it by putting in a restaurant on the upper level. Week after week we would watch literally nobody eat there. Just a few miserable waiters hanging round hoping for a customer. Very strange.

Zap

Me and a few mates only really went here when they did 80s nights – which being a Monday meant the overall feel of the night was a bit odd. The layout was quite good though, and the club had the famous arched windows too.

Memorable Songs?

Ghostbusters – Ray Parker Jr

Tainted Love – Soft Cell

Alone Again (Naturally) – Wendy and Hee Hee

I feel a bit sorry for the next generation, as it seems to cost an absolute fortune to go out into Brighton now. Maybe it’s all relevant and I’m just old, as I’m sure some things are probably better about a night out.

For example, all the above venues were visited well before the smoking ban came in. Smoke free venues are a given nowadays, but even as a non-smoker I have to be honest and say that the copious smoking in such venues never bothered me whilst I was living through it. It was just the way it was.

What I’m absolutely glad that I didn’t have back then, is a mobile phone.

The banter, singing, laughs and conversations must surely have died since the advent of the smart phone, which is actually a real shame… it’s even got to the point where I’ve been aware of the current youth saying that they won’t go out at all if they don’t have their phone with them.

They really don’t know what they might be missing out on... And now I sound too old!

40 Somethings

Well I’ve nearly made it through the first year of my forties, a time when life supposedly begins.

I’ve read a lot lately on various forums that I subscribe to about this decade of your life being absolutely dreadful, with ‘supporting evidence’ along the lines of: 

 

You can’t run uphill anymore

 

Your body stops working

 

More people you know start to die than get married or have children

 

Your children shout at you because they will be older than babies and probably) younger than 20

 

If you don't have children you may have resent or regret

You’ve had a mid-life crisis, or are expecting one soon

 

Injuries take an age to heal – if ever…

You have to watch your weight and take more medication

You go grey, or bald – or both

Everyone shouts at you

 

You piss people off all the time

 

You miss Downton Abbey

You've either taken on too much at work in a bid to keep up, or you're

stuck in a dead end employment

You worry about your health, your aging parents’ health and your children’s health, all in the same conversation

You might have enough money to treat all this stress with red wine or beer but, if you do, you will put on 5 stone just opening the bottle

You’re a narcissist and neurotic at the same time

 

So some of the above is funny, some is rubbish, and maybe just some of it is concerning.

I also did a Google search for ’40 Somethings’ which for some reason by and large elicited Jennifer Aniston.



Rachel - She'll always be there for you



It’s all very personalised though isn’t it?

 

I recall having a wobble of sorts just after I turned 30, believing nobody loved me and that I’d lost my salad days forever etc. (total rubbish of course) – yet 10 years later, having passed 40, I had no thoughts of a similar ilk, and found that I simply encountered a different set of life issues instead. Such as anti-depressants, and taking dare into my stride by hoying myself out of plane for charrriiiidddeeeee, which was incredibly amazing, but it does sound equally incredibly insane.

The medication wasn’t (isn’t) for depression so to speak, but for anxiety, which I still don’t understand fully, but I think it helps take the edge off for me in these times. It means I shout less, and panic less, and this is definitely progress. The doctor described it as "life in the 21st Century"

 

Tiredness is the killer for me – which will make Mrs Berrylogs laugh and frown in equal measure as she feels I get more lie ins than her (I do).

The juggle of working, being a dad to three at key stages in their own lives (17, 13, 4), maintaining a hopefully healthy marriage and striving to keep a social life going does take it out of you … and after that there’s still the vacuuming and ironing to do!

 

Football used to be my anti-depressant medication, but the older I’ve got, the more I’ve come to accept that the beautiful game is largely just about luck, and therefore I’m now content not to hit the stress / destress levels with quite the same anger as might have been the case in the past. Football is still good escapism, but I don’t find myself having my nights ruined just because the Albion lost anymore. This is also a good thing! It doesn’t mean I enjoy football any less, it just means I’m less likely to have a heart attack on a stadium concourse over it. Touch wood.

 

What does annoy me on a daily basis though, is eating. I love the food I love (who doesn’t?) but find it doesn’t love me back as much. What a bitch eh!?

Not sure how I help things regarding this as my limited food range hinders major changes to my diet. And I could never ever give up salt & vinegar crisps (I'd sooner give up chocolate.)

 

My drinking habits haven’t changed much in 20 odd years now, but one day that may catch up with me. Never had a hangover yet though and hopefully never will, so long may that continue. Still laughing at the outright anger I encountered a few weeks ago when someone refused to accept this as fact. I could only put their response down to jealousy.

Either that or they thought I was lying?

 

Am I grumpier, now I’m older? Yes probably, but don’t begrudge 40 Somethings that – they often delight in being a grump!

 

Socially it’s actually pretty tasty as things stand. Regular gatherings of various kinds keep that fun ticking along.

Do I miss the old days of pubbing and clubbing? (See previous blog November 1993 !)

I don’t so much desire to do it now, but I enjoy reliving and reviving the past on occasion. At a friend’s recent 40^th birthday party, where some lifelong friends rolled back 20 years and had a great night, one said to me that they"missed nights like these", but I believe everyone and everything has their time... that said, there’s no reason to stop enjoying it just because we’re twice as old. In all honesty I don’t feel much differently to how I felt 20 years ago anyway, though my body might sometimes disagree.

 

The truth of it all is that I feel very lucky, and very happy where I am at the moment. Things could always be worse, and this is sadly very true for some people I know. Compared to some, I have nothing worth complaining about.

 

Going back to an earlier point in this post, it is true that a sadly regular flow of people I grew up with have passed away, whereas before the age of 38, I think I went well over 10 years in not experiencing any kind of loss. At the rate of one a year since then, it only adds resolve to want to enjoy life while you can, and ride over the aggravation that pops up on occasion.

 

Relax if you can and chill in your 40s – you might find you enjoy them after all!

Trollied Revisited

Okay so I know I ‘retired’ from blogging in 2015, but I didn’t say it was going to be forever! That said, this is not a full blown return to writing – it’s more like revisionism rather than recidivism.

Apparently it is good blogging etiquette for bloggers to go back and update old blogs with new light through old windows, although one could interpret this as the blogger has become lazy and / or so dull that they’ve run out of topics…

In short, I’m still on sabbatical but just fancied penning a final update to a couple of my most viewed blogs during the period I was actively writing.

This was triggered by watching a re-run of the Sky One comedy Trollied – a show which past readers will know I really enjoy, due to drawing comparisons with my own 8 years working for a major supermarket.

Shamelessly I've even tried soliciting for a cameo on the show, but unsurprisingly I have thus far been unsuccessful!

So anyways, this piece of writing is going to dip back in to tart up the originals, and add a couple of new bits… if you are willing to stay the course!

Trollied Revisited

So, the series link on my tellybox has informed me that Trollied is back for a SIXTH series this Autumn! This means I can once again spend several autumn nights reminiscing about how little has changed in the world of supermarket retail since I escaped in 1999. Having completed nearly eight custodial years, starting at the tender age of 15 years and 3 months (wouldn’t happen these days), it’s fair to say that I left (aged 23) with some interesting experiences, and not least a few life skills, such as:

• How to operate dangerous slicing machinery when drunk

• How to throw and catch rat poison traps

• What’s appropriate to eat on the shop floor – and what’s not

• How to go ‘missing’ when you’re in a store you don’t like working at

• How to keep your staff happy
• And how to piss your staff off

• How NOT to grate Parmesan
• And why no-one should EVER buy freshly grated Parmesan

…and that’s just off the top of my head over the last minute or so.

To those who have never seen Trollied, upon first viewing it might all seem a bit odd, and borderline crass at points. What they should be in no doubt about at all though is just how realistic Trollied really is. If you’ve done your time in food retail, then you will recognise exactly how accurate some of the apparent outlandish storylines actually are.

For the vast majority of the characters on screen there’s someone I can name from my time in store who IS that person. In fact the only thing that Trollied rightly chooses not to dwell on too much is the fact that some (not many) of the managers back in the day could be quite nasty individuals.

I’d like to hope that particular point has changed now.

So in comparison, and in addition to the storylines in Trollied, here are just a few blasts from the staff of the past:

• Sleeping on top of the warehouse chillers (knew a guy that did this at least once a week)

• Performing knee slides across the floor on night shift (every night)

• Wilfully damaging goods (I saw a guy do a meticulously planned flying headbutt into a pallet of 200 egg boxes) – in fact this same guy willingly let someone set fire to his hair in the canteen, just to see how fast it would burn. He also had a diary where he could mark off how many days it would be before he went sick again, without him being sacked for persistent absence. Oh and he also often spoke of wanting to put an end to his wife. Yes wife, not life. Something involving a train I think.

• Sex acts in the warehouse (didn’t witness this [or partake!] but it happened fairly often – and also in the customer toilets on nightshifts)

• Being chucked in the baler (the new kids on Produce)

• Eating food from the shopfloor shelves (standard practise)

• Describing fruit shapes to old ladies using genitalia innuendo (too many to mention, but mamba and aubergines are words that spring to mind... oh and horned melons)

• The legendary tannoy broadcast “This is a customer announcement. There is an urgent call for Mike Hunt, who is shopping in the store today. Please can Mike Hunt come to Customer Services” (I kid you not.) Later that night, by pure fluke, I actually met the bloke who put the prank call in. Turns out he didn’t work for us, but had done it for a mate of his whose last day it was.

• Managers ‘stealing’ other managers’ cars, parking them halfway across town and letting the tyres down (I loved working at that branch!)

• The Produce boy who happened to accidentally glance at the Bakery girl who was collecting strawberries from the warehouse. So she says to him “What the f*ck are you looking at?” ... Five years later they were married #romancenotdead

It’s not an exhaustive list by any means, but you get the gist.

Ultimately, it’s all about the people, and I would still insist that most of the people I worked with were tip top characters, but that didn’t stop some of them being a bit odd!

Having been around for a few years, I was fortunate enough to get promotion a couple of times. The main one was becoming the new Delicatessen Manager at a store in Brighton, starting just three days after my 21^st birthday.

A Deli Counter. Not mine though... Mine was in colour

It’s fair to say that up till that point of my retail career, I’d seen a few things that had opened my naïve innocent young eyes a little, but nothing prepared me for the response I received on my first few weeks in that new role.

What could go so wrong?

Well specifically it was three things that made some of my new staff not that keen on me:

• I was introduced to them on the first day as God.
• I was young.
• I was male.

I was already feeling over exposed at the oversized tent of a suit I had to wear, but being introduced as The Almighty sank me lower than the Titanic. It was horrendously embarrassing, and I have no idea why my introducer opted to say that, but I think maybe because he had been looking after the counter in the absence of a manager and wanted them to think I was there to ‘save’ them. I REALLY had to underplay that title in the first few weeks to stave off fears of being called arrogant. Talk about a stitch up.

As for ‘being young and male’ – well they both sound ridiculously ancient don’t they? But it was a genuine issue as Deli counters traditionally (although not exclusively) had been a rather female dominated environment, and here I was, this 'boy', taking over the running of their baby and many of them were not at all comfortable with it. To them, I was the Anti Milky-Bar Kid in more ways than one.

It took a ton of effort to win certain staff over and prove I was worthy.

For example, during that first week I remember cleaning out the bins. I wanted to muck in and do everything and not be some aloof ‘suit’, so I thought this might help somewhat. Nope. The opposite in fact, as this action extremely upset one of the senior ladies as she’d done the bins on Thursdays for the last twelve years, and boy had I now stepped on her toes!

Whilst she was being comforted and consoled by another elder stateswoman (because she WAS in tears), my confidence wasn’t helped by the deliberately loud comment ‘I told them we should have been given a woman manager’

Lovely, heart warming stuff…

Altogether I had 17 staff, which included two male students, three female students, and the rest were females old enough to be my mother or grandmother. It would be wrong though to say that ALL the elder females didn’t want me there.

One Scottish lady in particular took to me quite early on and stated that she felt I’d been a bit stitched up, and that even before I’d arrived I was on a hiding to nothing as a colleague of mine at my previous branch had popped in the week before to ‘advise’ them about me. 

Her assessment being:

‘He’s a nice guy, but he’s not up to being a manager’

...which was ironic given that less than 12 months earlier, I’d had to cover her sorry ass over a Christmas period when she couldn’t cope when acting up as a deputy manager herself.

Bod was RUBBISH at Murder in the Dark

It was a shame to be knifed in the back before I’d even started, but she’d always been a touch bitter, having felt mistreated by the firm over her own career path over the years. I felt sorry for her but why try and hurt me?

Perhaps I didn’t help improve my standing with the others though as when appointing a senior assistant, I fairly opted for the best person. Following interviews, this happened to be another male.

The furore that kicked off simply because I’d given the job to a male was unbelievable. It took intervention from the Personnel Manager to sort out the ridiculous complaints (sexism, ageism, experience-ism!) that arose because of it. If it was sexism they were looking for, the staff on the Fresh Meat Counter were only three steps to the right!

Eventually they started speaking to me again, though it was probably several weeks later. In truth, their gripes were harmless – they just had certain standards that they felt were still viable.

I’m sure a lot of it was simply a generational thing, rather than a personal attack, and as such, when we see the Miriam Margolyes character in Trollied, I’m always reminded of a dear old lady on my team. Let’s call her Joan.

When I took up the role, Joan was already formally retired and worked two days a week, and in those 1990’s days of blossoming equality, she demanded to be treated as everyone else on the Deli counter – and rightfully so.

After a while she chose to ‘further’ retire and cut her hours down to just one day a week. This was fine, and I didn’t really give it much thought… but on the day of her retirement she refused to serve on the counter until she’d been given a retirement present by the store manager.

Staff that had been there long before me said this was now the FOURTH retirement she’d had (one day a week less each year) and frankly they were fed up with continuing to cough up money for her. We got over it by me buying her something out of my own pocket, under the auspices of a collection.

Joan was over the moon with the piece of wooden tat that ‘we’ had got her, but later that same day, she ran off from the counter crying.

One of the temporary staff members had told a customer that they’d be better off going to a rival store as we were rubbish, and Joan being the loyal soul that she was, took this comment as a personal insult to her, and she refused now to work with this "traitor!" – her words, not mine.

So now I had to be a peace maker and nigh on beg the offender to apologise to her. He was a radical, right wing political type (studying economics and politics at university) and this didn’t sit well with him at all, but thankfully he said sorry to Joan as a favour to me… but left me in the crap less than a week later by just not ever turning up again!

I wouldn’t say Joan came out of this well either though, as again on that SAME day, I had to leave early and caught her getting on the same bus as me, fully 30 minutes before she was supposed to clock off. Having been well and truly busted, she steered clear of causing me any grief again for a while.

Another staple of Trollied are the undertones of relationships. In all the stores I worked in, there was an incestuous undertone. Funny at times, but lurid at others.

On a personal note, no-one really fancied me much anyway, but I tended to try and steer clear of dating anyone from work. In fact I only indulged two or three times, which was enough, as it took no time at all for rumours to spread around the store as to what happened on such inter-staff dates.

One girl I went out with got bullied because I put in an order for her to have a new hat to wear on the Deli. ALL staff had to wear hats and she had simply lost hers. That was interpreted as ‘to get a new hat you must sleep with the Deli Manager’

It obviously didn’t mean that and, for the record: 
NO... I didn’t!

Then there was the checkout girl who had relations of sorts with at least a dozen other members of staff from the same store (seven in the same night if rumours are to be believed)… and frankly I lost count of the amount of senior managers visiting the customer toilets with checkout girls. And boys.

I even had my own brush with a ‘Mrs Robinson’ experience. To be fair I was 21, and she was only 34…but her 13 year seniority on me was quite something to experience! Additionally, when I was 19 I was accused of having an affair with my female manager, who was well into her 50’s #shudder … and NO, I didn’t do that either!

Care to do a stock check Elaine?

My last move within the company was sold as a promotion, but ultimate it lead to me departing the job within 8 months. Within a week of working at my new store, I knew I wouldn't be staying long. That was October 1998, and I left the company in May 1999, and those last 8 months were as bad as the previously 24 months had been good. This is detailed in the other blogs (see links below), but suffice to say it meant it brought a sadder ending to my time in retail than had been the prologue.

All in all the 8 years were mostly pretty good, and watching Trollied brings back some fab and funny memories. It’s very realistic and should be a real eye opener to those who think it is fiction. It isn’t!

Would I want to go back to retail though? Well never say never.

But no! NO! NO! NO!

So there you go – and just for fun (and to boost the site hit counter), the two original untouched blogs can be found by clicking the links below, so fill your boots:

Getting Trollied Again

It Was A Woman's World

And as I’m feeling kind, I’ll leave you with TWO top tips:

1. Never buy grated parmesan from a deli counter… 
2. When a can of beans rattles with a thud rather than a slosh. Don’t look inside.