Western Road shops

27 years with Marks & Spencer

For 27 years I worked for Marks & Spencer, first at 5-8 London Road then when that closed,  at 208 Western Road; originally a typical 1936 large store, sadly given a re-fronting in the 1970s and later. Western Road’s north side was widened in the 1920s and 30s and that side has some great examples of interwar store buildings.

The oldest Saturday boy

After 3 years full time at M&S I went to Sussex University as a mature student but stayed on working as the oldest Saturday boy! When I left in 2004, I worked most of my hours on a Saturday so had the complete cycle of opening the store at 05.55, working through the pre-opening sequence of unlocking the whole building [four floors and roof doors], working through the trading day, unloading the evening vehicle and then progressively locking up the entire building, finally setting the alarm [hopefully] at 20.15. A long day, but I still note times on a Saturday and think what I would have been doing at that time.