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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2004-09 > 1096124914
From:
Subject: Re: Coop Tickets
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:08:34 EDT
In a message dated 25/09/2004 14:43:00 GMT Daylight Time,
writes:
As we are on memory lane do you remember in the coop giving the sales
assistant your cash for purchases, and he/she put it in a little tub on a string
which sent it across the shop to the cashier,
Soper's (a drapers) in Southend used to have one of these. The assistant
would put the money inside the wooden cup and attach the bill to a big clip on
the bottom. She (and it was always a 'she' because the - male - manager was
much too important to be on the shop floor) would then fit it to a trolley and
pull a handle. This would tension up a catapult affair which fired the trolley
along the track up to the place where the money was checked against the bill
and a ledger entry written; the bill (and any change) was returned in the
opposite direction. At peak shopping times everybody had to wait until the one
person handling the money could finish their bit of the transaction. Life
was so much slower then!
The Coop store in Beamish Open Air museum in County Durham uses a hollow
wooden ball on a sloping track (no catapult needed - it just rolled downhill)
but I don't recall that being used anywhere down south. (And as an aside for
those who are uncertain, in England only County Durham has the word 'county' in
its name!)
or even in a little container which went up an air driven tube to heavens
knows where.
*Remember* these? Our local Sainsbury uses these nowadays to move money from
the tills to a central office - only now the cylinders are made of plastic.
DaveD
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