Palaisglide

MOB rants

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Dear G/G please explain, is this in the biblical sense or the Cannibal sense or any other.
Explanation in no more than 100 words please on my desk by lunch time.

Frank/

MOB rants

Pennine Petal, Stockton was a real Market Town in those day and we had  BHS but they took over one of our large stores some time in the late 60's. Mac fisheries would arrive in a van from hull with a freezer order although with Hartlepool and Redcar plus of course Whitby we had plenty of fresh fish shops. With Joan at the School and me working we had a chest freezer often with half of something in it plus a kitchen freezer and fridge.
Maypole had several shops and they had high standards so we would go there, the dairy products were the best.
Did you know that after Marks and Spencer opened the first shop in Leeds the second was in Stockton, Woolworth's to me as a child was a wonderland, you could get everything.
Stockton at the time was dare I say it, the Metro Centre of South Durham before out of town was invented, bus loads came in from the pit area's on Wednesdays and Saturdays, we had a cattle market in town so the pubs opened all day bar one hour in the afternoon, the miners took advantage of that.
Stockton races were a Northern event and the town had a gala when they were on, now the local out of town shopping centre which has left the town centre with not too many shops or stalls on the ghost of market day as I call it.
"Well it is called progress" better or worse it is here to stay.

Frank.

MOB rants

Lazy Gardener, aggression was a part of my life for many years and now I like an easy none aggressive life, that does not mean I lay down and let people walk over me. You work for a company that by its nature is aggressive in all it does and they are not there to hand out posies.
My comments are about all such firms and by these pages I am not the only one who thinks that way, the Staff working for them are as a rule patient and pleasant to deal with, I have seen some of the customers who think the of Staff as underlings to do their bidding and that is not me. If they wish to chat I do if not I pack and vanish although it does not often happen in any of the big markets.
You had two direct bats at me now I end it, I am sorry if I upset you but it is easy to click off my posts if you so wish I will answer queries if needed but when it gets personal then there will be no further defending myself where I see no need.

Back to Gardening Frank.

MOB rants

"Oh dear" we are off again.
1) the supermarket I use the most I have done since it opened.
2) the Staff are old friends who have mainly worked there most of that time, some were once neighbours, kids went to school together and met each other in the local hostelry's.
3) You know when it is not convenient to chat as you pack and believe it as ex army I can do that fast, wallet always ready store card out.
4) it is the Staff who normally initiate the chat as they put the stuff through and they can do both with ease after all a BA is not needed and they are often bored to tears. They ask after people we knew and one chap who once worked for me tells me of others who have been in the shop lately all whilst both still hard at it.
I have my own bags, loose stuff straight in the trolley.
5) I am often greeted by the Staff on the check out "oh at last a smiling face, I have had some right mingers through here today" and they chat as we go, believe it or not about gardening last Friday.
6) "self service is not brain surgery"??? when one of the girls said come on I will put them through for you we ended up with her a supervisor and me then left a small pile on the bench that would not go through, the first and last time I would rather queue and the lady grabbed by the self service checkout police for a re-check looked as if she would never shop there again I would not.
7) I got the name I use from one of the staff who also called it Despots after a wrangle over Christmas OT, it is not my policy to advertise blatantly I think one of the rules on here is you do not.
8) If you click on my name and press do not show then you need never read anything by me ever again easy, try it.
Not a rant a statement of fact, people do have stressful jobs as I once had, I worked it off in the garden not in my writings.

Frank.

MOB rants

I have a feeling it was the Maypole Grocery not the Metropole, the thing that fascinated me in the Co-op was the counter assistant putting your money in a box then into a tube and pulling a handle, it shot away to the office and your change came back very quickly, no calculators then.
G/G it may well have been  a privilege being brought up as we were in a village although at the time that was normality to us, of course we saw kids with no shoes or boots, broken sand shoes in all weather and yes they wore rags were dirty most likely hungry but we all skinny dipped together down the Old Mill beck and played our games on the Green. My Mother would give me a parcel and say slip that behind Mrs H's front door her husband was in jail, do not let her see you, to some charity was an aberration if seen to be given, all doors were open so I always managed. Nothing would ever be said, we all played together the H boy and Girl, sometimes I would recognise an old jumper or trousers but knew to keep my mouth shut. People helped each other but did not crow about it, if the Vicar was collecting for the poor his bag would fill even though the givers did not have that much themselves, a different world, not one I hanker after sitting here with my central heating power shower  "oh" and Panackelty cooking in the oven, I found a packet of sandwich corn beef near the sell by date so that settled the tea.
Remember the past but I always say never go back.

Frank.

MOB rants

Lyn, in those days a village was a village, ours had the pond and the green, the Blacksmiths, three Church's and local shops including five Butchers who slaughtered their own meat. We had a small holding so also killed our own the garden fed us for the year we also had a car few and far between so travelled. The village was a safe place because everyone knew each other kids could play out around the fields and woods with no fear.
Now our village Norton, quite largely unchanged is joined to Stockton in one long gaggle of housing and roads. I do local history with the Town Library often putting right incorrect information entered by people who have some knowledge then guess the rest. History to me is what you lived at the time and not guess work if I cannot give a complete answer I leave it alone.
My Daughters have had me writing it all down since around 2000 so I have reams of files which come in handy for the local Remember When papers who ask for information, it all keeps me active and on the move.
History is OK in its place although I watch the Grandchildren move ahead with new technology, different aspirations,  and envy them the challenges ahead at the same time feeling sorry at what we had and they have missed, it is progress Lyn.

Frank.

What's the weather like in your area?

Stockton, dull and dour, very cold.
Thinking of building a house on the garden, may as well make some use of it.

Frank.

MOB rants

Lyn, yes I remember Home and Colonial, Metropole and many other stores that crowded the High Streets, we had a self owned shop in our village that had Paraffin at one end of the counter and hard cheese on the counter at the other end, The butter was cut from a churn and patted up with two paddles, the bacon was on a large bacon slicer, "thick or thin" they would ask. Broken biscuits help yourself, how many hands went in that box I wonder. Tea came in packets and coffee was for toffs, I still only have around one cup of coffee a fortnight although I drink tea all day.
The Co-op was the best shop in the village and town with the paraffin out back everything scrubbed down and real clean sawdust on the floor, "do not forget our number" 14958 Mother would say as she sent me off for something.
Shopping then was an adventure, today it is a chore, people would stop and talk now they swear and belt you with a trolley as they rush around without a spare second in their diaries.
When we are all forced to shop on line because of closures will all those extra vans flying around be the end of the world I ask?

Frank.

MOB rants

Due to my policy of not advertising for the Supermarkets or anything else actually I have my own names for them. Tospots, S&M, More reasons Saint berry, Cohops, Waiters arose (throw off your ties to the skimpy meals in artisticly small piles on large blocks of wood) "oops" got carried away then.
I was castigated once for using Tospots although it was a friend who had worked there for years told me the staff called it that at times.
I do a history board locally and the cries for bringing back the shops of what was once a fine old market town are long and pleading. The same people shop out of town as parking is free they can park in front of where they need to shop and our local Tospots is a super one packed daily as it is all in one shop, the town is empty, nowhere near the shops to park and they charge.
Now many people shop on line, my daughters included but moan about the town going down the river, well yes, town centres unused will become redundant and I for one will miss them and yet "a big yet" shopping at the supermarket at my age is a boon, plus the local village butcher and the farm shop all within a very short distance, so I am also guilty.
Well that turned into a good old rant did it not.
There is your answer Lyn we probably shop at the same places, where else is there and you got me ranting, not good for the blood pressure.

Frank.

MOB rants

Got a call out to Daughters just after posting the morning rant, could I baby sit the house as a parcel was expected, Got home at quarter to four and still no parcel.
Rant 2, in this day and age of all things computerised surely the parcels firms could give a time to say within two hours, the spy in the cab tells the office exactly where the truck is so could advise whether they would be on time or not.
When my oven was delivered before Christmas I was phoned the night before and given a rough time, next day the driver phoned and said half an hour OK and they were spot on, why some and not others I ask.
Derek at 56 you are still a youngster and should not have time to rant, your life should be full of climbing mountains, swimming lakes then cycling twenty miles, bird watching and I do not mean the flying kind, now I am old enough to be grumpy.

Frank.

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