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BS: Co-op number
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Subject: Co-op number From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 30 Aug 02 - 10:32 AM For UK 'Catters only (takes too much time to explain to others!): recent letters in the Guardian claim you are working class if you can remember your or your mother's co-op number. When I used to run errands as a lad I had to remember my mom's co-op number but I'm b*ggered if I can remember it now. Does that mean I'm upwardly mobile or terminally senile? (Yes, I think I do know the answer. What was the question again?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: nickp Date: 30 Aug 02 - 11:03 AM I can remember ours and we weren't working class in the sense they probably mean. Lower middle I'd have said - Oh and it was 77123 (Coventry Co-op) and I think we were using it until the late 60's. Mind you.... The Grauniad.... Nick |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Counterfit Date: 30 Aug 02 - 11:03 AM 88628 was me Mam's and 36297 was me Gramma's, used mostly at Coxlodge and Newgate Street Co-Ops in Newcastle, where it was generally know as "the Store".You had to remember your "check number" if you were to get any "divi". Coxlodge had a brand new, state of the art supermarket built in the early 60's to replace the large nissen hut that was there when I was born. This declined and closed in the 70's but the building survives as a warehouse. I can't remeber what the question was but I sure you're right. Keith |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Trevor Date: 30 Aug 02 - 11:23 AM 121883 was my nan's and 332950 my mum's, and that's the first time they've come into my head since about 1960. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: okthen Date: 30 Aug 02 - 11:37 AM Even tho' we had a number, I couldn't remember it then, let alone now.I used to say "charity" and the divi would go to a number of charities.Now I've got a plastic card. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: okthen Date: 30 Aug 02 - 11:41 AM P.S. As the co-op was formed to make sure ordinary working folk got clean (no bleach or other makeweight extraneous substances)flour, and any profit was to be DIVIded between members, is this the first working model of communism? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Dave Bryant Date: 30 Aug 02 - 11:55 AM My mum's was 713668 at The Royal Arsenal Co-Operative Society, based in Woolwich SE London. One of "Artisan's" songs mentions the subject and in the introduction they say that tiny kids learnt their mum's numbers before they knew their name and address and their parents could be found that way if they got lost. When I was young, the R.A.C.S. didn't use numbers for the "divi", but used to give tin tokens to the value of each purchase. These could be exchanged for plastic ones of a higher denomination and finally the "divi" could be reclaimed. The thing I remember most about these tokens is that one size was the same as a shilling (5p) and would therefore fit in the gas meter in an emergency. This wasn't really fraudulent because when the man came to empty the meter, he would first calculate the cost of gas used, then subtract that from the coins in the box, after which there was usually a rebate. Any tin checks were handed back and not included in the coinage. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Dave the Gnome Date: 30 Aug 02 - 09:01 PM The Royal Arsenal Co-Operative Society!!! Eeeeh. What would the Rochdale pioneers do knowing how far their vision had spread? I worked for the Co-op retail society for a while on contract - my first real contract in the UK in fact. They had opened a magnificent new office in Rochdale and they paid me mega-bucks to fix the cock-ups they had made on their ICL DRS6000's. Was there for a year and had three months off on the money I made:-) I figured they had lost their way a bit when the CRS would not buy from the CWS (Wholesale society) due to 'political' pressures. How co-operative is that?!?! CRS has now been swallowed by CWS and the magnificent new offices are owned by Airtours! All within site of the first shop. Sad or what? Cheers Dave the (un)co-operative Gnome. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Jim McLean Date: 31 Aug 02 - 04:07 PM It was Bobby Davenport, the 'Geordie' folk singer who started the co-op correspodence in the Guardian. I can never understand the divisions of class: it should be 1) Working class; 2)Non working class. Or Upper Class; Middle Class and Lower class. Jim Mclean |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: John Routledge Date: 31 Aug 02 - 05:35 PM The Newbottle and District Co-Operative Society.What a force to be reckoned with. My mother's number was 1137 which shows how old it was and how small the Society was. It stood no chance against any sort of competition at all. If the esteemed Guardian says that I am working class I am happy to accept that it must be the case. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: C-flat Date: 31 Aug 02 - 05:44 PM This takes me back! I hadn't thought about the co-op numbers since I stopped going on messages to the shop for "me mam" 35 years ago! I'm buggered if I can remember the number now but it was second nature to me then. It would be about 25 years ago that the Co-op started closing their "pantry" shops in favour of competing with the big discounters and overlooked the fact that they had a whole generation of customers who traded with them on a daily basis for their convenience. Like most of us, I bet they wish they could turn the clock back! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Mr Happy Date: 31 Aug 02 - 06:06 PM the cworp near where i grew up had a marvellous wonder to behold! i could only have been aged about four or five- this being way back in the mists of time, the early 1950's, & remember going with my mum to this mysterious place i'd never been before. the main thing which grabbed my attention, apart from the largeness of the shop & the strange cheesy smell mixed with cut meat & fresh veggy smells, was the system for replenishing the tills & calculating 'divvy'. the assistant would have a small silver coloured cup and the money would be placed in it. then the cup was screwed into a thing mounted on a suspended wire up near the ceiling. the assistant then pulled a handle on a chain [it looked to me like the one at home for flushing the lavatory-they weren't called toilets then!]. the action of 'pulling the chain' would send the little metal cup whizzing across the whole shop & into the office. a vague recollection of a little bell sounding at the same time too, but there were litle cups whizzing about in all directions from one department to another. i was enthralled by it all. those were simpler days! ah!.....sigh. similar reminiscences? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Leadfingers Date: 31 Aug 02 - 07:11 PM I know the number(29061) but I'm buggered if I can remember where it was. We did move about a bit (Dad's Job,not the Bailiffs) I think it was High Wycombe.Store Cards aint the same are they. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: The Shambles Date: 31 Aug 02 - 09:34 PM 246079 Damn! And all this time I thought I was royalty.................I now have a little Dividend card of my own, which 'earns you cash'. This 'new scheme was introduced only a few moths ago.
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Manitas_at_home Date: 01 Sep 02 - 02:22 AM We were too poor to have a co-op number| |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: mouldy Date: 01 Sep 02 - 02:34 AM My gran used to send me to the local co-op for a packet (the yellow one) of Horniman's tea and the occasional other item. It had to be Horniman's because she saved the stamps off them. The divi number was 5245, and the sale got entered into a huge ledger. You were then given a little tear off portion of the page as your receipt. The shop was Edwardian and stood on the corner of a small residential street. It was fan shaped and I remember it having wooden flooring with a counter down one side and one of those vacuum chutes which took money up to the cash office. She didn't do a lot of her shopping there, but the tea at least always came from the co-op. Andrea |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: The Shambles Date: 01 Sep 02 - 03:27 AM This 'new scheme was introduced only a few moths ago. It must have been the thought of opening my wallet and watching the months fly out. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: C-flat Date: 01 Sep 02 - 04:35 AM Mr.Happy, My Mother once worked in a department store as a cashier in the office. At the point of purchase the customer would hand over the money which an assistant would place,with the sales reciept, into a small cylinder and deposit it into a tube whereupon it was fired off to the office. I was never allowed upstairs in the office and always imagined my Mother standing, like a wicket keeper, waiting to catch the cylinder at the other end where it was her job to calculate the change and return it to the waiting customer via the magic tube. Such technological marvells! Mind you, you could often see a bunch of kids outside the butchers shop window marvelling at the bacon slicer in operation, such was the level of excitement in Middlesbrough in the early sixties! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: okthen Date: 01 Sep 02 - 07:35 AM According to another letter to the Guardian (reprinted in the Sunday Times), if you have your name on your overalls you're working class, if you have your name on your desk you're middle class, and if you have your name on the factory you're upper class. It would seem I have no class at all, oh well, never mind eh. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Sooz Date: 01 Sep 02 - 09:29 AM I had a Saturday job in the Coop in the final days of the membership number. I had to key in the number on the cash register. I remember my sisters was 90403 but for some reason my mum didn't have one. In the late '60s the system changed to savings stamps. In the school I teach in we have been given name badges to wear - I thought they were for the Monday mornings when I wasn't sure who I am! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Sonnet Date: 01 Sep 02 - 04:23 PM Eleven nine two nine nought. (Mum's) Five seven eleven two. (Nan's) Writing it in figures would be hard for me because these were part of my aural/oral tradition, being sent on an errand to Penistone 'quap.' I remember when they got new tills and the assistants had to set turquoise coloured sliders for your divi number. Does anyone remember 'clover milk' sold in tall, slim bottles with a long neck and metal cap, like a beer bottle cap? JMcS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: JohnInKansas Date: 02 Sep 02 - 02:28 AM RtS - For UK 'Catters only (takes too much time to explain to others!): (??) Believe it or not, Co-ops are all over the US. The most common are the "farm Co-ops," but there are a number of others. You're probably right that a lot of "others" would need an explanation, but a lot of us here have a fair amount of practice at "giving the number." John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Liz the Squeak Date: 02 Sep 02 - 02:43 AM We were too poor to have a Co-op, let alone a Co-op number.... our closest was over 8 miles away and in a county where the bus timetable is a calendar, that was a major trek by train! And an older instance of working communism is probably the original Building Societies. They were formed in the north by groups of people who pooled their wages and skills to buy materials to buy/build a house. The group helped to build/improve the house, knowing that when their individual turn came, they would also received help. It's from this action that we get the Building Societies that we have today, although the setup is a little different.... they don't help build anymore. It's also why they are nearly all named after northern towns (Halifax, Bradford, Leeds etc). I can't remember the exact dates but I think it's circa 1750ish. But if you think about it, before coinage was invented, everything worked on the barter system. If you had too much of something, you exchanged it for something you had not enough of. This has been going on for millenia, so in an enlightened society, communism has been rife forever. In theory, it's the perfect lifestyle, practiced the world over by all lower and working classes. It's only when the 'haves' want more than they can possibly use or need and take it from the 'havenots' and take it with force, leaving the 'havenots' with less than they can survive on, that things start getting sticky. LTS I am not now nor have I ever been..... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: GUEST,Davetnova Date: 02 Sep 02 - 03:50 AM 15553, Leith co-op. Anybody remember going down to the co-op hall with their mother to collect the Divi. Big queues wooden tables and people with shopping bags clutching their co-op books. The once a year we had spare money. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: nickp Date: 02 Sep 02 - 04:46 AM Yes, I remember collecting the Divi but it was upstairs in the cash office of the main co-op in the town centre. I suppose it was aroud the time the Co-op was starting to think of 'serious' banking. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Gurney Date: 02 Sep 02 - 05:55 AM I remember my Mum's and Grans, isn't it funny how you can remember numbers from your childhood, like Dad's motorbike registration from 1946. Have to think twice about my cellphone, never can remember my current car registration. I didn't put the Co-op #'s down 'cos I use them for PIN's. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Bullfrog Jones Date: 02 Sep 02 - 08:16 AM Never learnt the Co-op number, 'cos we didn't have a local one, just went 'into town' (Birmingham) for big purchases like school uniforms and shoes. That's where my little brother, Clive, was standing watching the escalator (you had to make your own entertainment then) when some woman shouted at him 'Don't press that button!' Well, what a stupid thing to say to a child (especially my brother Clive!)He immediately decided that the button must be worth pushing, brought the escalator grinding to a halt and caused total chaos. On the subject of Saturday jobs, my first was at a local grocers' called Wrensons. I was allowed to cut and wrap cheese and butter, but couldn't get my hands on the bacon slicer. I do remember falling about helpless with laughter when a lady ordered sliced ham and the manager asked her if she liked it 'on the bone'! Aaahh, simpler times! BJ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 02 Sep 02 - 10:38 AM God, what have I started? I'm quite soggy with nostalgia! I'd forgotten Wrenson's as well! Tho' I was brought up in B'ham I also used Royal Arsenal Co-op when I lived in Sarf Lunnon. I loved those old cash cable car thingies as well, better entertainment than watching the escalators! RtS (you can take the boy (boy?) out of Birmingham...) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: GUEST,Peter from Essex Date: 02 Sep 02 - 04:45 PM 1151369 Milk and bread deliveries were always from the Coop (London).
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: Dead Horse Date: 02 Sep 02 - 05:09 PM Since this thread first hit me I've been rummaging about in the old brain box to remember my mums number, and it just hit me. 340036 it was. And I never could remember my sister-in-laws when I used to fetch her five or ten Weights fags, so I give me mums number instead. Mum didn't seem to mind! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: The Shambles Date: 03 Sep 02 - 02:51 AM Do you think that Prince Charles can remember his mum's Co-op number? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: mouldy Date: 03 Sep 02 - 05:05 AM Speaking of these old vacuum chutes, when I used to work full-time for Boots (1976-79) I did a stint in their tablet factory, built in the early 1970s. I used to work on the time-sheets from the factory floor. They had installed a really vicious vacuum system to get the paperwork up into the upstairs offices. Tesco in Selby still use them to sent excess cash from the tills upstairs (as I suspect do many other supermarkets). My last 2 Saturday jobs were with the Co-op. A brief stint in the butcher's, weighing 4oz portions of various cooked meats out onto greaseproof paper sheets. From there I went across the road to do half days (for more money) at the greengrocer's, which I really enjoyed. I can remember the Co-op at Whaley Bridge in North Derbyshire was the first "self-service" shop I had ever been in. (Late 1950s). You could choose tins and cereal and soap powder from the shelf (complete with free plastic roses in the case of the last), but the bacon was still cut from the flitch hanging in the back room, and the sugar was weighed out into blue sugar-paper bags. Later on, my mum used to take her weekly "order" in and leave it to be made up and delivered after we moved up onto a hill. My dad worked for the Co-op in the chemist shop as a dispenser. Andrea |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: GUEST,Davetnova Date: 03 Sep 02 - 05:52 AM Did anyone do a Co-op milk round. When I was twelve or so we used to do the milk every morning. About twenty of us would gather at the barrow store and extract our barrow from the heap we'd made the morning before. These were big wooden barrows with wheels like carts. They could hold six crates of milk without piling any up and some of the boys were smaller than their barrows. Great days. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Co-op number From: C-flat Date: 04 Sep 02 - 03:20 PM That reminds me of "potato picking week"! Every October, during the school break, hoards of youngsters were gainfully employed on the local farms lifting potatoes, getting thoroughly filthy and having a great time in the fresh air. I used to think that the school took a break BECAUSE it was potato picking week! Maybe it's just as well because most of us would have jumped at the chance to earn 10 bob wether it was term time or not! |