I WROTE to your letters page recently welcoming the news that Tesco wants to move back to Hounslow town centre.
I would like to take your readers on a trip down memory lane with a light-hearted tale of yesteryear.
Tesco opened a new store at Hounslow Broadway in October 1963 and my sister was lucky enough to get a job there as a checkout operator.
This was the first store in Hounslow to introduce supermarket trolleys.
It may seem hard to believe now but customers were greeted at the door and shown how to steer a trolley round and unload it at the checkout.
Some ladies, however, refused to use a trolley, claiming it to be too dangerous and branding it a 'newfangled contraption'.
Forty-five years ago men didn't go shopping, so you can imagine how surprised my sister was to see a man who had come to meet his wife standing next to a full trolley at her checkout.
The man's wife had forgotten something and went to get it.
My sister patted the counter (there were no conveyor belts then) and said to the man 'can you put it on here please', meaning the groceries.
The poor chap looked at her in bewilderment, looking around anxiously for his wife, so my sister repeated her request.
In desperation, the man, not knowing what to do, lifted up the trolley, complete with contents, and put it on the counter.
At this point my sister, unable to contain her mirth, began shrieking with laughter and fell off her chair.
Of course it has to be remembered that super-market trolleys were a lot smaller than they are now, but the male customer was left feeling very embarrassed and, sadly, my sister didn't see him in the store again, even though she apologised for laughing.
KITTY MASWELL Brookwood Road, Hounslow.
