Marlene Tolley – Christmas Boxes at Packs

Marlene: When it was Christmas time, we used to collect the boxes from the Hosiery Department, the stocking boxes, which were I suppose well what stockings fitted in, and we used to cover those with Christmas paper and sell them. As Apprentices, well …

Simon: In the shop?

Marlene: Yeah. We did it on the counter and if anybody came in, you’d put it out the way, and they used to use those boxes as well, if you did bigger ones like the Hosiery Department did theirs, and that’s … I can’t remember how much they were but people bought them to put different things in.

Simon: So, you’d taken the boxes and wrapped them in Christmas type paper?

Marlene: Yes, oh yeah.

Simon: Ok, and that was sort of encouraged or sanctioned by the shop.

Marlene: Oh yeah.

Simon: So, I guess it’s a sort of recycling really.

Marlene: Yes it was, yes.

Simon: I guess in those days as well …

Marlene: They had to be proper corners. You didn’t do a rough corner, they had to be fitted properly.

Simon: Standards for everything.

Marlene: Yes. Yeah it was.

Simon: Yeah. Well, a beautifully wrapped box is quite a thing isn’t it?

Marlene: Is very nice, yes it is.

Simon: So, have you kept those … the wrapping skills to the day?

Marlene: Well, I can still wrap a box (laughs). And a bow. If somebody came in (laughs), tried a dress on with a belt or anything like that, and you were taught how to tie a bow. Not a floppy bow. In fact …

Simon: What’s the technique then?

Marlene: Well you just tie it properly (laughs). Louise, my granddaughter, she had a skirt or something on with a bow in the front one day, and it didn’t look very smart, and I said to her, “Just come here Louise, I’ll show you how to tie a bow” and I tied it and she said, “Well I never knew that” and she was really quite delighted and now she’ll say, “That bow doesn’t look very nice.” (laughs).

But that was just something that you pick up in life. As you go through life you pick up certain things don’t you?