DOROTHY Gibson must rank as the oldest surviving Woolworth’s worker in Oxford, if not the country.

Writing her life story at the age of 100, she recalls the firm’s early days when it arrived in the city in 1925.

Woolworth’s traded in Cornmarket Street, on the site of the old Roebuck Inn, where Boots now stands.

Dorothy, then 17, was paid 25 shillings a week.

She recalls: “Their motto - ‘Nothing over sixpence in the store’ – was meticulously adhered to.”

After leaving the Oxford Central Girls’ School, she was offered a job at Grimbly Hughes, the Cornmarket Street grocery store, but turned it down, as the pay was only 2s 6d a week.

She found work with Ecco Radio, on the corner of Cornmarket Street and Market Street, at 12s 6d a week, but the higher pay at Woolworth‘s soon beckoned.

“I passed the exam for elementary bookkeeping, in a shoddy little building in St Ebbe’s.

“Stirring with ambition, I left Woolworth’s for 30 shillings a week as cashier and book-keeper at Mon-tague Burton, the “Tailor of Taste”, also in Cornmarket Street.

“The staff consisted of a manager, salesman, an apprentice salesman, a porter and me.

“I was responsible for handling all takings, paying wages and buying insurance stamps.

“A daily balance sheet had to be sent off to head office in Leeds, followed by a weekly trade sheet.

“I had to buy money orders from the GPO in St Aldate’s and send them off to head office. No banking was done in Oxford.”

Other city shops she remembers at that time, about 1926, were Elliston & Cavell, now Debenhams, Zacharias, which sold waterproof clothing, the Cadena Café, and Boffins at Carfax, which sold cakes, loaves and doughnuts for two a penny.

Her father, who was in the watch and clock trade, had a little shop at the bottom of George Street.

Dorothy, who lives in Cuddesdon Way, Oxford, recalls: “He sat in the window of the shop mending watches, but later had a workshop at the back.”

More of her memories soon.