Promotion and A Grand Day Out.

                                                   Jack Fryer , my boss at Carless and Horton, came to me one day, he said they were opening a shop in Waterloo, near to Bootle in North Liverpool and it was going to be the headquarters for the delicatessen shops. There was to be a kitchen for cooking hams and joint of roast meat, fridges for storing the cheeses and bacon for all the shops and I was going to run the warehouse side of this shop. In the front of the shop was a big shop with a full delicatessen and wine shop. The shop was to be run a lady named Mrs Hornby, she was of Italian decent  and spoke with a strong accent. I will never forget her full name, Giovana Antonia Maria Anna Lucia Hornby. It struck me as very incongruous  to have five Christian names. She was a lady that seemed to be nice but at times she would panic when things went wrong.

                                   In the back of the shop I was my own boss and I got a raise to managers rates of pay I was on almost £20 per week at 17 years of age. I had to catch three trains every morning to get there and three trains to get home. It was costing £15 a months for a train ticket. First train was from Burscough to Ormskirk, then one through to Sandhills, then change to Waterloo. I had to leave at 7.30 every morning and did not get home till 7.00 in the evening most days. Eventually a mate Phil Brimble said he would give me a lift on his motor bike as he worked just around the corner from me. Phil worked in a second hand shop that sold anything and everything. This worked well and after a while I decided to get my own motor bike. I had not passed my test so I would have to start on something small. Mum was working at the Royal again for Ken and Val heaps and a customer offered a her a Honda 50cc motor bike for £50. Mum bought it somehow and I paid her back weekly from my wages. I had independence at last, I could go out when I wanted without worrying about trains and buses.  

                                   Carless and Horton organised days out for the staff sometimes and one of the best was a day trip to The Martell brandy chateau in France. It was the Chateau de Chanteloup. We first of all got picked up by coach from the shops at seven thirty in the morning and taken to Speke Airport. We went through passport control and walked out on to the tarmac where a twin engine Caravelle  aircraft was waiting. We flew out over to France for about an hour and a half. When we came in to land we were told that the window curtains had to be closed and we had to take no photographs. The plane landed and we were put into a bus with curtains on the windows. We couldn’t understand why until outside the airport we were told that we could look outside now, we were passing along side a chain link fence and on the other side were Mirage jets. We had landed at a military base. The bus journey took about twenty minutes through the French country side till we arrived at a vineyard.  

                                               We saw how the grapes were grown and how the wine was made and even given samples of the wine to taste. Then we went around the distillery where the cognac was made. At the end of the trip around we went into a big tasting room and given samples of the cognac, not small measures either. About one third of a half pint glass full. We got three different brandies like that. The atmosphere was getting very jovial amongst all the staff. Then we got back onto the bus and were taken up to the chateau for lunch. The building was fantastic, very opulent, really grand with marble and gold guilt everywhere, every piece of furniture was an antique I am sure. The bathrooms were fabulous with gold taps, marble sinks and tops, the mirrors went from floor to ceiling.

                                            In the main hall were tables set out for us all, we sat down and the service started. All the waiters were dressed in black and white and used silver service methods to serve us all with the fantastic dishes. It went on and on, salad to start, then fish, then braised lamb for main course. It was all served with wine every course so we were more than a little bit drunk by this time. The sweet topped the lot, brandied tangerines with tangerine ice cream and brandy syrup sauce served with champagne. Then we got coffee brought round and a very large snifter glass of the finest VSOP cognac for each of us.  Lunch took about two hours but nobody minded. We were all very merry by this time, as a parting gift we were all given a book and a half bottle of the same VSOP to take home. We got back on to the bus somehow, imagine fifty drunk scousers, most of them women and trying to organise them to get back on to a plane. 

                                         It was fun  on the way back when the stewardess came down selling perfume and cigarettes at duty free prices. She was sold out before long and every one had something. When we landed back at Speke airport it was raining but no one cared and some even walked across the tarmac bare footed as they might fall off their high heels. Getting back into the airport was going to be fun because we had not been out of the country for twenty for hours, so we did not have any duty free allowance. The Customs men were waiting for us until they saw the state of most of the women, they just waived us all through so that there would be no trouble. A parcel arrived at the head office the next week with things that were found on the bus or in the chateau after we had left, two coats, three pairs of shoes and a makeup bag that was found in the toilets.