Shop ‘YTS girl’ hits 30th Anne-versary
ASUPERMARKET worker has celebrated 30 years at the same store.
Anne Roundell joined the Spar shop in Oswaldtwistle on a youth training scheme in April 1987 and has since become a familiar face to shoppers old and new. She is now a grandmother.
Colleagues and Spar owners Nigel and Susan Masters surprised the store’s longest-serving staff member by presenting her with a special watch and bouquet of flowers in front of customers and friends.
Anne, 46, who lives off New Lane in Oswaldtwistle, said she loves working at the store and was ‘very shocked’ to be recognised for her long service. The mum-of-two said: “I wasn’t expecting anything like this at all. It was a lovely surprise.
“There were a few customers in the store when they presented me with the gifts and they came over and congratulated me. A lot of them know that I’ve been here for a long time. I started on the youth training scheme but they quickly made me a full-time employee so I could do overtime work.
“I have done all kinds of shifts since then. When my kids were younger I worked in the evenings but as they got older I worked afternoons and now I do mornings.
“Nigel has always been my boss and he’s always been very fair and I get on well with him. I have always enjoyed working here.”
The former Rhyddings pupil said both the store and the job have changed significantly over the last three decades.
The supervisor said: “It was such a little store when I started and it has steadily expanded over the years.
“The technology is also totally different now to what we used to have. Back then everything was priced with a pricing gun rather than scanning it.
“There’s a few of us who have been here for quite a while but the rest come and go. I get on well with everybody and I like the customers. We have some good banter.”
Spar manager Susan Preston, who has worked at the Thwaites Road store for 19 years, said it was a ‘very proud day’. She said: “All the customers know Anne because she has always been here.
“She didn’t know about what we were going to do. We just surprised her with a watch and a bouquet of flowers. She knew she had started in April 30 years ago but didn’t know the exact date. She is an absolutely lovely lady.”