I've put this post in the "Times Past" board. Anyone old enough will tell by the title that it is well and truly in the past.
Also, DaveR once gave me the complement of saying he liked my stories on the forum. So here goes. (Time on my hands today--look at the weather outside again).
This morning I was sat in a cafe in Old Colwyn looking out at a branch of the Coop food. This is how the mind wanders. I thought back to the time it was a cinema, bought up my Mr Albert Gubay (that man again), changed into a Kwiksave.
Then I remembered back to how and where he got the discount food idea from (it was on a trip to the U.S.A.) and he had a good few running battles with the authorities over RPM. In case any of you kiddies does'ent know, RPM enforced a minimum price set on virtually every product by the manufacturers. I remember that the penalties for breaking this code, i.e. selling something for less than the recommended price, were enormous.
Albert Gubay was fined time and time again. He just paid up and carried on. He had realised he was on a winner. Several big companies refused to supply him, I think Kellogs was one. Alberts customers went mad. Not at him, oh no, they got at Kellogs. So the big companies eventually gave in.
The very last item in all the thousands of items retailed in this country to have RPM lifted was, of all things, Cigarettes and tobacco. Why this was left to last I have no idea. But it gave me a few headaches.
At that time I was running a cigarette vending business, including machines in Kwiksave (then Value Foods) H.Q. officies in Prestatyn. I had always been tempted to tackle Gubay at what he thought about putting machines in his stores. My machines didnt give change, they vended on a florin (to you youngsters that was a two shilling piece) and we slit the end of each packet and inserted the appropriate change in the end before loading the machines. I had a few ladies that did this in bulk in my shop. They nicnamed themselves "penny pushers." I thought that I might have enabled Gubay to dodge the regulations by putting a penny too much in each packet. But, in the end, I chickened out on the idea because of his fearsome business reputation.
But, in any event, things came to a head for me through another channel. The Bank of England, I suppose it was them, stopped minting new half pennies. I took a tremendoes amount of these coins from my bank all the time, and they became unable to supply me with what I needed. So, I had two choices on those brands of ciggies that had a halfpenny in the price. Either put no halfpenny in which meant I was overcharging the customer, or put a penny in which meant I was breaking the RPM regs. Business sense told me to forget the halfpenny. The heavens errupted. The smokers went absolutely balistic. yes, over a halfpenny. Some even found their way to my shop intent on tearing me apart. Hard to believe now bearing in mind a halfpenny was worth approx one sixth of the present pence piece.
Fortunately for me the cig manufacturers realised the coin was being phased out and at some stage rounded their prices that did away with the halfpence.
So I lived to tell the tale. Mike
