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"We've been here 31 years and we had the longest queues, like never before. People were standing on the doorstep, waiting for hours to get in. They needed us. Everything was flying off the shelves - eggs, flour, yeast, toilet rolls - whoosh! I think we sold a thousand eggs. Sometimes we'd have to go to the market twice in one day to restock.
When the pandemic started we worked for 3 weeks without any time off. We'd start early and finish at 9 in the evening. We were like machines, we just kept moving. In my dreams I was still at the till, working in the shop, talking to customers. My brain couldn't switch off. We had 10 people working in the shop because we were doing free deliveries as well. There was no chance we were charging for those. To elderly people who couldn't come out? You can't do that! We're not Sainsburys! All our Saturday student helpers, they couldn't go to university so they came back to us to help. We were able to pay them a little bit as well, pocket money. For 2 years we haven't had a holiday, we never closed. We try to help everybody, and let people pay another day if they need to. Our customers feel like part of our family. We were very tired, but we were strong and we really enjoyed it too. It felt special, that we were doing something great, turning up and helping people."
"We've been here 31 years and we had the longest queues, like never before. People were standing on the doorstep, waiting for hours to get in. They needed us. Everything was flying off the shelves - eggs, flour, yeast, toilet rolls - whoosh! I think we sold a thousand eggs. Sometimes we'd have to go to the market twice in one day to restock.
When the pandemic started we worked for 3 weeks without any time off. We'd start early and finish at 9 in the evening. We were like machines, we just kept moving. In my dreams I was still at the till, working in the shop, talking to customers. My brain couldn't switch off. We had 10 people working in the shop because we were doing free deliveries as well. There was no chance we were charging for those. To elderly people who couldn't come out? You can't do that! We're not Sainsburys! All our Saturday student helpers, they couldn't go to university so they came back to us to help. We were able to pay them a little bit as well, pocket money. For 2 years we haven't had a holiday, we never closed. We try to help everybody, and let people pay another day if they need to. Our customers feel like part of our family. We were very tired, but we were strong and we really enjoyed it too. It felt special, that we were doing something great, turning up and helping people."
