SO, let’s get all nostalgic about Woolies then. I can remember the store when it had wooden floorboards, how about you?

It was the place where you could buy everything and usually did. For instance its records and tapes were always cheaper than WH Smith, the only other store in our town up north that sold them after the independent record shop closed down.

That was called Parkes Music and it folded because of the pressure from competition, but nobody made half the fuss they are over the demise of Woolworths.

Woolies was also the place to buy sweets, Easter eggs, some of the clothes for my daughter when she was a tot, bits for the garden, bits for the house, fuses, plugs, cheap pens, notebooks, birthday cards, toys and even, on one occasion, a new iron.

It was the store that sold bits of everything – almost the forerunner of the superstores, if you like – while all the little independent shops around it finally closed their doors. That wasn’t all a consequence of Woolies of course, it was just part of the changing face of our high streets.

So you’ll forgive me for not joining in the weeping and wailing as Woolworths totters on the brink of extinction.

I haven’t shopped there for years – like a lot of other former customers obviously – for the simple reason that I get what I want at different outlets.

Ironically, in the world of music, the world has turned full circle – so to speak – as the latest all-music stores have claimed back the high ground.

So it would be hypocritical of me to beat my chest over the store’s collapse. It has simply fallen victim of a changing market place, a new world high street.

That’s the Wonder of Progress.