‘The Horrors of Kwiksave’ is a candid recollection of my memories working at Kwiksave (the now-defunct discount supermarket chain) as a 'Stock Lad'.
I wasted over FOUR years of my life in this maggot-infested hellhole and still occasionally wake up drenched in sweat after enduring a nightmare in which I am working there still.
Some of the names have been slightly changed simply to save my arse in case anyone takes offence at some of the details regarding my facts or opinions.
Many of the people mentioned are now dead as this happened so long ago, but their siblings are not.
This is the 'HIVE Special Edition' of a multi-part autobiographical story (with a little over-embellishment on some of the details) I posted on STEEM over 3 years ago.
It contains a LOT more detail and content than the original and will fill in many gaps that were missed the first time around.
Chapter One: A Prelude to the Best Job in the Land
Chapter Two: The Job Centre
Chapter Three: The Interview
Chapter Four: Christmas is Coming
Chapter Five: The Changing of the Blades
Chapter Six: The Staff
Chapter Seven: The Auxiliary Staff and The Load
Chapter Eight: The Sugar Maniac
Chapter Nine: The Accusation and "Big Lad"
Chapter Ten: Naggy
Chapter Eleven: Shit & Noise
Chapter Twelve: The Death of Mort
Chapter Thirteen: The Time of Many Managers
Chapter Fourteen: The Calm before the Storm
Chapter Fifteen: David Dire
Chapter Sixteen: Bad Totty
Chapter Seventeen: Tracy, The Wild One
Chapter Eighteen: 'Buff-It-up'
Chapter Nineteen: The Demise of Ian Banks
Chapter Twenty: The Date (Part One)
Chapter Twenty One: The Date (Part Two)
Chapter Twenty Two: Dire's Lunge
'WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE BELOW'
Life at Kwiksave was not getting any better. I had finished my ‘Summer of Love’ with Barbara and now the relationship was six months old.
That romantic period doesn’t last and though we were still doing well, the British winter was set in and making everybody thoroughly gloomy and depressed.
Dire had taken an unwarranted dislike to me and for what reason? Did he want to shag all the new checkout girls that were fresh out of school?
By now, he knew that Barbara and I were an item, and that didn't go down well. I could see the pure contempt written on his pale, yellow-tinged frog-eyed mush every day.
Was he going through some mid-life crisis? Why didn’t he fancy Welder’s new chick, was it because she didn’t work in his turd-filled hellhole, was not good-looking enough, not skinny enough?
Source
...'Welder's bird was geeky and not bad at all, in fact I would have given her one. It didn't last long'...
I had congratulated Welder some time ago for snagging his latest prize. She wasn’t bad at all, though why she would want to deep-throat with my pungent comrade who had not bathed in several months was beyond me.
Welder was now the unofficial head stock lad and tasked with prestigious tasks such as accompanying Dire to the local post office as a 'bodyguard'.
With a chained briefcase, and no protective helmet such as the 'Securicor' vans yielded, it was a risky undertaking and definitely not part of the shelf-filling contract Welder had agreed upon.
A couple of thugs with baseball bats would have left both Dire and Welder in hospital, and the benefactors a briefcase of money covered in purple dye. That was the deterrent, though the would-be thugs didn’t know this.
Source
...'Kwiksave were a mean tight-arse company who placed their staff at risk without protection. At the time it didn't occur to me, the risk of being beaten around the head for a case of cash'...
Welder was also given a board and pen to undertake stocktaking duties. I remember the envy I felt at seeing this for the first time. Welder had barely the IQ to converse, never mind write anything.
Welder was a keen drinker and that placed him in great stead with Dire who regularly downed eight pints of Mild every evening. They say relationships are created in the pub, and this was very true in the early to mid 1980s.
It was all getting insufferable. I, the original Stock Lad, without motivation, with attitude, and an extra poor work ethic was getting overlooked while Welder and Dire could often be seen smiling and joking around.
Source
...'Welder had been promoted from a lowly YTS to 'Head Stock Lad' with all it's privileges, what fucking privileges?'...
I couldn't hold any personal contempt for Welder. We were still a team, suffering in low-paid slavery but unlike him, I couldn't lick the boss's arse. At my personal expense, I have never attained to be a sycophant in any position, past or present.
Kwiksave must have disagreed with the YTS scheme as we were to see no new low-paid grunts join. Perhaps the tales of abuse, shit conditions, and overbearing managers had reached the ears of the YTS management.
The Kwiksave staff did not have an official 'Christmas do', they just went to the pub at a set time and started drinking until everyone was pissed or out of money.
This particular ‘do’ was at a pub named the Bishops Blaze. It seemed to be a regular haunt whenever there was a reason to congregate after work hours.
Source
...'Mild..., Dire's preferred beer. You drink this rancid piss when your system can't handle Lager or even Bitter'...
I was standing there with Barbara watching everyone get slowly pissed. At the age of 20, I was not a big drinker and would violently barf if I overstepped my personal threshold of 3 pints.
Dire was in his element, belly protruding in a statement of fertility and manliness. He was hassling all the checkout girls for kisses much to the dismay of his smouldering wife, 'Marge' who was standing in the shadows looking to explode at a minute's notice.
I remember seeing the dismay on the girls' faces. This 45-year-old bloke, weighing in around 20 stones, with sweat beads emanating from his deathly pallor forcing his way onto women a lot younger than himself.
'Barbara, come here.. over here', he swaggered and slurred not waiting for an answer.
Dire lunged at my girlfriend and jammed his tongue down her throat. She was 16 at the time. I turned away nauseated and caught a glimpse of ‘’Marge’ who now had visible steam lines erupting from her head.
Source
...'Marge was Dire's long suffering wife. She had a high-pitched nauseating shrieking voice and used to scream... 'Davidddddd...' when she entered the Kwiksave store. She made it very clear by the withering looks in my direction about what she thought of me'...
Did we connect for a moment? No, Marge hated me for the reason her husband did. No fucking reason at all.
Barbara hastily backed off and shuffled back over to me looking a little sheepish. She had little choice; it was the kiss or the door.
My contempt for 'Dire the Corpulent' grew that evening to heights I never thought possible.
To be continued...
Cover Picture is a combination of free sources from here and here, combined and edited with Luminar 4. Any unsourced images are my own.
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Many a dark night I have wandered the streets with that case attached to my wrist to deposit in the night safe of the local barclays bank. Often as much as £8k inside,( a fortune in the 70's) the only security a couple of stocklads and a tube of coloured dye which released if the chain was pulled. ( fuck the guy whose wrist it was attached to!!).
It was always attached to the managers' wrist. I never knew just how much cash was in those briefcases. They looked like the one I used for school.
Did you ever make conversation with Dire (Oldham Manager then) or Mort (Rawtenstall Manager) at the annual Kwiksave General Meeting for Managers (Rhyl Ritz Grand Ballroom), around late 1981?
Mort looked very much like his caricature in 'Mort the Shit Manager' and Dire an overgrown bulbous frog-like creature with a pallid smile (100 fake).
That is a new one on me, I must have been excluded !
Lol, that reminds me. I used to have to escort my boss in the car parks to the Clydesdale Bank with leather bags full of money. They were similar to kwiksave in that they didn't give a hoot for our wellbeing and we just went every week, regular as clockwork. I am amazed we never got coshed and robbed!
I remember the Securicor vans from that time. They had crash-helmets, the pioneers of safety from being robbed. Problem is, that drew attention to themselves and they got robbed still!
Clydesdale Bank! they make their own banknotes. Once it was cool to take some down to England and try and use them as an intelligence test on Bar people.
They did indeed!! You could get away with it a lot of the time down south!
That's probably the only reason we never got doinked was the lack of look at is were are carrying money type helmets and the like. Lol
Apt descriptive writing about the middle aged 1980's, beer-boep men who drooled and dribbled through every office party trying to grope the younger lasses on the team....
Opened up a hornets nest of memories long shoved to the bottom of the pile, now you retrieved them hope that makes you smile...
Poor wives stood like statues against the walls trying to escape the pain knowing she has lived through this all before, how did she meet him in the first place?
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I have to get these out before they fade away! I can get some HIVE at the expense of Dire and his goddamn-awful wife. I could never talk to Dire, so can't tell you how they met. They had 4 kids, and Dire considered them all a nuisance.
'Fantabulous' couple by the sounds of it, need to wipe the drive clean !LOLZ
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Wouldn't it make more sense to just hide the chain, and look like you're going for a normal walk? Or better yet, drive there?
Dire sounds like an awful boss...
This post has been manually curated by the VYB curation project
It was a shortish walk across a precinct. Anyone could have figured out what time and day the crossing happened, and yet nothing ever happened. I had the prestigious 'job' of accompanying Mort, the previous boss many times. It was me and him, he had little choice.
If the chain snapped, the cash was spoiled. That was the idea.
Sounds like a not very worthwhile heist... And probably not much of a reward if successful!
!PIZZA
Laughs how times changr ey.
Gotta say I love the writing style, it's fast paced and reads great.
I don't want you all getting bored, better to leave the fluff out!
I can't trust product from a market that can't spell Qwick.
Whaddup man. Happy New Year.
LOL, Happy New Year.. wherever you may be (probably not Todmorden).
In todays edition:
tales from a barfbar
Typical people hanging in there...looking forwars to the rest
That pub is now gone, years ago.., I think it's an Indian Restaurant now. Those tend to change hands every year or so.
Aw, yeah, that definitely sounds legit. I definitely miss the "camaraderie" that exists in daily life like that, and the watering hole that seems to be a second home. If you don't yet, I'm sure you'll have fond memories at some point!
I have memories of the pub after work, never with Dire in-tow. Dire frequented old-style bars, usually populated with him and the barman.
Hello Slobberchops. Thank you so much for bringing back to the spaces of our Writing Club community a new chapter of your autobiographical novel, about how terrifying a person's life can become in a convenience store with bad policies like this one. As always it was a pleasure to read you, I loved the details when you talked about the trip with the briefcase and the thugs with baseball bats, they are great touches of horror to trigger the reader's mind. Happy New Year.
Thanks, many of the other writing communities don't allow this or that. So I will post all mine in yours. Too many rules.. some of 'em.
In our spaces you are always welcome, we are great defenders of the creative freedom of writers, only that way we can have true art like the one you bring us in this exciting horror novel. A hug
It should have been a safe place to work, not a Horror set heh.. 😀
Oh, is that really 3 Year old? Can't believe it is way ahead of time like the flow of words and thriller. Found it really Amazing!
Got to learn something new about 80s from this.
And this thing still exist in this century.
Meanwhile reading this at the age of 20 !LOL 😆
Ah, this is kind of relateable feeling.... Dire sounds toxic and her hate towards you doesn't seems reasonable but such people really do exist for real.
This is so interesting Read tbh. Looking forward to see the next part and where it Goes. Have a Lovely day and Happy new Year to you.
Over 4 years now, it was originally named 'The Kwiksave Chronicles', and I didn't do it justice the first time around.
Thanks, and Happy New Year to you. It might be a while before the next one. I'm a little slow with these :)
Awesome... Now justice been served!
Ah it's okay will wait for it. Have a Great day ahead.
I gifted $PIZZA slices here:
@wrestlingdesires(13/15) tipped @slobberchops (x1)
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After reading this I have a hatred for 'Dire the Corpulent' that needs to be increased, I can't stay like this, I look forward to the next part haha! :D
Thanks. I see you are new, use your vote. I see you are not using it at all.
The lightning bolt in the first photo is very impressive.
Have a happy new year.
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This is very interesting post.