NORMALLY thought of as fairly recent additions to the high street, one Boscombe supermarket celebrated its 100th birthday this week.
Staff at Sainsbury’s in Boscombe dressed in period costume from the 1910s for the day, while a barbershop quartet was called in to entertain shoppers with renditions of the favourite tunes of the era.
There was also a history board showing the significant changes that have taken place in the store – the second oldest Sainsbury’s still in its original building in the country – over the last century.
Store manager Paul Barlow said: “We were delighted to welcome customers to join the celebrations for the store’s 100th birthday.
“It was a very proud day to be part of and to think Sainsbury’s colleagues have been serving the community for a century is mind-boggling.
“Our history board has been very popular and customers have been bringing in their own photos. We are thinking of keeping it up next week as there are always people looking at it and reminiscing.”
Since the store first opened in 1913 it has seen dramatic changes.
Alan Sainsbury, who would later become Baron Sainsbury and chairman of the company, worked at the store in 1921 aged just 17 while learning the retail trade.
He was instrumental in bringing the ‘self-service supermarket’ to Britain after seeing it in action in America in the 1940s. The change came to Boscombe a few years later, and it made the conversion from over-the-counter to self service in 1968.
Another innovation pioneered by Lord Sainsbury in the 1950s was frozen foods, which saw a transformation of stores like Boscombe with refrigeration units.
Among the longest-serving staff at the store is Tina Sellick, who started on January 12, 1981. She said: “It is great to be here to celebrate the 100th birthday of the store.
“I’m one of the longest serving colleagues here and have seen the store change quite a bit over that time, so it’s amazing to see how much it has changed over the last 100 years.”
