My employment at the Kings Cross shop as manager from 1973 - 1989 produced its fair share of memorable occasions.
I am sure the person in this story will know who I am talking about but for this essay, he will of course remain nameless..
The shop was fortunate in that it had quite a few - shall we say- prestigious clients,. These clients were of course well known to management and of course these clients were on good terms with the company directors.
It is the mid 1970`s, The company was learning its way with credit cards like Access and we were instructed never to accept a cheque unless it was backed up with a cheque card. On this occasion, the gentleman in question, immaculately dressed in a very expensive tweed suit, bowler hat and umbrella, had run up a fair size bill with his purchases and wrote a cheque from a well known prestigious Bank.
Said employee asked for his cheque card but it was made clear that this will not be necessary. Not happy with the situation, said employee came to the office with cheque in hand and stated that - quote` Ive got this geezer downstairs who refuses to let me see his cheque card`.
Both David Morris and I looked into the security camera, saw the gentleman in question and said to the employee, Oh, thats alright, just make sure he has everything he needs.
Said employee is not at all happy about this and demands to know why exceptions can be made and how difficult it makes his job when told explicitly that cheque cards are a must. He was told not to argue and go back down stairs and conclude the business in a nice manner. Happily he did although he persevered with the argument a long while after.
So who was this prestigious client. He was no other than the Queens Solicitor.
Kings Cross was not the choicest of areas and it had its fair share of undesirables especially `winos`. One Saturday a customer reported that he had seen a man take a boxed train set out of the window and leave the shop without paying. I hot footed through the front door only to trip over a man sitting on the step, bottle to his mouth and the outline of a rectangular box underneath his jacket around the middle of his back to his shoulders. On confronting the man, he promptly denied everything but offered no resistance when myself and another member of staff removed his jacket and recovered the said train set,. There was no point reporting it to the police, he practically lived in the courts we found out.
Yes, they were interesting days and there are many more tales that can be related.
Stay well.
Tony