WHEN we asked in Looking Back if anyone recalled the name of the store that used to be located next door to BHS in Victoria Square Mrs Dorothy Ward was happy to oblige with all the information we needed.

Dorothy, aged 65, used to work in the store — it was, in fact, The Great Northern and Southern Stores and it appears it sold just about every style of clothing you could possibly need from head to toe, from stockings to woolly hats.

If you are familiar with the television show "Are you Being Served?" then The Great Northern and Southern Stores was very similar to the fictitious sitcom department store of Grace Brothers depicted on television in the 1970s says former worker Dorothy.

Dorothy worked there in the 1950s and recalls a time when the customer was king, the shop assistant worked incredibly hard but played hard too and not a tiny fleck of dust could be found on a counter.

"We had to clean with methylated spirits, the tape measure attached to the counter was cleaned with brasso and the rails where the clothes were hung had to be wiped. We had to sweep the carpets and wipe the floors and we never stopped," says Dorothy.

If any of the girls got a ladder in one of their stockings "of course tights were only just starting to come in" they had to collect another pair and then pay for them when they got paid at the end of the week. "There was no way we were allowed to work with a ladder in our stockings," she says.

Dorothy, who lives in Horwich, had to start work at an early age to bring in money for the family when her father, Fred Vining, become seriously ill.

She had to help out with her mother, Martha, five sisters and brother when her father became ill.

She recalls many of the members of staff including Miss Sixsmith "who we called Miss Sixpence but we wouldn't dare call her that to her face or she'd have had us by the neck", Wendy and Jane Smith, Miss Isherwood, Miss Lyons, Sheila Dunster, Mrs Hart, Mrs Rushton, Mrs Drury, Miss Winder and Audrey Langford to name just a few.

Dorothy gave all her wages to her mother but also worked at the Palais in Bolton, in order to earn a little extra money for herself.

She later went on to work at the supermarket Scot's Fine Fair in Bolton town centre — which used to be right next door to where The Bolton News is today — where her claim to fame was once serving famous comedian Tommy Cooper with a cold remedy, she says.

"He was appearing in Darwen and had popped into Bolton. He was a huge man and I have always remembered serving him," she says.

They were very happy days, Dorothy recalls, and she will never forget working at a time when the customer was definitely king.