Mothers Co-op number what was it?.

Yes Sara1954- i remember my mum used to take me to our co op clothing store for school shoes.. i too remember my first 'grown up' C&A dress as a teenager (15) it was midi white background, like a 'gypsy skirt' style with small flower sprigs on at top half and in panels so had tiny checks on bottom panel & a tie sailor type collar.(probably wouldn't look twice at it now, even at 58)??

Our co op used to smell of smoked bacon and coffee beans.

Can't imagine the co op letting you bring home stuff 'on approval' these days??

Or corner shops giving you things 'on tick' till payday.?Those were more trusting days...

No was 13 for C&A dress, i think by 15 I'd graduated to jeans and long sleeved tee shirts and 'flowing' plain tops...

I used to drop my mum's co-op order book in for her on the way to primary school. I also remember the pulley system for sending the money to and from the cash office.
We have a co-op just down the road from us. It is only small but always seems to have whatever we need in between Sainsburys visits.

The first dept. I worked in was haberdashery, it sold leather handbags (like the Queen's) and leather gloves. I think that was where my love of luxury items was born. They sold American Cream Soda tights, which I lusted over, but my strict mother wouldn't allow!
I then progressed to Lingerie, where my aunt was the buyer. Often I had to measure up old ladies, who either smelled of moth balls or BO ( no deodorants then) for salmon pink all in ones complete with suspenders. Some had no qualms about stripping off! It was very traumatic for a shy, naive 15 year old! ?
The best dept. Was the Boutique, which sold Mary Quant make up. I thought I had died and gone to heaven.

I use my Mums old number for one of my codes so still around.
I probably should not say this but I love C&A still, in fact everything I am wearing at the moment is from there.
It is a Dutch company and there are still lots of stores around.
I have taken groups around the city and one thing the ladies ask for is C&A.

The two C&A stores in Berlin are an essential visit for me.
We had a huge one in Glasgow, where at 17, I got a brown wool midi coat. I knitted a yellow cloche hat to wear with it,
I felt so sophisticated! This was my first fashionable clothing item ever , as my mother was very old fashioned in outlook.

beth20

Don't remember the number but I do recall sticking in sheets of stamps - both co-op and green shield.

Clearly beth20 you are just a young thing. ?

I most certainly remember my mother’s coop number, in fact I use it as a security feature with my online banking. It was the first number I ever memorised.

My parents' Co-op number was 45009, but I can't remember my own from when I married. I can also recall all the car numbers we had as a child, but again not the ones since I married. Very odd!

Our Co-op didn't have the Criss-cross wire system, but Cochrane's in Paisley did.

I was absolutely fascinated by the canisters whizzing along overhead when I was about four. It made up for the HOURS (that's what it felt like,) waiting for Mummy to make up her mind which of two blouses to buy!

40396

We had to give it to the milkman when he came for payment each Friday. And, of course when you bought anything in a Co-op store.

What a complex and time consuming operation it must have been for the cashiers and clerks to reconcile the numbers on the copy receipts with the individual divi accounts and compute the correct amount of divi. It's quite impressive when you start thinking about it.

Yammy
As the song goes Yes I remember it well ' but then I was only ten years old,and much easier for me then than remembering my present day credit card password.Especially when there is a queue behind me in Tesco huffing and puffing with impatience

My Mother didn't shop at the Co-op, my Granny did though. She did not divulge her number.

grandetante, I remember Cochrane's so well. It was the only shop allowed to sell the PE kit and school hat for my convent school uniform.
The Co-op however, had a pressurised air system, where canisters went flying through tubes to the cash office.

Was this a regional scheme? I don’t recall there being a Co-op near us and not aware of any of this history.

The Co-op van delivered my grans groceries, usually including a dough cake from the bakery, and a few flapjacks.
The butchers boy delivered meat on a Saturday morning.
One of my funniest memories is the boy next door being sent by his mum to the co-op for half a pound of mince, and him coming back with a half a pound of mints!
She was fuming!
Back to my C&A dress, I was probably about twelve, and it was the first time I’d tried anything on in a fitting room, I just loved seeing myself in a full length mirror for the first time.

Yep 45296 was my Mum's number. Why do I remember that from 70/75 years ago and I can't remember much more recent data? I can even remember the registration number of my first car. Why? No idea. I'm led to believe that our memories have a maximum capacity? If that's the case, I wish I was in control of the selection!

I remember my gran’s - 13435! She always bought her winter boots with her divi, little black sheepskin lined suede ones with a zip up the front.

My Mum refused to shop in the Co-Op as she thought it was run by the Labour Party!

I remember her collecting Green Shield Stamps and Embassy cigarette coupons though

Mums was 23148. We had to learn it to do the messages. When mum died we used Coop Funeral Care and used her dividend number to get a reduction in cost. This was 12yrs ago in Scotland.

I can remember when I went to Grammar school a very snobby girl in our class telling some of us our blazers were from the Co-op, not the official school supply shop. None of us could see what she was talking about until we looked closely, our badges were sewn onto the pocket the others were the pocket front. I went home and said I wanted a proper one and was told I would have to wait. I was bought one from the supply shop but when I had outgrown it my mother skillfully removed the pocket and sewed it on one from the Co-op.
Maybe it was a North of England/Scottish shop. I think the Co-op movement started in Manchester.
As a small girl, I was taken for new wellingtons and asked to walk in them for the fit,I looked at the man and my mam they were tied as a pair with string through two small holes and I could not move. Those awful black Co=op wellies we all seemed to have that smelt of rubber and left a black mark on your leg, I took a pair to college with me in the late 1960,s and felt mortified everyone else had leather boots.
My first venture into C&A's was as a student we did not have a shop in our county, it was an Aladins cave for trendy gear that was not allowed when I went home.

I don't remember books of co-op stamps. I do remember a long sheet of paper where we had to stick on the receipts, I think that's what they were.
I used to save Embassy cigarette tokens.