Helen feels upset about the loss of Wilko on Britain’s high streets.

All this talk about turning every stone to stop this happening, and Lisa Wilkinson saying it wouldn’t have made any difference if she had not taken the millions of dividends – that Wilko would still have gone under.” Recent weeks have been one of the worst experiences of my life. “There was also low morale, they reduced staff and we had to do more and more and more. I think a lot of us sensed things weren’t quite right.” I have loved every minute of my time working for Wilkos, but things went downhill in the last few years. I started off as a cashier, but then managed to get on the shop floor, which I really liked. Whilst at Folkestone I was seconded to Canterbury to assist with freshers’ week there for two years running. I worked first in the Colchester branch and moved to Folkestone in 2016. “I feel anger it never needed to have happened. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. For more information see our Privacy Policy. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. Helen, 72, from Folkstone, has been working for Wilko for more than eight years, and is devastated by the closure of all its shops. “Obviously, if they’re still working into their 70s they probably need the money more than anyone else.” “Because it will be hard for them to find new work,” he said. Mackenzie worries particularly about the toll on older workers. “A lot of people that worked there did rely on this job,” he said. “I’d have three or four people come in as soon as it opened, so I got to know them quite a bit.” Sometimes, he’d use the 20% staff discount, treating himself to pick-n-mix. He often opened the store on Saturdays and enjoyed chatting to the regulars. Wilko was a great place to work, Mackenzie said. So it was “quite shocking” when “the whole thing came tumbling down.” To explain the gaps on shelves, “We were told about ‘supplier issues,’ he said. Mackenzie said management did not keep staff informed about the problems behind the scenes. “There was quite a lot of gaps on the shelves,” he said of the St Albans branch. He sometimes gave the newer recruits tips.Įarlier this year, Mackenzie started to notice things were not right at Wilko. By the time he left in June this year – after leaving university to become a civil servant – he was one of the most senior members of staff. When 22-year-old Ben Mackenzie joined Wilko in 2019 after leaving school, it was his first job. Photograph: Ben Mackenzie/Guardian Community “We had a lot of empty shelves towards the end of my time there, but I never thought it’d end up like this,” said Ben Mackenzie, 22, who worked at Wilko until June this year. He says the period has been incredibly stressful. James now trawls work websites such as Indeed every day. “People coming in asking: ‘Are you closing?’ We just didn’t know.”įor James, the collapsed retailer did not want to follow the route of cut-price retailers such as Poundland, which contributed to Wilko’s “gradual decline”. On his favourite station, the shop floor, James would get on first-name terms with regulars and feel a “real sense of worth” when customers thanked him for going above and beyond.īut in about January, James began to see empty shelves. “There’s a camaraderie I haven’t experienced anywhere else,” he said. James said the company was a pleasure to work at for most of his time there. “We’re as much in the dark as anyone else.” We have no clarity,” said James, a 57-year-old retail adviser in Essex, one of a number of workers who responded to a Guardian callout about affected staff.

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