Nostalgia - Co-op Dividend Number

[joe cassidy]

I have a question for UK baby-boomers on here.

How many of you can remember your Co-Op dividend number ?

This was a loyalty scheme where each family who joined it was given a 4 digit PIN number. You gave your "divi number" whenever you purchased something from the Co-op and at the end of the year each member was given a rebate on the total value of purchases for the year.

I can still remember mine - it's 8***

[port perran]

I recall the scheme but not our family number.

[EtchedPixels]

Still a co-op member. Works a bit differently though

[Newportnobby]

I recall the scheme but not our family number.

Likewise. It seemed at the time everyone was 'in the Divi'

[martyn]

I can still remember my mother's and grandmother's numbers.

Very unusually,  there was a Co-op pub in Harwich where you could have a pint and a packet of ciggies, and get divi.

Pub still there, but renamed and long sold off by Co-op.

Martyn

[The Q]

No coop in any of the villages I lived in, not worth travelling the distance required to some in the UK, over 6 hours from one village.

[Train Waiting]

Mother's - 1303
Grandmother's - 1020

The Co-op society is long, long gone and most of what were its premises have been demolished. Cooper's Fine Fare opened in Kilmarnock and that, together with the big town's greater variety in shoe shops, drapery* and all the rest was the beginning of the end.

Also, I believe the Co-op wasn't that cheap. Although, in the beginning, that was the point of it.

When our local branch line closed in 1964, the Co-op was thriving. Ten years later, it was dying. An interesting decade.

With all good wishes.

John

* Most of these have now also closed, beaten by internet shopping.

[Nbodger]

I remember the divvy well, but not the number which I last used in 1964. Although I do seem to believe there was two sixes in it, but knowing me I've just made it up.

Living in Mytholmroyd, you couldn't miss the various coop shops. We had a local food store on Scout Road just a few minutes from home. New Road contained the main stores, food, furniture and women's clothes if a remember correctly.

Prior to going to university in his late twenties our youngest son was manager of a Coop store in East Hull, he has a few stories to tell you of his time there.

[Greygreaser]

My grandmother went to meetings of women which she recorded in a notebook as "they explained how the big 4 like The International Stores were running a cartel to maintain high prices" and how in the north west they were buying in bulk and passing on the savings!
Consequently my Mum as the youngest of 13 had the Co-op emblazoned on her forehead and as the elder child I had 63919 memorised from an early age. Shopping with a list I had to make sure I got the stub from the counter staff with the amount and 'divvy' number clearly shown!
This was Leicester and Mum was still resident when she passed in 2002 leaving a membership card. As executor I found that the account had long since passed to a regional co-op who confirmed the membership account and sent me the credit balance!

[Bob G]

We were members of PIMCO - Portsea island mutual cooperative society. There was a shop which had a turnstile at the entrance. To me, at age 4, it was always known as the clickety click coop shop!

[LASteve]

Ours began with a "2" but I can't remember the rest. We had a Co-op a couple of streets away in residential Winchester. It looks like it's a residential property now from Google streetview.

Across the street was little hardware shop in a terraced house that was run out of the owner's front room and had one of everything; ladies stockings, milk jugs, replacement kettle elements (and fork handles!). When it closed they took the window display and put it in the City Museum; it was that well-known locally. That's gone back to being a residential property too.

[cmason]

Hmm - I cannot remember the number right now. I do clearly remember being given the task at a young age of sticking Co-op stamps in a book ( just like we did with the Greenshield stamp book ).

Of course its all gone very modern now.... noting that when Mam & Dad moved back up North to live in Sedgefield about 20 years back the divvy was still collected but using a plastic card issued to members - and now Mam is living back up in Corbridge, the Co-op there also uses a card however it seems to give instant discount to members rather than accumulating the divvy.

BTW - the Co-op movement is alive and well here in Japan. They are many and have a national federation - I have met some of their  people over the years. They had been to the UK for training with many of the different Co-ops being affiliated to the International Cooperative Alliance.

Colin 

[Wrinkly1]

My main memory of our local Co-Op is not the divi number, but having to give your money to the counter staff who then put it into an overhead wire-powered container which "shot" it by spring power to the cashier sealed inside an office. You then waited for your change and receipt to be sent back.
Later, a large department store (Fairfax House) was opened in central Bristol which used pneumatic tubes to send the money instead.

[Bealman]

Yeah, I remember those I think Binns in Sunderland or Newcastle had em.

[port perran]

Ours began with a "2" but I can't remember the rest. We had a Co-op a couple of streets away in residential Winchester. It looks like it's a residential property now from Google streetview.

Across the street was little hardware shop in a terraced house that was run out of the owner's front room and had one of everything; ladies stockings, milk jugs, replacement kettle elements (and fork handles!). When it closed they took the window display and put it in the City Museum; it was that well-known locally. That's gone back to being a residential property too.

We have our very own Fork Handles hardware store in Teignmouth selling just about everything, much of it on the pavement outside,including a small range of second hand model railway stuff - sadly virtually all 00 gauge though.