Job promise made good (From Free Press Series)

Job promise made good

WAITROSE was founded in 1904 by former scholars of Monmouth School, Wallace Waite and Arthur Rose who teamed up with David Taylor to open a small grocery shop at 263 Acton Hill in West London.

And when a reunion was held at the school during the early 1920s, the two men took the opportunity to combine it with a small holiday in the town and stayed at the King's Head Hotel.

A young Len Jenkins, the son of Charlie and Mary Jenkins, who ran the Black Swan Inn in St John's Street, was playing ball in the street when he noticed Mr Waite tinkering with his car outside the hotel.

Mr Waite was cleaning the spark plugs and other parts of the engine when he dropped a knife into the sump.

An undaunted Len saw what happened and said to Mr Waite that it was not a problem and promptly dipped his hand and arm into the oil and retrieved the knife.

Len said: "I wasn't scared of getting dirty and because I was small at the time, and it was a pretty easy job for me to fish the knife out of the sump.

"Mr Waite seemed to be ever so grateful that he told me that when I left school that I was to write to him and he would give me a job."

Len left Arthur Reade's Priory Street Boys School in 1925 and started working with G L Guy grocers in Monnow Street.

And after four years of learning the grocery trade he remembered his conversation with Mr Waite and wrote to him.

Mr Waite was true to his word, keeping his promise and offered Len a job at Waitrose's Gerrards Cross branch. Len said: "I set off from the bus stop outside Tom Love's Cycle shop in Monmouth at 10am in a Great Western Bus that arrived in Uxbridge 10 hours later. I then had to walk the last four miles to Gerrards Cross.

"When I started work the next day, I was under the control of the manager Mr Sprint who was always dressed in a dinner jacket.

"I saw Mr Waite come into the store three of four times a week and I did a bit of everything at the branch, from working in the butchers and grocery departments to collecting orders.

"During the four years I was employed at Waitrose, I used to enjoy cycling around all the local villages collecting orders that would be dispatched the next day for home delivery by our fleet of five vans.

"I used to share lodgings with seven other employees at Chalfont St Peter and on a Sunday we often used to go out together on our bicycles.

"I had a great time during these four years and on Wednesday, which was half-day closing, I used to play for the Gerrards Cross Traders football team in the Windsor league."

However, family problems in Monmouth forced Len to return home and he started working for Higgins the Grocer in Monnow Street before joining the Royal Ordinance Factory at Glascoed as a painter and marrying his childhood sweetheart Lena.

He was called up in 1938 and went to France with the Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers (Militia) and came back through Dunkirk. During the rest of the war he travelled throughout Europe serving with various regiments before returning to his previous job at Glascoed where he stayed until he retired in 1977.

Today, Len can be heard retelling his war stories at weekends as he helps look after the Regimental Museum.

Len at the age of 94 is a sprightly and active pensioner, and is a regular shopper at Waitrose.

"I go shopping every week in the Monmouth store and even though it looks very different to how Waitrose branches appeared when I first started working for the firm, they are still seeking out the best quality produce to sell as when I worked for them in the 1930s."