ARE shop assistants still called shop assistants? Or have they been promoted to sales executives while still on the same money?

Not that I wish to give offence to anyone in retail. I used to be a shop assistant many moons ago. When I left school my first job was in an old fashioned emporium where the staff were also old fashioned. Three of them had served in the First World War.

I started as junior assistant in men’s outfitting (overalls).

I got to climb a wall of shelves filled with brown, white and blue overalls all wrapped in brown paper parcels tied with string according to size, colour and style.

That was where I learned the art of creating parcels held with a slip knot. After my first month, during which I proved my worth, I was presented with my very own pair of scissors.

The shop was just like the one in that Tommy Steele film Half A Sixpence, but sadly didn’t have a Julia Foster.

You remember Julia? Co-starred in Half A Sixpence, was married to Lionel Morton of The Four Pennies, is mother of Ben Fogle with her second husband and is now mainly an antique furniture dealer. Or should I say, she is a dealer in antique furniture and is not, herself, antique.

I had romantic thoughts about Ms Foster in my youth and then she went and spoiled it by appearing in those annoying Michael Winner adverts where he says smugly: “Calm down, dear, it’s only a TV commercial.”

Anyway, back to the plot.