Grantham woman leaves Morrisons store after four decades of work

A Grantham woman has left a supermarket after working there since it opened in the 1980s.

Amanda Mapletoft, 64, had her final day working at Morrisons in Grantham on Friday (October 7) after four decades of being there.

Having started at the supermarket back in February 1984, Amanda had so many memories from her time at Morrisons, and described her last day as “surreal”.

Over the years, she met royalty with the company, faced the challenges of the Covid pandemic, as well as recruiting thousands of workers.

Amanda originally applied for the job as she and her husband wanted to move house, starting out by doing two days a week on the tills.

She said: “ I thought I’d only be here a year or two and nearly 39 years later, worked my way up the company.”

After 18 months on the checkouts, Amanda moved into admin for two years, before settling in the personnel department, first as an assistant, then training as a manager.

She continued: “It’s so surreal, because, love or hate work, it becomes a big part of your life and working at Morrisons, it’s always had a family feel. I’ve lost count of the thousands of people that I’ve recruited over the years to work here.

“I think the best thing about working here is the people I’ve worked with. I’ve made lots of friends.

“It’s been the laughs. It’s the people who met each other here and got married and had families. Things like the Grantham Carnival when that was bigger. I even met Princess Margaret once with the company. I’ll always remember that.”

Amanda did not know whether to bow or curtsy when she met Princess Margaret, so she practised both.

She added: “When I met her I curtsied and bowed at the same time and I nearly hit her on the nose! She was so tiny.”

However, it has not always been an easy job. When asked about some of the challenges faced over the year, Amanda said: “Covid was really difficult because we didn’t have home delivery prior to that and I remember I’d been on holiday and got back to work on Thursday.

“They said they’ve got home delivery going live next week, you’ve got to recruit about 51 people.

“We interviewed and I inducted 51 people, which was massive, and getting that up and running and everybody trained.

“There was also the shop being quiet. When you’ve worked in a big shop like this and you walk round it and it’s empty. I remember my first day walking to the store because Grantham hadn’t seen anything like this before.

“I think the challenges over the years have also been the ups and downs of the economy because in the role myself and the managers do, to enable to keep people in jobs, you’ve got to control your costs, so that’s always been a big challenge.

“Another challenge has been having to deal with colleagues who have become seriously ill. Touch wood we’ve not been too bad at this store.

“And then balancing a family life. When I first came into the job, it wasn’t a 40 hour week, it was closer to 60 some weeks and Christmas, I remember one year working 110 hours straight through.”

Amanda is now set to become a great grandmother in December, and is looking forward to having more time with her family.

She said: “I’m going to have my first Christmas off in over 40 years. There’s different things I want to do.

"I like going out walking, so I’ll do a lot more of that. I might even look at doing some voluntary work. My husband’s already decided I’m taking him fishing more, so I’ll have that! I’ve even had an inkling to start painting.

“It’s going to be nice to see friends. Working in this business, I’ve often had to turn [events] down.

“But then, after three to six months I might get bored and put myself out there to some small businesses for some HR consultancy.”