A trip to America inspired the family business to expand

By the early 1960s, supermarkets were bringing huge changes to the way we carried out our weekly shopping.

No longer having to trek around going from shop to shop, customers could get everything under one roof. And instead of asking staff behind counters to fetch things, customers could serve themselves by grabbing items from shelves.

On Merseyside, many will remember visiting their first supermarket and for one generation that supermarket was Lennon's. The Lennon's empire began in 1900 when Mr Frank Lennon established his grocery and provisions businesses in St Helens and until the early 1950s, the family ran a small group of traditional-style grocery shops.

But in 1958, one of Frank's sons, Terence Lennon, paid a visit to America and studied grocery selling methods there. When he returned, he laid the plans for converting Lennon shops to self service and it soon became a public company.

Old cinemas like the Scala in Ormskirk Street, St Helens and The Lyme House, in Eccleston Street, Prescot, were soon bought and converted into supermarkets. The chain progressed rapidly and Lennon’s started adding off-licences, selling cut-price drinks.

As the business prospered, more shops were opened and by 1963, Lennon's boasted a turnover of £5 million, the Manchester Evening News previously reported.

Lennon's supermarkets were later opened in Wavertree, Garston, Maghull, Wallasey, Little Sutton, Southport and more. Outside of Merseyside, branches could also be found in Manchester, Lancashire, Yorkshire and elsewhere in the country.

Many will remember Lennon's offering Green Shield Stamps, highly-competitive prices on drinks and tobacco or it being the first supermarket you ever visited. On social media, we recently put a call out for your memories of Lennon's.

A number of people said they remembered the Lennon's escalator in St Helens that customers would put their trolleys on. One person said: "Remember the transporter for the trolleys--- always looked so dangerous," and another said: "The trolley travelator to take your trolley downstairs that kept getting stuck!"

In Liverpool, one person remembers buying and trying yoghurt from a Lennon's supermarket for the first time. They wrote: "Lennons on Warbreck Moor was the first place I knew that sold yoghurt - plain or lemon flavour only - in the 60's. I was hooked and would get the bus up there to get some, eating it before I got home by using the metal foil lid as a scoop! The yoghurt was thick and set, totally different from the Ski yoghurt that came out shortly after."

Do remember Lennon's supermarkets? Let us know in the comments section below.

Marie Fishwick also remembers visiting Lennon's in Prescot - her first experience of a supermarket. She told the ECHO: "It was the first supermarket I went to and pushed my babies pram around in. I know I took my pram in because there was plenty of room but shops where to small to do that.

"I remember all the tins on shelves and foods I hadn’t seen before. It was so lovely to see all the food you could buy. It was amazing to see so much on the shelves."

Images, courtesy of St Helens Archive Service show what a number of the branches looked like back in the 1960s. One photograph, taken in 1960, shows the exterior of Lennon's on Bridge Street, which boasted a large Lennon's Ltd sign at the top of the building.

You can also see merchandise stacked in the shopfront and sugar advertised in the window. Another image shows outside of Lennon's in Ormskirk Street in 1963, with pedestrians and cars passing by outside.

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An advertisement, published by the Liverpool ECHO on December 6, 1960 for the opening of Prescot's Eccleston Street supermarket, offered free gifts including tins of Campbell's soups, Smedley's garden peas and "C & B" beans in tomato, one free to every customer spending 5' or more.

Showing prices at the time, we can see Lennon's sold everything from "Kwench" orange squash to Kraft salad cream, Horniman's distinctive tea and Maxwell House coffee. In 1960, Lennon's also sold a tin of Nescafe for 2', a bottle of Robinson's orange barley water for 2' and a tin of Princes mandarins for 1'3.

According to The National Archives currency convertor, 2' was equal to £2.10 in 2017 and 1'3 was equal to £1.31. At the time, the modern food supermarket also contained "the most up to date" delicatessen, butchering, greengrocery, frozen foods and confectionary.

Lennon's also had a bonded warehouse at Clock Face, St Helens, housing wines and spirits "worth hundreds of thousands of pounds," being "the largest warehouse of its kind in the North West." In November 1977, the warehouse was described as being "protected like Fort Knox."

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By the 1980s, Lennon's opened one of its largest stores in Wavertree and announced plans to expand further with more branches farther north and in Wales. On August 19, 1981, the ECHO reported: "The new store, near to the famous landmark, Picton Clock Tower, is filling a long-felt need, according to local residents.

"With 44 supermarkets, 126 wine and spirits stores, and more than 2,000 employees, Lennon's the still-growing food and drinks giant now covers the country from the Scottish border to Oxfordshire."

Over the years, Lennon's began to disappear from our high streets across Merseyside and beyond. But many still hold fond memories of it being the first supermarket they visited or what it was like in years gone by.

To discover more from St Helens Archive Service, click here.

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