Pound in the trolley?

[DingleyDel]

Having a slightly drunken argument with dh. We are both early 30s. He swears that a staple memory of his childhood was putting a pound in the supermarket trolley, IN ALL SUPERMARKETS!! I swear this was never a thing until Aldi and Lidl arrived in the U.K. I swear I remember news articles about how great they were but you had to have a pound for the trolley, it was so notable. I don’t remember ever putting a £ in the trolley in my childhood. I grew upon the SE, Dh in the SW. was it really a common thing in the 90s?

YABU pound in the trolley was completely normal

YANB pound in the trolley was introduced by Lidl/ Aldi

Absolutely fixture of my childhood. I used to check all the trolleys for any stray pounds (did it to lockers in changing rooms too) 😳 I'm from NE if you couldn't guess 🤣

Coin needed (not £1 as they didn't come in until 83) in the supermarkets in my fairly rough town growing up.

Fine Fare, which then became Adsa (and I think maybe something else in between).
Kwik Save

Oh, and my local Tesco (completely different area) doesn't need a coin now.

I used to get to keep the pound for helping with the shopping. 80s

In supermarkets in 'rough' areas it was the norm to discourage yoofs from taking the trolleys and depositing them in nearby rivers etc. You needed a pound for a trolley at our local Asda, but not Tesco or Sainsburys as they were in slightly nicer suburbs.
I wish all supermarkets did it TBH as I'm fed up of having abandoned trolleys blown into my car because lazy feckers don't return them to the trolley bays. Never happens in Lidl / Aldi.

@elbea

You still need them in Sainsbury’s and M&S where I live (pretty affluent city in the South West). Our Aldi, Tesco and Waitrose don’t.

That's funny because our Sainsbury's and M&S doesn't and our Tesco does!

I think it's to do with location - is it easy / tempting to nick them on foot - and technology, as some of them have the thing where you can't push them outside the shop boundary.

When the first big Tesco opened in our city they had a £5 deposit for a trolley, which in the early 80's was a massive amount! We had to go a kiosk in store, hand over a fiver and we're given a trolley.

Absolutely a thing (grew up in London in the 90s)!

My husband tells me that where he grew up, kids would often hang around supermarket car parks offering to take people’s trolleys back in exchange for the pound inside.

On a side note I remember really loving asda as they had a cow scene near the milk and chickens near the eggs. You could press a button and it made the animal sound. Dh doesn't believe me but I do remember it!

@ChickenNugget86 you are correct. In the mid 90s my flatmate and I used to do a Friday night asda shop and we used to race to be the first to do it.

I remember it coming in because there used to be lots of people that would forget to take their pounds at the end. My little brother would come and hoover them all up :)

Never had pound in a trolley where I grew up. Although I do have a vague memory of having to put money in one in France when on holiday.
Even when I moved to the city I live in now never had a pound in the trolley until Lidel arrived.

I remember a new Sainsburys opening near us in the early 80's and putting a £1 coin in the trolley.