PANIC gift purchase store Past Times has made 574 workers redundant today via the medium of town crier.
The chain went into administration after the recession continued to propel the country back to the dark ages, making the shop’s product line largely superfluous.
Administrators will now begin the process of burying the stock at historical sites across the country to confuse archaeologists, wondering why the Elizabethan spoon they have uncovered has a bar code on it.
Former head of overpriced teatowels, Tom Logan, said: “There was a knock on the door at 7am this morning and some bloke in a tricorn hat shouted ‘thou no longer hast requirement to frequent ye emporium of employ’ and asked me to return ‘mine security passe and permitte for parkyng’.
“Then he handed me my P45 printed out on a decorative scroll tied with ribbon and charged me thirty quid for it.”
Retail experts have conflicting views on why the business failed, from an inability to rebrand itself, to a business model based on unsustainably high overheads, but all agree that a major factor was selling overpriced things that no-one could possibly need.
Logan is hoping this may help him find work in an Apple store and will be stressing his ability to be polite to slow-moving tourists who have no intention of buying anything.
He added: “I’m trying to remain upbeat but it’s hard when you’ve just received a redundancy payout in old pesetas spray-painted gold to look like Spanish doubloons.”
