When a city department store first opened its doors in 1959, sales girl Cathrine Hollings-worth was one of the first to clock on.

After spending her entire working life at the store, she has now been asked to take part in the closing ceremony on Thursday when she will shut the doors behind the last customers.

The C&A store in Broadway, Bradford, is shutting down in common with all British branches of the fashion chain.

Mrs Hollingsworth started work at the brand new shop in May, 1959 when she was 16.

Now 58 and a grandmother, she is still working on the shop floor - only taking a break during the 1960s when her two children were born.

She has many happy memories of the store, one of the last C&A branches in the country to close down.

She can recall queues round the block when the store first opened, when it occupied four floors of its building in the city centre.

"We had four selling floors in those days, not two," she said.

"Traditionally people from Bradford had gone to Leeds for their Whitsuntide clothes - they went over to the C&A store there.

"Everyone was pleased when C&A opened in Bradford. It was so busy at that time, like a football match."

In the late 1950s Bradford city centre still had a number of department stores, including the legendary Brown, Muff store in Market Street.

"Brown, Muff was expensive and you didn't go there unless you were really wealthy," said Mrs Hollingsworth. "C&A was cheaper. It was a time when people didn't have that much money. They thought C&A was wonderful."

The fashion emporium at that time sold all kinds of things. "We had wedding outfits, dinner suits and even a department selling fur coats," she said. "We also had an alterations room where people could get alterations made to their wedding dresses and dinner suits. We sold hundreds of coats - people would get a new one every year."

Staff will mark their final day with a bacon sandwich and Bucks Fizz breakfast at 8.30am followed by a buffet lunch in the staff restaurant after the shop shuts down at 11.30am. As for Mrs Hollingsworth, she's retiring to a villa in Spain with husband Geoff.