John Morris will be there with his memories when the doors of Marks and Spencer at Basildon close for the last time on Saturday.

It will be a low key event, a far cry from the day in 1971 when, as assistant manager he and his colleagues welcomed crowds of customers who blocked part of Town Square and caused traffic jams in nearby streets.

Already an assistant manager at Hamilton in his native Scotland, he was brought down to Basildon to take on a prestige role at the company’s latest store, regarded at that time as a jewel in the Marks and Spencer crown.

The launch, John recalls, measured up to the predictions of it being a success story.

The first big retail day heralded the arrival of a local police chief who pleaded with manager Bernard Johnson to close the store. John said: “The police inspector took us to the roof to point out the gridlock of cars jammed as they tried to get into the adjoining car parks. Basildon was at a standstill.”

The situation eased just in time as the crowds dissipated.

The success had been hard to visualise for John as he arrived for duty on his first day alongside the manager Bernard Johnson and staff manager Nova Smith.

If John believed that he would be walking into a plush office in a splendid new building from day one, then he had to think again. With still a month or two before the grand opening John found himself in a builders’ hut, sharing space with Bovis employees who were still putting the finishing touches to the new construction. From there the management team planned the running of the store and met up with experienced supervisors brought in from other stores to lead new staff who would serve the public.

With Marks and Spencer now opened and the major store of Allders (now Debenhams) based at the other end of Town Square it began an era of retail success. This was to last even against the challenge of Lakeside being created up-river.

Since then, however, the change in buying choice for customers, the creation of other out of town shopping zones and the internet brought challenges which has resulted in the closure of M&S Basildon. It is the same challenges, John reflects, that have lost some of the big names from the town centre.

But back in the 1970s customers poured in to give the Basildon store retail success with record-breaking returns and the need to put a second floor on the single floor building to meet the growing popularity.

For John Morris further promotion was to follow as he went on to the Ilford store and then on to a successful career at the M&S head office. Later he was to move to the British Retail Consortium where he became a spokesman on TV and radio for the organisation that watched over the affairs of Britain’s biggest supermarkets and the buying habits of millions of customers.

John, now retired at 74, still lives in Billericay where he arrived from Scotland 47 years ago with his wife Kate and their two very young sons Alistair and Nicholas. They established roots here and John who plays golf at The Burstead, is a member of Billericay Mayflower Rotary Club and a regular worshipper at Billericay Baptist Church.