Phillips – 49 years with PH Veira

Working at PH Veira & Company Limited was a prestigious job back in 1968, so when Fitzroy Phillips was offered work at the grocery store, he quickly accepted.

Forty-nine years later, Phillips, who started as a counter clerk, is still employed with the company, but in a different capacity, that of wholesale department supervisor.

The Kingstown Park resident said that he started with the establishment on May 10, 1968, after PH Veira’s brother, Michael Veira, offered him a job.

“I used to work at Standard Grocery and I would order goods for Standard from PH, so when his brother ask me if I wanted to work with them, that was a Thursday and I started the Monday after and from then I still here,” said Phillips, who offered, “it was a better job at the time.”

The long-standing employee said that during his early days, it was a lot of work.

“In that time, we sold pigtail from a big barrel; we sold tobacco, a lot of things; but since then a number of changes have taken place,” commented Phillips, who recalls working with persons like Cyril Greaves, Reuben Clarke, Jim Veira, Thaddeus Veira and David Veira, among others.

Phillips said that apart from the change in items sold and the different employees at the business at which he has worked for so many years, the building and the town have also changed.

He remembers the sea being a short distance away, a Bata Store nearby and an abattoir directly opposite the grocery store.

“The town has changed for the better, but nowadays I think that a lot of people come to work just for the money,” said Phillips, whose department sells, among other things, animal feed, flour, rice, Ju-c, milk, toilet paper and cooking oil.