In the early 1970s Wendy Brazier was a 15-year-old shop assistant at Coles, in the Launceston building now occupied by Red Herring Surf and Portmans.

Ms Brazier shared her memories of the shop yesterday, as Coles celebrated 80 years in Tasmania.

The Grindelwald woman, now a registered nurse, said she worked at the lolly counter every Saturday morning for about a year when she was 15.

"I stood at the counter and there were some lollies on the wall behind me, with other cabinets in front, and I thought it was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when I first saw it," Ms Brazier said.

"There were about four or five staff at the lolly counter alone, not like shops now where you have to try and find someone to help you."

Ms Brazier said the Coles store was patriarchal, as were most businesses in the 1970s.

"The women were the workers, and the men were supervisors and managers ... they would walk around with their hands behind their backs, watching to make sure we were working," she said.

"At the end of shift we'd go upstairs to the lockers, and when we walked back down we would queue up, roll up our sleeves and turn out our pockets, so the supervisors could check we hadn't stolen anything.

"It wasn't demoralising in those days, as it would be now, because it was seen as normal."

Ms Brazier said going into town was an occasion, with women and children wearing their best clothing to shop, and eating in the upstairs restaurant.

"There weren't all these cafes then, except Fitzy's City Cafe (in Harris Scarfe) may have been there ... and they call Charles Street the `Paris part of Launceston' now, but back then it was a dive," she said.

"Men went there in cars to do dastardly things, it was seedy and horrible, and there were none of those cafes, just houses."