Page 11 - History Brief - Heaphys

Heapheys Redditch Heritage

'I loved my cash books. ledgers and journals. I also did the wages. Everything was done
by hand. I remember my first adding machine, I thought it was marvellous.

Before the war most shops would open until 7 o'clock on weekdays, 8 o'clock on a Friday
and 9 o'clock on a Saturday. When the war was on we had to finish much earlier, the
war had an effect on the closing times. Most towns used to have Wednesday half day,
today we are open all the week and sometimes on Sundays.'

'We moved from our old shop in New Street into the Kingfisher Centre when it opened
in about 1973. We watched the builders knock down the old premises in New Street. The
funny thing was that the builders had found a consignment of old red school caps. There
they were, knocking the premises down, all wearing these red caps.

'In 1964 Cyril bought a little shop on Church Green West. It had belonged to Mr Boyd,
they had sold fancy goods and cameras. He said that it might come in useful one day.
We recently moved out of the Kingfisher Centre into this shop and have extended it into
the first floor.

Since then we have gone on to buy businesses in Warwick, Rugby and Sutton Coldfield.
'Retail now is certainly very different to the old days. Then it was all over-the-counter.
Now that people are travelling so much we have to diversify to progress. We are carrying
much larger stocks which we change round to the different branches. If an item, doesn't
sell in one branch we can send it to another.

'Our saving grace over the multiple firms and big boys is the service that we give, of
which we are very proud. In the large stores people just go along and see rails of clothes
and they have to serve themselves. I see service in the main as helping people in their
purchases. Also, as a smaller company we can take an interest in the locality and get
involved in whatever is going on in your town or wherever you are. Over the years I have
held a variety of offices in the Mothers' Union, the WI, Redditch Ladies' Circle, the Inner
Wheel, and other societies. We have always taken an interest in Redditch, now we are
starting to do it elsewhere. Recently, our staff took part in a raft race which finished at
Stratford-on-Avon opposite the theatre, and we had a picnic there.

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