On the move again

I worked for Superdrug and Share drugstores in the late 70s and 80s. Both businesses used the same model of having a central distribution centre where suppliers delivered, and minimal stocks in the branch. We kept accurate stock and order records (this was pre- EPOS and computers) and we ordered what we needed every week.
It meant that the companies didn't have their cash tied up in slow selling stock in the branches, which was the downfall of Lewis Meeson's.
I left Meesons after they'd been taken over by Martins and moved up the High Street to Share Drug Store, a company in the same mould as Superdrug. It was a brand new shop, and I was sent to another store for training while the builders fitted the store out. I enjoyed working there, it was a much better atmosphere than Superdrug, and they were expanding.
We'd been living in Somerset for about three years. I loved our house but the towns were all a bit small for an ambitious retail manager. After a succesful Christmas I was ready for a change.
Share had about 140 stores, mostly in the southern counties, with a distribution centre in Southampton. One day I was looking at the list of branches when I noticed thatthey were proposing to open a branch in St Ives. It was a few weeks after we'd been to Cornwall on holiday, and we'd spoken about the possibility of moving down there. In the end we decided against it, because of the lack of alternative employment should the job not work out.
Suddenly the company was opening a branch in St Ives. I looked long and hard and then realised that it was St Ives in Cambridgeshire!
We'd lived in deepest Somerset for three years, and the locals were only just acknowledging our presence. I'd always treated the move as temporary, and we'd visited every tourist attraction within 30 miles, so I was ready to return to the Midlands.
I talked it over with my wife and we agreed that I should apply for the post. I heard back within a few days. I'd been successful. All I had to do was train my successor and I could move up in time to recruit the staff and fit the store out. However, the company would not be paying my relocation costs.
We put our house on the market. We'd been there for three years and had turned a very run-down property that lacked a kitchen or central heating into a nice comfortable end of terrace home with a very large garden, not overlooked, on the edge of town and with views out over the Mendips. We'd paid £22k for it 9in 1984) and sold it for £37.5k in 1987.
However, it still wasn't enough to buy a house anywhere near Cambridge. St Ives was about ten miles from Cambridge and the most we could afford there was a tiny two bedroom quadrant home. We decided to move to Kettering and I would commute, although the A604 wasn't the best road to travel on.
I moved up to stay with Sue's relatives and began the job of getting St Ives store open. She rang me one day to say that someone had agreed to buy the house. I said that she should get in her car and come up and buy us a house in Kettering.
So she did. She put Chris in the child's seat, sent Jayne to school and drove the 150 or so miles to Kettering. She walked into an Estate Agent just as a couple were placing their house on the market. She had a look around and did the deal there and then. She then drove back home and told me what she'd done when I rang her later that night.

Sue packed everything and arranged the move while I worked to get the store open. She moved on the day I opened the store. We had to stay in her parent's spare bedroom that night, as we couldn't get the keys until the following morning.


St Ives was a succesful store that made money right from the start. We had a good team of staff and we all got on well. It was a bind travelling 35 miles each way each day, with only the last few miles on dual carriageway. I began to look around for somewhere a little closer to home.
As luck would have it, the company had signed a lease on a shop unit in Corby, just down the road. I was all set to transfer there when the news came through that the owner of the company had put it up for sale- and the new owners were- Superdrug.


Four years on and I had come full circle. I was going to be working for Superdrug again.
Oh bliss. Not.