“It’s the challenge as much as anything”: three new shopkeepers defy the recession
“WE’RE ALL MAD,” laughs Lesley Skotsen, when I ask why people in West Dorset are opening shops during what’s supposed to be the worst recession for 70 years. “Mad! That must be the reason.”
Lesley’s new shop in Beaminster is called Djuna. A smart women’s boutique, it’s become the only stockist south of Birmingham of the Turkish label Fatos.
It’s not what I was expecting to see during a severe economic slowdown. I was expecting to see shops closing. Lots of them shutting down for quite a long time. I remember there were more than 40 empty shops during Bridport’s mid-1990s slump. I walked round town counting them. Beaminster suffered too.
This time round, though, it does seem to have been quite different. Woolworths in Bridport is empty, but what else? Not much.
That’s because people are seizing opportunities to start up for themselves. But why? I’ve been talking to Lesley, who opened on October 3; Beaminster butcher Nick Tett, who opened on July 20; and Peter Toms in Bridport, whose Kernow Pantry will start selling hot Cornish pasties on Monday, October 19. Their stories are revealing and inspiring.
“It was different in the 90s”
LESLEY SKOTSEN ran a clothes shop in Dorchester with her mother in the 1980s. Gizelle it was called, on Trinity Street, where the Tourist Information Centre now stands. More recently, she and her husband ran a little farm shop at Hooke near Beaminster, but she says West Dorset District Council made them take their signs down, so no-one knew they were there, and that was that.
Now she’s opened Djuna in Beaminster Square. Why? “It was a rainy weekend in May, my daughters who are both in their 20s were down, and we were saying there wasn’t a shop in Beaminster that was catering for country wear… things that you could walk your dog in and still look smart, or go for a walk in the woods, a comfortable range at a reasonable price, so we thought we’d try to fill a gap in the market between No. 21 and the designer clothes of Retail Therapy…”
Mrs Skotsen said she’d wanted to give some work to one of her daughters, who’d been working abroad for a few years, but now, back here, hadn’t been able to find much beyond bar work. The job centre in Bridport suggested she go abroad again… Mrs Skotsen preferred to enrol her in a family enterprise. Not an option that’s open to everyone, but a very telling sign of the times.
“And everything has seemed to work. I’ve had some nice mates… in fact everyone’s been so helpful, it’s like fate, it’s like it was meant to happen. It’s when something’s not meant to be that you have obstacles, but it has gone fairly smoothly and I think overall it’s very positive. Beaminster’s got a fantastic catchment area, and it’s on a through road, there’s a lot of people driving through, and there’s loads of parking, and some limited free parking. It’s not like it is in Dorchester now [where charges are made for on-street parking across the town centre], that puts people off. I hope Beaminster doesn’t get it.”
Two other factors: “It was different in the 90s, because they hiked the interest rates up, but it’s totally different at the moment, borrowing is very good, and people want to do something with premises and let them out and you can negotiate with the rents.”
Then there’s the issue of clustering. People can browse around Beaminster. It’s a destination. Djuna sits in-between popular gift shop Cilla & Camila and The Wild Garlic, the new café / restaurant run by Masterchef winner Mat Follas in premises that had been standing empty.
“If that had still been empty we wouldn’t have done it. But now our shop’s bang in the middle of The Wild Garlic and Cilla & Camilla and you can’t miss us.”
“No bang!”
PETER TOMS is the owner of Kernow Pantry, down past Waitrose towards the bottom of West Street in Bridport.
Why he’s doing it? “Because I’m Cornish, and it’s something I’ve wanted to do all my life… working for myself, being my own boss.”
Mr Toms’ past jobs have included 22 years as a bookbinder in Germany, then stints at Friary Press and Dorset County Council. But he didn’t see much future in printing, so – after quite a long search for suitable premises in Bridport town centre – he’s opening up his first shop.
He’s appealingly enthusiastic. When I stopped by for a chat, there were electricians there finishing wiring, and Peter could hardly wait to power up his shiny Italian ovens for the first time.
“No bang!” he and the sparks rejoiced.
So, from Monday morning, October 19, Kernow Pantry will be selling hot Cornish pasties from Helston, the same as those sold in The Celtic Kitchen in Antelope Walk in Dorchester. The Celtic Kitchen is a good little business (I must have eaten at least 100 pasties from there), and Mr Toms expects his venture to be similarly successful. He’s had 2000 flyers delivered around town, and he’s hoping to attract trade from the bus station, the police station, St Michael’s trading estate, AmSafe, shopworkers, people walking by…
So far it’s all gone pretty well. “The only problems I’ve had over the last 12 months have been with the bloody council,” says Peter, referring to West Dorset District Council. The owners of food premises often say they find it difficult getting planning permission (the council says it also has to safeguard the interests of other businesses and residents nearby). Mr Toms is also bitterly opposed to the take-up of empty shops by charities, which pay reduced rates. “There are no other people selling Cornish pasties in Bridport, and I didn’t want to see any more charity shops.”
Kernow Pantry is being officially opened by the Mayor of Bridport at 10am on Monday, October 26.
“People do like the local stuff”
NICK TETT looks remarkably fresh-faced and cheerful for a man who starts work at 6.30 in the morning and carries on until about 5.30 pm. “And that’s six days a week,” he says.
Never mind that he gets to work in the dark and will soon be going home in the dark as well. Nick Tett it says in big black and white letters outside the butcher’s in Beaminster Square, and that lights up his days.
“It’s what I’ve always wanted. It’s the challenge as much as anything. Doing all the buying and selling yourself. Seeing how the business works from behind the scenes. It’s been really good so far. Everyone’s been very welcoming, it’s quite encouraging.”
Nick was 14 when he started working part-time as a butcher at Norman’s in Bradpole. After he left school, he did seven years at Norman’s, then 11 at Frampton’s in Bridport.
He learned more and more about the arts of butchery and customer service, and he yearned more and more to get a place of his own. Two possibilities arose.
“I was looking at Lyme Regis first of all, there’s been no butcher in Lyme Regis for about three years, but the rents are so expensive there it’s horrendous…
“The first one fell through. The second one was halfway through going through, but then Charlie [the previous tenant of the Beaminster premises] finished and I had a phone call on the Sunday to say the shop was shut and it might be available.”
The recession didn’t put him off. “I went to the bank and they were all for it, I had a business plan all laid out, and they were quite encouraging.
“People have still have got to eat, and we’re quite lucky around here. People like to shop locally, people don’t want just supermarkets, people do like the local stuff and products from local suppliers.
“It’s all about selling what the customers want. I try to get what people want and keep an open mind.”