Frank Caswell was an upholsterer and had an apprenticeship in Northampton and then decided that he wouldn’t mind doing his own furniture business. Before the Second World War he started a little bit of furniture business in Rushden and then after the war he had the first part of the showroom built. This part was the frontage of the showroom and he did trading a little while until – I’ve gone a little bit forward there. He was a fireman during the war and he couldn’t do any more of his upholstery but then he had part of the showroom and he started off after the war. Certainly he was very happy doing a lot of family business. I joined them in the beginning of 1953, coming out of National Service. In those days it was quite a different arrangement as it is today. One or two things that I do remember is that if people saw a nice piece of furniture they’d say. 'I’d love to have that'. We would say. 'Well, we could do hire purchase for you'. They almost felt as if we had disgraced them and would say. 'No, we are not doing hire purchase, if we can’t afford we won’t have it.' They would come back later when they had the money.

Roomsetting

The carpet department

I started basically on the shop floor selling the furniture when I got to know the furniture. But then he wanted me to learn about doing the carpet fitting and so for quite a number of years I became the carpet fitter. One interesting point is, in the early days, there wasn’t the big broadloom carpets in those days and you had the 27 inch width carpet which had to be sewn  together. The person that sewed them together for us was an ex-saddler as you couldn’t get people to sew up the carpet and this guy really knew how to do stitching. His name was Mr. Brawn and he lived down Carnegie Street. That went on in the carpet trade for quite a number of years and then the manufacturers started to get broadloom carpets that were 9 foot and 12 foot wide. You could still get the 27 inch that you could use on the stairs or whatever.

Eventually, and I think it was actually to do with Mrs. Caswell (she was a Kettering person) and she kept saying. 'I like to get back to live in Kettering.' I forget which month it was but it was 1969 and I was out on a job about lunch time and when I came back to the shop, although all the lights were on, I couldn’t get in. So I pushed the door and I couldn’t get in and then Mr Caswell came to the door with two people who I didn’t know and he opened the door and said. 'Oh Alan I’ve bought a shop in Kettering'. I must come back a bit now, I worked for him in this Kettering shop in the early ‘60s and I went to Kettering twice a week. It was in the early days of Corby and we used to do a tremendous trade in Corby. The only thing was that at seven o’clock in the evening I could be in Corby and I had to get back to Rushden. So, of course, I had to do quite a long day in those days.

Anyway, to get back to the day when I couldn’t get into the shop. He introduced those two men to me and said. 'I have sold the shop so that I have only the shop in Kettering'. Whether they would do that today I don’t know but he had sold the shop. 'This is Tom Calland and this is Alf Holtom, they have bought the shop and have made you a director.' So I started then in 1969 as sales director of Calland & Holtom, that’s when it all started. Mr. Calland had to build up the business as it was a brand new name to Rushden. The good part about it for the customers was that I was there, I had worked in that showroom for seventeen years. They came in and said. 'Ah, Alan you’re here', and I said. 'Yes, I’m a director of this new company,” and the customers settled.

The quality of the furniture that Tom Calland carried on with was absolutely superb. We had furniture, not only the best of British, but the best of other countries as well. I’ll just tell you this little bit. One incident, you’ve got to remember this is a family business doing quality furniture, I picked up the phone one morning and the gentleman said. 'I understand you do Stressless furniture.' I said. 'Yes, we do'. He said. 'Have you got a so and so suite.'  I said. 'Yes, we have.' He said. 'What colour is it?' I said. 'Black leather'. There was dead silence. He said. 'I don’t know if it is a bit of a problem but I actually live in Yorkshire.' I said. 'I don’t think it’s a problem. We can deliver to you it’s no problem.' He said. 'I’ll tell you what, I’ll have it. I’ll give you my credit card number and you can make sure you have the money then arrange with me for delivery.' I do remember that three piece suite was £3000. Family furnishers do quality furniture and the people picked up the name of the merchandise either in an advert from television or a magazine and found out that we were one of the suppliers of the furniture. So we actually delivered that one to Yorkshire and that wasn’t unique, we even delivered to Wales. A local person was moving to Wales and said. 'I don’t want to buy from a place I don’t know. If I order something from you can you deliver it to Wales?' So that’s how we went.

When Tom was in his heyday, it was him who expanded the size of the shop. It had only two windows but he re-housed the couple next door and took over the house and had a big extension out the back. Of course in the house you have the lounge, the dining room, the upstairs and they were all extended and their garden and this made the shop nearly half as big again in size to what it was. That was another thing, you weren’t coming into a very, very small shop. Reps from various companies wanted to vet where their furniture was being sold and it was all quality so therefore was no harm in us getting what we wanted.

After the extension in 1971

I ended up in that shop for 52 years. I never thought I would when I went there in 1953 but I did. Unfortunately in 1997 Tom Calland, he was in his spare time a keen golfer, and one day he said. 'I don’t know what I’ve done with my leg but I think I must have caught it on gorse when I went to get my ball back.'  I said. 'Perhaps you have Tom.' He carried on but he started not coming to work regularly. Then, one day he said. 'All my leg is in pain.' And that was the beginning of cancer and in 1997 he actually died. His son Paul, he was only about 25 or 26, had to take over or sell up and he decided to take over, still doing the quality merchandise and we went on from there. I think one of the reasons that Paul has decided to close down was the fact that he was very keen on the furnishing trade but he probably wanted to do other things as well, and he may be taking advantage of the problems at the moment in the trades that are closing places so that he is backing out.

You probably think that someone who worked in the shop for fifty years was absolutely mad. I have to say that the manufacturers we used invited us to exhibitions, in Earls Court and in Birmingham. We went to these exhibitions to look at furniture and buy it and basically we were treated like royalty, obviously as we were actually buying from the manufacturer. I had an occasion where, because we were doing more and more continental type of furniture, I was asked to go to Belgium to see some furniture there. I was picked up by the U.K. rep and flown from Stansted to Ostend to see the Belgian furniture and that was a very good day out. A lot of the quality furniture was being made in Southern Ireland and I was invited over to see the furniture being made. We met at Birmingham Airport and when I walked into the airport the tannoy was asking for Mr. Alan Benning to see the representative of the Armitage furniture. We met at a firm spot and then I flew to Ireland to see the furniture. We just went for the quality.

As time went on upholstery furniture reclined and in leather were things that weren’t available years ago. We used to do a lot with a firm that most people know, G-Plan.  I must say that where Northamptonshire was the shoe county High Wycombe was one of the furniture counties years ago. I believe that either furnishers closed down or moved somewhere else. We started to get quite a lot of furniture from South Wales as Wales was being used to build factories for people that wanted to put their furniture or anything in there or to give the South Wales people a job. That was probably a Government thing.

I don’t know what medium it was through, but we would be asked if somebody who had won a competition could come into the shop and have a photograph taken in the shop. I can’t remember now what competitions they were. They weren’t Miss England or anything like that but they wore sashes and then of course it could be advertised in the papers as Calland and Holton furnishers with Miss Someone. We had quite a number that displayed on the furniture, basically sitting on suites etc. I can’t remember them all now but there were quite a number. It’s been a long time ago. It was probably through the Evening Telegraph, we did a lot with the Evening Telegraph.