Back in 1995 at the age of 16, myself and my family moved to Sheffield as my parents bought a small shop in a Council Estate. I then spent the next 13 years with my brother and parents helping run the family business.

During this time, both my brother and myself attended College and then University whereas my brother decided not to further his education as he was presented with an opportunity in the Sheffield City Council. Despite this we both still had our fixed hours in the shop. Whilst I attended University and my brother worked for the Council, we both worked part-time helping out in the family business. This was of course for free.

Over the years (2002), the shop became free (loan paid off), but despite this I could see that the shop had potential to increase footfall and sales. My dad’s way of running the shop was an efficient one. As he would look at maximising his time on the road in order to get supplies for the shop and also overpaying on the mortgage in order to gain the shortest possible term. It was a struggle doing this as we all worked in the shop with the ultimate goal that once the shop was paid for we would see those funds put towards savings.

However shop life is not always like that and along the next 5 years we saw another shop come and go which also took a hit to our sales, we also had to bear some financial costs to remedial work required to the premises as we occupied the flat above the store.

Part Two —>