Clock’s Home and Garden Centre in Scarborough celebrates 50 years of trading

Clock’s Home and Garden Centre, on Victoria Road, began trading as Clock Handyman on December 6, 1973.

The business was set up by Geoff Kemp and his wife Christine at the beginning of the nation’s obsession with DIY.

The couple’s daughter Jane Kemp-Buglass said: “My father was a decorator, but he could see that people were wanting to do it for themselves.

“In fact, the store opened in the same year that B & Q opened at a time when people very much wanted to transform their own homes.

“People were making cushions and bedroom furniture etc, they sold a lot of products for decorating and garden furniture, that kind of thing.”

The couple found the ideal location in the former Biddick’s haberdashery story, underneath the clock on Gladstone Road and soon faced their first problem - what to call their store.

Geoff asked his daughter, Jane, then eight, what she thought and she asked who would buy what the store sold, and so the Handyman part of the name was created.

Then came the conundrum, how would people find the business - answer: underneath the clock - and so Clock Handyman was born.

Christine and Geoff came up with a novel idea to promote their new enterprise.

Having moved to Scarborough from Nottingham they did a special promotion for anyone who arrived at the shop dressed as Robin Hood on opening day, and people clad in Lincoln green queued around the block to take advantage of the offer - it must have been quite a sight.

The clock became so integral to the identity of the store that when the shop moved to its current premises on Victoria Road in 1985, Christine and Geoff took the clock with them.

The family business has seen three generations work there, son John and daughter Sally both took their turn at working in the store, and in 2013, when Geoff and Christine retired, daughter Jane Kemp-Buglass and husband Neil Buglass took over the business.

Neil and Jane’s daughter Natalie is now the third generation of the family to work at the store.

Jane said: “The 70s were hard times, not unlike today.

"The 80s brought ‘the sheds’. B&Q, Homebase and more spreading across the country and taking the business of the smaller hardware stores.

“Nothing however has been as ‘store’ destroying as the t’internet!

“The World Wide Web has spun itself inside all our homes and changed the way we shop, I’m thinking, forever.

“On the web we are a tiny name that was found mainly by people looking for clock repairs or handymen - not really our audience!”

For more than half a century, Clock’s have been one of the go-to places for Scarborough’s DIY and gardening enthusiasts.

They have expanded their range to include rugs, soft furnishings, home decor and workwear and rebranded the store to become Clock’s Home and Garden Centre.

They have also forged partnerships with local businesses including the Stephen Joseph Theatre and Scarborough Athletic Football Club.

Jane said: “The thing we’re most proud of is that we’re completely independent and family orientated.

“We like to think we respond quickly to local demand and we’re very proud of that.”