Posted:11-October-2013
OPC franchisee maintains longest relationship with retailer
In 1967, at the age of 14, a young boy called Paul Clarke began a Saturday job with his new boss, Chris Rasmussens in a shop in Skegness.
This was in the day of the returnable beer bottles where the customer returned the bottle and was given a refund of his deposit, (only about three pence in old money). It was Paul’s first job to sort all the returned bottles into crates for collection by the breweries and soft drink suppliers. His other responsibility was to bag the potatoes into 5lb bags.
Chris was obviously happy with Paul’s progress and he was promoted to cutting 40lb blocks of cheese into wedges and wrapping them in waxed paper. For this, he was paid the princely sum of half a crown, (12 and a half pence in today’s currency), an hour. And there was a new responsibility for Paul – he also used to babysit Chris and his wife’s baby son, Karl.
As Paul got older and more experienced, he went on to manage the store every winter as well as a holiday camp store in the summer, which Chris also owned. After working for Chris for a total of 27 years, Paul eventually bought the Boston store from Chris, which he later sold before joining OPC as a franchisee for the Lincolnshire area.
Sadly, Chris died in April 2012 and his son Karl, carried on running Chris’ last remaining store in Skegness until he moved to managing it when in August 2013, Costcutter took over the store as a company owned store.
Today Paul’s links are as strong as ever with the Skegness store. After having installed OPC product in the store around two years before Chris passed away, Paul continues to service the store and catch up with Karl on a regular basis. Who would have thought that the same Paul Clarke who started out his working life in a store in Skegness would still have such a strong connection with the same store 46 years later!
Established in 1991, OPC’s franchise network has had complete UK coverage for over 20 years and is a full member of the British Franchise Association. Some franchisees are now selling their existing territories as they retire or move on to new business opportunities, creating huge potential for new owners to step in!
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