Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Self-made man who’s helped thousands turn their houses into homes
When a young carpenter back in the 1960s noticed his customers were increasingly keen on having a go at a spot of DIY, he had an idea, as Janet Hughes discovers
MENTION DIY and most of us will imagine wandering around the vast aisles of B&Q looking for the perfect shade of emulsion or picking up matching accessories from the likes of B&M Bargains.
But for thousands of people across the Forest of Dean, do-it-yourself means Carpenters DIY. Viv Carpenter’s DIY.
Viv was selling wallpaper, paint and Formica to turn our houses into homes decades before Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen started changing rooms.
DIY on a budget has been the story of his life since the age of 21, and he has fought off competition from the “the big boys”.
“Online has it’s place, but it will never take the high street out, never,” said Viv, who has just handed over the keys to his flagship store in Cinderford at the age of 85 due to ill health. Last year, he leased the one in Coleford.
“I know I go against the grain here, but we are busier than ever and I think high streets will come good.
“If you want to do a job and you need a tin of paint, you don’t want to drive 14 miles to Gloucester to get it.
“You come in here to buy the paint so you can get the job done.
“Then you find out we do the brushes cheaper, and next time you need something you come back.”
As the local answer to B&Q, the Carpenter family have decorated homes across the Forest of Dean for decades and Viv is a familiar sight in his red van.
Between them, they rent out 14 shops selling various products and 54 residential properties. They also own the Woodlands pub and restaurant.
It all started when only-child Viv left school at 15 and decided to build his own shop in the garden of a dress shop belonging to his parents, grocers Arthur and Ivy Carpenter.
At that time it was called Top Dec and sold wallpaper at three shillings a roll.
“I was 21 when I started my own business,” said Viv, who had worked in a factory, completed an apprenticeship at Griffiths’ Joinery and passed a City and Guilds exam in general building by the time he was old enough for the key of the door.
“I knew when I left school what I wanted to do and the whole purpose of the apprenticeship was to be my own boss.
“I wanted to be a carpenter and then start a joinery. When people started coming into the joinery for offcuts of wood I realised there was something in it.
“I put a shop on the side of it and then customers started asking for bits and pieces of DIY, so I thought it was worth doing something with that.”
As well as the original store, he opened a DIY shop in Coleford, a wallpaper centre in Cinderford and the Birdcage boutique in Ross-onWye that brought 1960s flared trousers to the rural market towns.
In 1974, he closed the Birdcage and consolidated his two Cinderford shops into his main new DIY store, which he says was mentioned in a play by TV playwright Dennis Potter, who came from Berry Hill.
He believes the DIY craze started when people realised they did not need professional decorators to paint and wallpaper their homes and companies responded by making products they could buy in normal shops.
It was fuelled by the growth in home ownership and hobbycrafts, which saw companies produce kits so people could make their own rugs, lampshades and woven baskets.
Older people in the Forest still remember the catchphrase, “If you want a new shelf, do it yourself ” that he used to advertise his shops in the local cinema in Coleford.
Another catchy jingle went “Made a table? Glad you were able”.
Part-time Saturday girl Sue Weaver began working in the Cinderford shop full-time as soon as she left school at 15 and realised the potential of staging decades before IKEA began building rooms in their stores to showcase their wares.
She won a national prize for her Silver Jubilee window and often worked through the night to create eye-catching displays to bring customers through the door.
Inside the shop she tried to keep up with trends in homewares, and a whole section devoted to open fires shows she was on the ball when log burners came into fashion.
“We try to create a room setting so when you buy your wallpaper you can get your paint, lamps and everything you need in the same place,” explained Sue, who is retiring at the age of 67 after spending her whole working life with Carpenters.
“First we buy the wallpaper and then get everything to go with it: the canvases, the vases, all the accessories. People come in here looking for ideas. Everybody is fashion-conscious now, not only with clothes but with their house.”
Nowadays the exciting weekly buying trips to places like the Potteries have stopped, but she still has trusted suppliers who always help her out when customers ask her to get products.
She does not have a computer, ordering everything by mostly buying British.
Knowing the shop was in good hands, Viv started building projects, leaving the everyday running to Sue.
The developer in him used the general building skills he had learned at college to build an estate of 28 houses and a row of eight flats and seven shops at Beresford Court in Cinderford.
He also began buying up high fax, and street shops and other properties to revamp and rent out. But he also made himself well-known in the shop where, in the early days before the internet, customers sought out his professional knowledge to avoid DIY disasters.
In fact, he is so well-known in the town he has his own little hideaway behind the stands in the large, busy wool section of the shop where we go to try to talk uninterrupted.
A steady stream of delivery people bearing sand and cement, fence paint and other products in short supply that he has managed to get for his regulars peek around the displays to say goodbye.
If he doesn’t stock it, he and Sue will do their utmost to get it for their customers, he explains, saying this is one of their strengths.
When the “big boys” came along he would quote B&Q prices to suppliers and ask for the same deal for products ranging from clothes horses to coal scuttles so he could compete on price.
“We can keep up with the B&Qs of this world because we don’t have all those overheads,” he said. “They
When people started coming into the joinery for offcuts of wood I realised there was something in it. I put a shop on the side of it and then customers started asking for bits and pieces of DIY VIV CARPENTER
need warehouses, lorries, directors and have to buy in bulk. I bought this place for £35,000 and I haven’t paid any rent all the time I have been here. We own the building, have two staff and work from a lower margin.
“The big boys can’t afford the kind of personal service we have in here: people who ask ‘can I help you?’ when you come in through the door or say ‘come with me’ when someone wants to buy a washer.”
His only daughter knows full well what a hard bargain he can strike.
She was packing nails from four years old and jokes that he paid her a penny a bag because she had to earn her pocket money.
“It was an education,” he says, shaking his head. I had to make her realise things were worth working for. It worked, too. She got the bug, and look at her now”.
Tracey started working with her father at 18 and after spell working for Cavendish House now runs the property side of the business, which Viv started with an £11,000 mortgage on a house that is now five rented flats. When Woolworths went out of business, he bought the shop, and his property empire is so well-known that people joke that he owns half of Cinderford.
He admits he has an apartment in Marbella and has a love of classic cars but says it’s as much about the buzz of the business as the money.
“I could come to work in a Bentley if I wanted to, but I come in a van,” he says. “My dad always wanted a Rolls Royce, so when he died I went up to Cheltenham and ordered a brand new one in red.
“They couldn’t get it for six months so I put down a £5,000 deposit.
“But it was 1989 and it arrived just as the recession started and I felt guilty every time I drove it.
“It was something I had always wanted and I had it for 17 years, but I always felt guilty driving it. I ended up selling it for £15,000.”
Tracey and wife Janet have persuaded him to lease his flagship store to a tenant who has bought the stock, and Viv believes new planning laws that will bring people to live in town centres, and the fall out from Covid, means it will thrive.
“I have one empty shop at the moment and some people came to see it yesterday,” he said, adding that customers were queuing to come in during the lockdown.
“They have an online business but they want a base to work from and to sell over the counter as well.
“Certain trades will go because of online but you can’t do tattooing, nail bars, barber shops hairdressing, cafes, or anything like that online, and they will bring people into town.
“People don’t want to sit at home doing their shopping on the sofa, they want to go out. They want to socialise. They want to walk around the shops and have a cup of coffee.
“My mum and dad wouldn’t have thought of coming to the town centre and having a coffee but everybody does it now.
“People say the high street is full of empty shops, but where are they? I don’t see them here.”
He may be getting on in years and is no longer in the best of health after a five-year battle with cancer, but he’s still sharp and doesn’t relish retirement.
He certainly won’t be doing any DIY at his home in Ruardean.
After correcting Tracey when she says they have 13 shops instead of 14, he taps his head lightly with the knuckles of his right hand and laughs: “See, it’s still all there.
“I’m just as keen as I was when I started all those years ago. I’ll still be busy. If it wasn’t for my age and my health, I’d still be carrying on.”