The 87- year- old still in charge of her classic shop
Ann Clough has been in charge of Whiteley’s for 60 years and has no plans to give up yet
IT HAS been an institution in Bridlington for 119 years, with generations of shoppers beating a path from the West Riding to stock up on knickers and nighties.
Ann Clough, 87, this year is celebrating her 60th anniversary at the helm of Ernest Whiteley & Co, which her grandfather opened in 1901.
Her draper’s shop at 67 Promenade is a relic of yesteryear, with its 1930s layout and staples including net curtains, bed socks, tea cosies and ladies underwear for the over 60s which “ordinary shops have forgotten”.
Chair backs, arm caps and linen tea towels are stacked in huge mahogany cases, while more obscure items for sale include “interlock underwear” made from a knit fabric “which your grandma would have worn – but they knew a comfortable fabric when they saw one”.
The dozen mannequins predate Ann, with one or two going back to the 1930s and some lacking a finger or two.
These days she says the shop is more of a hobby with her “very, very good” assistant Sue Walker, who has been working there for 32 years, after joining on the Youth Training Scheme at 18, now running the show.
After four months of lockdown, she reopened as soon as she could in July, as she had been “bored to tears”.
Ms Clough admits they have not really made profit for a year or two and her accountant told her “you can’t go on being a branch of social services forever” – but she says it keeps her out of mischief.
“I am serving the third generation now,” she said.
“The West Riding think we are wonderful. We set our stall out for the over 60s – I think our oldest customer is 104. They still want knickers and nighties. They will drive 50, 60, 70 miles to come and stock up here, but in Bridlington we are just part of the scenery.
“We have always been here. We get a lot of elderly gentlemen who are left to fend for themselves. Their wives are ill. There are no district nurses coming round.
“It’s not unusual for an older man to produce a pair of knickers and say: ‘ I want another six pairs like this.’
“We are the sort of shop they feel comfortable in. I have a certain reputation. Not long ago I had a lady and gentleman, and he said: ‘ I bring my wife in every three weeks so she can have a
good rant with you, it makes her feel better.’”
She said another husband, whose wife was looking at dressing gowns but did not need one, told his spouse that she was in the presence of Auntie Wainwright – the highly persuasive bric- a- brac shop owner in the BBC sitcom Last
of the Summer Wine. Ms Clough said: “And she did buy the dressing gown – God bless her. He put his hand in his pocket and give me the money.”
A sign above her head seems to sum up the situation: “To open a shop is easy – to keep it open is an art.” Ms Clough, who has been a member of the local operatic
society for 60 years, last treading the boards in The King and I four years ago, does not believe that there is a future for shops like hers, faced with “colossal” rates and suppliers willing to trade only online. And she says: “People say to me, ‘ We’ll find you dead behind the counter and I say, ‘ More than likely.’”
They still want knickers and nighties. They’ll drive 70 miles to stock up. Ann Clough, boss of Ernest Whiteley & Co.