In 1962, AS a talented 11-year-old, Kevin Pease stood on the stage of the Garforth Cinema playing saxophone in a youngsters’ pop group, entertaining the audience during the breaks at the kids’ Saturday matinee film performance. Nowadays that exact spot is about six feet from the cash desk of his family’s hardware and houseware store, Pease of Garforth.

To the dismay of some in the village near Leeds, Kevin oversaw the demolition of the long-closed cinema in 1991 when he was creating his vision for the business his grandfather had opened in 1918. To convert an untidy three-storey warehouse – formerly the storage unit of a musical instrument importer – and to the knock down the adjacent cinema, he took a bank loan of £260,000, the equivalent of about £740,000 in today’s values. Nobody could ever accuse Kevin of not having confidence in himself.

Looking at the neat and well-organised store today, with thousands of lines superbly presented, and 28 spaces in the car park outside, it’s clear that his bold move has paid off. “If we hadn’t acquired the freehold then, we wouldn’t be here now,” the straight-talking Kevin admits. “It was a huge commitment to do what I did, but I was tired of being messed around by landlords. I thought taking on the refurbishment of the old warehouse was too much, but luckily a builder friend persuaded me to go for it.”

The impressive building at the top of the high street is the fourth home for Pease of Garforth, which was set up 100 years ago by Kevin’s grandfather, Charles, in a very small shop half way down the street. Wounded in the knee in the First World War, Charles started by selling pots and pans, an early link with the extensive cookshop selection seen today. Helped by his wife Florence, the business prospered, with Charles visiting local villages with a horse and cart to hawk his wares.

Just after World War II, the family moved into a larger unit in the high street, living above the shop. Kevin was born in the property in 1951. By this time his father Reg and mother Cora were in charge and at the age of 16 Kevin joined the business, working in the separate builders’ yard a few hundred yards away. “My dad didn’t really want me involved. He wanted me to go and work somewhere else to get some life experience, but that didn’t happen,” he recalls.

He took over from Reg in the early 1980s by which time the former shop had been converted into a business called The China Cabinet, selling the likes of Royal Doulton and Wedgwood. It was run by Cora and Kevin’s wife Hazel. The main hardware business had been relocated to a nearby larger property, a former Co-op building, directly opposite the modern store.

A demand for increased rent prompted the bold purchase of the current property. Following this final move, over the past 27 years, Kevin has built up a positive reputation in the national hardware industry to mirror the one the business has had locally since the 1920s, but he still maintains that he might be able to do better.

“I don’t know anything apart from what my dad taught me or I learned for myself. I don’t have advisors. I have always just kept my head down and worked at it. I always believed that if I worked hard, I’d succeed. We always had our local competitors even before the big boys started appearing, but I don’t look at what other retailers are doing. I just try and do everything right. This business works - and that hasn’t happened by accident,” he says.

Kevin has been passing on this common-sense approach to retailing to his son Matthew, 34, for the past 17 years.

Matthew avoided going straight into the business from school, but when the shopfitting firm where he was an apprentice went bust after a year, history repeated itself and the fourth Pease generation joined the third in the firm. The pair are now business partners.

The China Cabinet was closed several years ago, so now Pease’s comprises the main store and the long-established builder’s merchants a minute’s walk away. Although he declines to quote precise figures, Kevin reveals the store accounts for 60% of sales.

Despite his assertion that he does things the old way, Kevin was an early adopter of EPOS, having the first system installed about 25 years ago. He is a great believer in having a detailed breakdown of stock control and performance of his 30,000 lines, but he remains in charge.

“The EPOS system is essential, but you don’t let it make your decisions for you. If an accountant came here, they would say we are doing it all wrong, that we have too much stock in some areas, but it’s worth buying up a lot of stock if there is a good deal going. The system can give you figures, but you still have to use your brain.”

While technology generally has worked well for Pease’s, it failed spectacularly three years ago when its computer system was seized in a cyber attack. Returning to work after a Bank Holiday weekend, Kevin received an email demanding a ransom to have control restored. He ignored that but was faced with the problem of having lost almost all his back-office information on staff, stock and suppliers.

Luckily the tills still worked, so trade could continue immediately, and some records were recovered, but it took a year to get back fully to where they had been. “We paid a firm £8,000 to support and maintain our systems the previous year, but they clearly didn’t do a good job and they were useless once it had happened,” says Kevin, who still has no idea who the cyber-hackers were.

At the time the firm was running a transactional website, but this was suspended after the attack. As well as celebrating their centenary, this year Kevin and Matthew are re-entering the world of ecommerce with a new site, built and run by RBA. Five tills have already been installed as part of a new integrated system.

“At one time we were taking up to £3,000 a day on eBay with the old site, but once you take all the costs into account, especially the returns, all the margin was eaten away,” says Kevin. “But we need to be online to compete. We know it is possibly a lot of work for little return, but we want it also to be integrated with social media – we need to do more of that. The reality of an independent retailer’s life on the internet is that we are just scraping up the crumbs left by Amazon, John Lewis and the other big guys.”

Everything for the site will be done in-house, with the staff photographing the product and adding content.

While the eCommerce site represents the future, Kevin still believes in the old-fashioned values of getting out to shows and events to meet with suppliers and other retailers.

“I don’t understand people who don’t go to shows. It’s good to be out talking to people, seeing what new products are around and what deals are going. If you have a good face-to-face relationship with your suppliers, they are more likely to think of you when they have an offer.”

The centenary celebrations will be centred on an open day in July, but throughout the year there is a weekly draw for a £100 voucher for customers to spend in-store. In May the Tour de York-shire cycle race will pass up the high street, so that’s a good excuse to invite good customers to watch it from Pease’s car park. “It will be a good day for customer relations,” says Kevin.

With 100 years completed, Pease of Garforth looks to have a secure future as Matthew is going to be a dad for the first time later this year. “So that’s the fifth generation already started,” he says with a smile.

Pease of Garforth
76 Main Street, Garforth, Leeds LS25 1AA (main store)