Page 18 - OO_2018

FEATURE
Sir John does it his way
Old Oundelian Editorial Board member Polly Irvine interviews Sir John Timpson (S 60) and discovers what makes Timpson’s highly successful owner tick
Timpson – your friendly high was a very accomplished mechanic everything, including, most
and “tinkerer”, and who was determined that his son would benefit from all that the outstanding workshops had to offer. Sir John maintains, however, that he was and remains intensely impractical, and that he “loathed” his hours spent toiling at the lathe. Indeed, his whole Oundle career was, he insists, entirely unspectacular. And yet, despite having done “so poorly” in the scholarship exam that he was asked to take Common Entrance, he took a mere four years to acquire a handful of O levels and three A levels while playing (very badly, he claims) the viola in the orchestra and singing in the Chapel Choir – and enjoying the odd game of fives and many, many rounds of golf. He detested rugby but loved football and was outraged when it was declared unsuitable for Oundelians to play and abandoned as a school sport. His best friend was Simon Cussons, who always had the newest and best of
street shoe repairer, key
cutter, dry cleaner and engraver. But there is so much more to the man behind the brand.
I met Sir John at the extraordinary Timpson House, on a very ordinary light industrial estate on the outskirts of Manchester. The foyer is a fully kitted-out Timpson shop, complete with key blanks, awning, till - and a sweet stall. Bright colours abound; a red carpet to the door for the Very Important Colleagues, who walk it every day, a shiny fireman’s pole, two traditional phone boxes, a fake camel and a pair of 6ft-high besequinned stilettos await – not your everyday working environment for a long-established success story. Last year Timpson had revenues of £250million, 2,000 owned stores and 5,600 employees, of whom more than 10% are ex-prisoners.
In the days before children had any say in their schooling, Oundle was chosen for him by his father, who
impressively, an electric frying pan – which was swiftly confiscated after he managed to short the entire House with it!
At his father’s insistence, he embarked on a career in accountancy straight from school. His first trainee job involved sorting receipts into one of two piles. After 10 weeks he marched into his father’s office to tell him that this was not where his future lay. So, to Nottingham University to read Industrial Economics, where he took over the running of the dry-cleaning and shoe-mending service on campus and, most importantly, got his golf handicap down to 6.
Thence to William Timpson Limited, where he was expected to prove his worth. Progression was swift; by 1975 he was Managing Director. In 1983 he led a £42million management buyout of the company and in 1987 he sold the shoe shops to rival retailer George Oliver. Having
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THE OLD OUNDELIAN 2017 –2018