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built up shoe repairing and key cutting, he diversified into engraving, watch repairs, dry cleaning and photo processing. In September 1995 Timpson acquired 120 Automagic shops; in April 2003, 250 Minit UK shoe repair outlets; in June 2008, over 40 Sainsbury’s concessions; in December 2008, 187 Klick and Max Spielmann shops; in January 2017, 198 Johnsons and Jeeves dry cleaning branches. Throughout, though, Timpson has remained a private business wholly owned by John Timpson and his family.
Youth, education and second chances have long been his abiding passions. He was a trustee at Uppingham School and of Childline, until its merger with the NSPCC. He has been Chair of the Governors at Brookway High School in Wythenshawe, Delamere Primary Academy in Cheshire and Terra Nova School in Cheshire. He is also a member of the TBAP Multi- Academy Trust, which supports learners who are struggling with or have been excluded from mainstream education. He spearheads a campaign to encourage all schools to be aware of the special education needs of looked-after children and the highly- regarded series of supportive, instructive books he has written on the subject is available in schools and Timpson branches nationwide.
Today the company employs over 650 ex-offenders, a scheme which was started by John’s son, James, 17 years ago. At first John was understandably nervous about what colleagues and customers would say, but he didn’t need to worry. The majority of the public praise the company for giving people a second chance.
In 2004 he was awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to the retail sector and in 2017 he was knighted for his services to business and fostering.
He is clearly an intensely loyal and driven man. His warmth is genuine and reciprocated; as we toured his HQ, he stopped to chat with his fellow workers, greeting them all by name. He knew their stories and the names of their family members, and
his warmth was reflected.
His unflagging devotion to his late
wife, Alex, and his dedication to the Alex Timpson Trust are obvious. Together, they had three children, adopted two more and fostered “at least” 90, with many of whom he is still in touch. Most of his sentences refer at some point to Alex and it is clearly a source of real disappointment to him that her unending efforts on behalf of looked- after children resulted ‘only’ in an MBE. She died before he was knighted, but, he insists, had done more than enough to merit greater recognition in her own right.
The loyalty extends to those who work for him. Timpson provides a subsidised canteen, beauty salon, barber and gym at Timpson House; employees are automatically given their birthdays off; and the company has over 20 holiday chalets around the UK, where colleagues stay for free.
Writing is his main means of relaxing. Dear James (2000) passed to his son the lessons he had learned over 30 years as Chief Executive. How to Ride a Giraffe (2008) is a suitably idiosyncratic title for his manual of business philosophy. Upside Down Management (2010), Ask John (2014), High Street Heroes (2015) and Under Orders – the Diary of a Racehorse Owner’s Husband (2016), all successful sellers and well reviewed, were precursors to Keys to Success (2017), which was recognised as a Chartered Management Institute Management Book of the Year. Add to these the weekly column he has written for The Daily Telegraph for the last 11 years and it is hard to see how he manages time for his family and travel – and yet he does.
As we talk, it becomes apparent that Sir John’s memories of Oundle are decidedly mixed. He attributes the fact that he sent his own children to Uppingham to Alex, who, he says, wore the domestic trousers. But how much credit, I wanted to know, could Oundle claim for the extraordinary success Sir John has made of the family-owned and run business empire he heads? To what extent had the entrepreneurial spirit shown by so many Oundelians contributed to
this unorthodox, flourishing dynasty? “Not much” is his answer. He insists that he was one of those instantly forgettable schoolboys – always in the background, not contributing much, not really registering on anyone’s radar. Ever a maverick, never, he insists, an academic, one of his mottoes is “Do it your way” – and he certainly does; his curious mix of self deprecation and showmanship might confuse, but whatever it is he’s doing, it’s working. If he is perhaps a little ambivalent about his OO status, many are proud of it on his behalf: his June 2018 Oundle Lecture, What Happened Next, was a sell-out.
So, perhaps Sir John is wrong. Maybe his constructively anarchic streak was forged at Oundle; maybe his insistence on doing his own thing in his own way, based on an innate understanding of what people – employees, customers – want, was encouraged to flourish; maybe the “silly, pointless rules” (which buttons you could wear done up; the order in which your books had to be stacked when you carried them) were what caused him in later life to throw away the rulebook and start again; maybe the Oundle tradition of encouraging the individual freed him to do things his way. He says he is an inventor of ideas and an innovator. He maintains that his second mantra, “Just do it”, has proved instrumental in his life. Say “yes”, he says. Give it a go; do it your way; see what happens. Good advice, surely, but it takes a lot of hard work, courage and conviction – and real business acumen – to try things differently, and to succeed.
FEATURE
THE OLD OUNDELIAN 2017 –2018
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