A Proud Heritage

Next time you go into Williams Newsagents in the village, cast your gaze above the counter and even above Judy or Olive – or whoever is serving – and take notice of a large photograph mounted above the door at the rear of the shop.

It dates from the late 1880s and shows Eli Williams and his family and was taken in the back garden behind the shop. Eli is the bearded gentleman, arms folded, in the centre of the group. It is shown here at the top of this article.

What makes the photo especially interesting is that Eli moved to Audlem from Tarporley in 1862 and took over a drapers shop on the site of what is today Williams Newsagents. Whilst the nature of the business may have changed over the years, the remarkable fact is that it has been in the continuous ownership of the Williams family since 1862, and that makes Judy, the current owner and the great-great-grandaughter of Eli, extremely proud.

Eli and family were strict baptists and liberals and did much to support the local chapel. Eli handed the business on to his oldest son George (hand on hip in the centre of the back row). The baby in the photo is Stanley (Judy's great-uncle) who took a different route through life and opened a garage in Audlem around 1920. By now, the drapery business had diversified into printing as well and had built a new printing shed on site financed by insurance money from an earlier fire.

George's daughter Hilda and husband Joseph Dutton purchased the business in 1934 for the sum of £400 (about £27,000 in today's money) and Judy has a framed copy of the official receipt which is shown here. The printing business came to an end by WWII. Hilda, Judy's grandmother was "a formidable business women" (to quote her granddaughter) who rode a motorbike and could drive cars and used to chauffeur the local doctor on his rounds. During this period, the business changed from bespoke drapery to selling manufactured items such as school uniforms, gentlemen's suits and Ladybird clothes. Over the years, the range of items offered for sale also broadened to reflect changing shopping trends and local requirements.

Judy came back to the village in 2000 to help her father (Derek McKelvey) with the business and took it over completely in 2013. She had previously worked for 17 years for Laura Ashley in Wales manufacturing textiles and wallpapers following a degree course in Business Studies at Edinburgh University followed by an M.Sc. in Textile Science from Bolton Institutes. More recently, she has joined the Audlem Educational Foundation, a body that awards bursaries and grants for local youngsters aged under 25 using money invested from the sale of the Grammar School when it closed in the 1950s.

We are constantly hearing that life in the High Street in retail is hard and there are many casualties. Talking to Judy, she is obviously well aware of this and has given much thought to how she wishes to develop her business. Her main conclusion is that, rather than continually trying to change things to keep up with the latest trends, she is instead seeking to make her shop a "Heritage Business" based on the concept of "the past is the future". This process has already started with changes to the internal layout and equipping of the shop but, says Judy, there is much more she wants to do so watch this space.

Her 2 other maxims for her shop are (to quote her directly)

• It must be a village service as well as a shop
• you have to sell what people want and/or need

Judy estimates that around one third of her customers are Audlem residents.

Finally, a good example of her "Heritage Business" approach is her vintage NCR till, the recent subject of a television programme. The till was acquired by George Williams in 1913 and was imported from America, probably in the 1890s. Expert opinion dates the till as one of the oldest in the country and it has pride of place in Judy's shop. It seems apt to include a picture showing Judy and her till painted by Ronnie Cruwys as one of a series of Audlem Paintings.

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