People are often surprised when they hear that I switched careers from one of retailing fashions to designing and creating gardens, John Shortland writes, but the two aren’t as different as they at first seem. Both require an understanding of colour and texture as well as the right seasonal weather to be successful! Shop Days My family owned Arthur Shortland Limited, a double-fronted shop on the south side of The Parade in Bourne End. It had been started by my great-grandfather around 1900 and it was inevitable, perhaps, that I would also join the business upon leaving school.
The store, as many will remember, sold not just men’s and ladies’ fashions and footwear but also children’s clothing and shoes, as well as linens, fabrics, haberdashery and all the other items one might expect to find in a small department store. It ceased trading in 1994. I left school in 1968 at the age of sixteen and persuaded my parents that I was old enough to cycle around the West Country for a couple of weeks on my own.
There were no credit cards or mobile phones in those days and so contact was maintained through postcards. With no consideration for my parent’s concerns, I was able to avoid going home for several months. The reason behind my reluctance to return was that I had found work on a remote Exmoor hill farm which I now never wanted to leave.
One day my parents appeared there to take me home to begin my retail career – they had procured a training place for me at Suters Store.