Much-loved Nottingham shop celebrates 50 years in business

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Not many of the businesses around when they opened still exist today

Three different homes, flooding, a lengthy closure during the pandemic and those "nightmare" 5p stickers but there's also been a lot of fun along the way as one of Nottingham's retail gems, The Tokenhouse, celebrates it 50th birthday this year. The owners have seen many a change in the retail industry over the last five decades.

The Tokenhouse is one of a handful of shops in the city centre from the 1970s to survive today. There's Weavers, the wine merchants, Gauntleys, the purveyor of whiskeys and cigars, M&S, Jessops which became John Lewis and Paul Smith. They later knocked through into next door to expand on what was considered Nottingham's most upmarket shopping street. "The menswear shop next door wanted to buy our lease and knock the two together and I convinced him to sell me his," said Geoff.

By this time The Tokenhouse had expanded its stock. Rolls of 5p stickers - amongst them love hearts, trains and balloons - were hugely popular and when the shop moved to its current home in St Peter's Gate in 2018, they found a batch hidden under the counter. "They were a nightmare. People used to buy them one at a time," remembered Geoff.

"There were builders upstairs who cut through a water pipe and went home. The worst thing was the stopcock was under the skip," said Geoff, who met Diz when they were students at Nottingham School of Art . They married shortly after opening the shop and will celebrate their golden wedding in September.

Daughters Holly and Josie were born into the business. Holly said: "From about the age of six me and my sister used to come in, in the evenings near Christmas and price things on the promise we'd get some pizza."

 

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