Still dapper and clothes-conscious, 92-yearold Basil Walker, of Duffield, reminisces about the business he set up in Derby in the 1960s when he decided fashion-conscious women deserved the chance to buy stylish footwear from top designers. His decision was to turn him from a shop manager selling stilettos for as little as 49 shillings and 11d into what some have described as Derby's answer to Jimmy Choo. So successful was his shop that it passed down two more generations of his family before finally being sold. Pat Parkin reports.
MORE than 40 years ago, when most people bought their shoes from shops like Freeman Hardy and Willis, Manfield or Saxone, Basil Walker was dreaming of running a specialist shoe outlet where fashion-conscious shoppers could buy top-class footwear in elegant surroundings and choose stylish footwear from top British and European designers.
At the time, he was managing one of Derby's largest shoe shops, Benefit Footwear, on the corner of Babington Lane and St Peter's Street, now occupied by Waterstone's bookshop.
It was always busy - but Basil never felt happy about it.
"The turnover was good but the shoes they sold weren't. Sometimes I used to stand outside when ladies were looking at the window displays and I heard their comments and I knew it wasn't right.
"Derby had a lot of fashionable ladies and I always felt a nice shop selling shoes, Raymond Weil Fake handbags and jewellery was what would do well."
When the controversial British Shoe Corporation bought out Benefit, along with virtually every shoe chain in the country, and manufactured shoes nearly all of a similar style and quality, putting many people out of work, Basil felt it was time for a change.
He was so upset that he went off on holiday to the South of France and, on the journey down, told his wife, Gwen, how much he hated his job. Her response was: "Well, why don't you leave and set up your own business?" By the time they returned home from holiday, they had agreed to "have a go".
Basil was not only a good salesman but he also had an eye for style and fashion and knew the best designers and where to buy.
"We both threw ourselves into the business, took over an empty shop at the top of Babington Lane, fitted it all out, bought in stock and opened the doors."
For two weeks, they hardly had a customer but eventually word about the new shop spread, helped, no doubt, by Basil's occasional stroll down to Benefit where he would suggest to window-shopping ladies that they ought to take a look at his new shop just up the street.
He had called it John Barclay - the name of a wartime RAF buddy - because it sounded more up-market than his own.
"I thought it had style while I didn't think Basil Walker would ever work," he laughed.
In addition, there was another shop called Walkers around the corner in St Peter's Street, so he felt that could be confusing too.
Cartier Replica WatchesGoing for quality and more expensive styles and introducing shoes from Italy, Germany and Spain meant growth was slow. But after a year they took over a shop next door and eventually expanded over four shop fronts - and opened a branch in Burton-on-Trent.
Their daughter, Jackie Bates, was as interested in the shop as her mother and so the three of them worked together to make the business successful.
Jackie's son, James, took over
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