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A walking sheepskin coat, genuine simulated leather goods and celebrity customers like Bob Monkhouse are just some of Chris Harris’s memories of when he worked at Ranby’s around the time it was taken over by the Debenham Group in the early1970s.

Ranby's store in January 1962, a decade before it was taken over by Debenhams

My first job, after leaving school at 16, came to an end when the company I worked for as a junior salesman decided to sell off most of its shops. I was given four weeks’ notice to find a new job.

On the Friday of that week I walked into Ranby’s and asked if they had any sales jobs. I was told to go straight up to see Mrs Stevens, the personnel manager, who invited to come in on the following Monday for an interview.

There were about six applicants for various sales jobs and we were given a simple test of adding up a shopping list of goods and making out a handwritten receipt. On completion of the test, I was immediately offered a job, starting the next day!

My department manager was Bill Worsley, a quiet man who, in some ways, reminded me of the actor Arthur Lowe. Bill told us stories of his early years at Ranby’s. He said that during the 1920s Mr Ranby would visit his store once a week, parking his pony and trap outside the Green Lane entrance.

He would have the staff of each department line up for inspection and woe betide anyone who had a dirty collar or was not wearing a tie!

This sounded very much like the Grace Brothers’ store in the comedy TV series Are you being served? though life at a department store by the 1970s was, in reality, nothing like that.

Bill was into his mid-60s and was to retire within two years of my starting at Ranby’s. He was replaced by a Dutch American gent by the name of Will Hubers, who brought with him ideas from the USA. Will was a good manager and I enjoyed working with him as he was always looking at ways to improve our department.

I do, however, remember an incident when he had some leather-look car coats labelled as “Genuine Leather”, until I informed him of our trading standards laws, after which he reluctantly changed the notices to “Genuine Simulated Leather”.

Trading standards officers soon persuaded Will to drop the “genuine” tag.

Among other people I worked with at Ranby’s was Mrs Mack, manager of the woollens department. Mrs Mack reminded me of actress Peggy Mount. She could freeze you to the spot with her look, yet she was one of the kindest and most considerate people you could wish to meet. Mrs Mack was actually Mrs Mullarky, mother of the late Councillor Alan Mullarky.

We sold suits off the peg. On many occasions the clothing needed to be altered and, for this work, we relied on the skills of an octogenarian Scot by the name of Mr Elder.

He had a small tailoring workshop on the second floor above a shop on Gower Street. His favourite comment was: “Nay lad, that can nay be done. I’m a tailor not a magician.”

But Mr Elder always came through, even when I took a suit with flared trousers and wide lapels, which a customer wanted to be altered into a suit with drainpipe trousers and narrow lapels.

He asked: “Why did ye nay sell him a suit like that tee start with, lad? It can nay be done!”

I picked up the perfectly altered suit two days later and paid him his £1.50 fee! He really was a magician when it came to tailoring.

We were warned about shoplifters during our initial training. So, in my first week, when I saw a woman behaving strangely, peering over the clothing rails in a suspicious manner, I used the internal phone to call security.

I saw the woman reach into her pocket, take something out and look at it. She then came over and asked me to let her use the internal phone.

It transpired that she was our store detective and began questioning me about the mystery woman I had reported! Her name was Margaret and she forgave me for my mistake but asked if I really thought she looked like a shoplifter.

cartoon by Dave Hitchcock

On another occasion, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, one of our sheepskin coats apparently making its own way towards the Green Lane exit. I walked over to the coat and picked it up to reveal a short balding man, on all fours, who looked up at me and went “Baa”! He was dealt with by the store’s security, who nicknamed the man Larry the Lamb!

On the subject of sheepskin coats, we were very competitive over our sales, so when my colleague, Paul, sold three coats before lunch and challenged me to “Beat that!” you can imagine his surprise when he returned to find I had sold six during his lunch break.

By sheer chance, six Hungarian diplomats, as they claimed to be, had come in to the store and were looking at our sheepskin coats. They were so impressed by the quality that each “diplomat” bought a coat at £70 each – which was a lot of cash in 1972.

The Talk of the Midlands had opened up around the corner in Mill Street and many of the stars who performed there would wander into Debenhams to buy gifts, toiletries and articles of clothing. I remember Bob Monkhouse caused quite a stir, spending 10 minutes or so signing autographs for our customers and cracking jokes with the staff in the men’s underwear department.

I sold Roy Castle a pair of trousers but did not recognise him until one of my colleagues asked me if I managed to get his autograph. I did get his signature but it was on a cheque for £10.

I remember the time when the store was preparing for the Debenhams takeover. Boxes of paper bags bearing the name DEBENHAMS had arrived ready to be unpacked. These were soon to replace the familiar red and white Ranby’s bags.

We were instructed to encourage our shareholding customers to support the takeover bid by letting them know of all the benefits of shopping with such a large organisation, with a long history of manufacturing and retailing in the UK.

I found that a lot of our customers were afraid this was an American takeover bid, so the news was something of a relief to them.

We closed as Ranby’s on a Saturday and opened later in the week as Debenhams, with all of the new signs, labels and bags in place. Many of our customers continued to call the store Ranby’s for some years after the change-over.

The name still lives on in the name of a pub on Green Lane; even the lettering is the same as the original store’s sign. Now the store that has occupied the same site since the beginning of the last century is about to move to a larger, brighter and more modern location (in the new Eagle Centre) , I hope the old building is maintained and put to some good use in the future.

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County:  Derbyshire

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