Sam White

I have frequented on occasion and probably bought some stuff that I didn't need.

That's a lot of integrity.

Did you own the properties that the stores were in or did you lease them?

Oh, huge.

I can't even imagine the economic value of that.

But obviously people working in communities and then you also get the spill on effect that the staff, they're buying round the area as well.

So it isn't just the employees that that business has.

It's the knock on effect for the communities as a whole, I think, that people don't realise.

It's just, you know, because they were turning over so much, it's such a big cost base to then manage.

Not a lot of things have to go wrong for it to go disastrously wrong.

I think it's probably harsh to lay all of the blame at one family member, but it's tricky.

Third generation is a common circumstance.

There's a bit of distance that occurs by third generation.

But then you've got the retail market as a whole, obviously changed massively during that period of time in terms of online marketing.

And it just seems really clear that they did lose their way and nobody caught it.

For this one, I would say make sure you're really clear on your proposition because I think moving away from the low-cost model that all of the customers understood, I think was probably the first nail in the coffin.