Peter Green (shop)

rdf:langString Peter Green (shop)

rdf:langString Peter Green (1916 - 1980), when he was forty years old, started his furniture business in Eastleigh with his wife Norah and child in arms, in 1956 in a small shop at 43 Leigh Road. He may have had only £150 capital, but he had years of experience as a sales representative in the furniture trade. Green had been in the business all his working life apart from a period spent flying during the war. His family had been in the furniture trade for generations, his grandfather having dealt in antique furniture a century earlier. Green had grown up in Nuneaton; he was proud to be an Old Edwardian having attended King Edward’s Grammar School in Nuneaton. Green chose Eastleigh because he felt at ease in a railway town, having grown up in Nuneaton, which was also a similar sized town. At first Peter sold beds in the daytime and delivered them in the evening, with his wife Norah acting as secretary and doing all the office work. He then added other furniture to his stock before later opening a small carpet shop at 54 High Street. The business grew steadily from these tiny beginnings until in 1966, with three branches. Green, helped by his brother Reg as sales director, took a corner of huge premises in Southampton Road then occupied by the , and which had formerly been a brush factory . In Green’s first "Walk Around Showrooms" carpets and furniture were crammed into one building, the Mayor of Eastleigh came to open this important new store and the business grew steadily.