Jane Caldow – It started with Granny Guy in Totland

Jane: My Grandmother was the original person. She came back to the Island in the late 1930s. She bought Culliford in Totland Bay …

Simon: And her name was?

Jane: My Granny was Mrs W G Guy, Winnifred Guy née Wray. She grew up in Newport, she was an Islander, and she came back in the late 1930s to Totland and bought the business of Susan Culliford, and it was still known as Cullifords and they were there throughout the war, and then I don’t know which year they got the Yarmouth business, which was also Cullifords, but my mother was then responsible for running both of those two. I think the Yarmouth shop was her project and she loved that little shop, and you can still see it today, the newel post going up the first floor is a very historic little old business was carved by my late uncle, who was a Sculptor.

Simon: What was carved?

Jane: The newel post, the big banister post. If you go to the top of the Yarmouth shop, you look in, you can still see this beautiful banister post going up, and that was carved by my uncle Chris.

Simon: Right. So, what made her … well, one come back to the Island and two, buy the business?

Jane: I think it was for family reasons and she had been in business, they were in Salisbury prior to that, and Granny came back to the Island to be close to her family because her mother and her two sisters were here and she had four children and so my mother used to travel in to Newport on the bus (laughs) from Totland …

Simon: Wow, that’s a hike.

Jane: I think that was a big journey all through the war when she was young.

Simon: Why move in to Retail?

Jane: Because Granny had been in Retail I’m sure. She had been in Retail in Salisbury.

Simon: And doing women’s clothes there.

Jane: And she knew the background, yes. And my Great Grandfather was a Jeweller so Retail was in the family. 124 High Street Newport was Ray’s the Jeweller, what’s part of Boots now, and that was one of the really historical buildings in Newport and of course it’s all incorporated into Boots in the 1970s before lots of buildings were listed, so sadly of course today they would have preserved it all, but not then.