Weston Hart

Name: Richard Simpson
Comment: I remember this striped bag so well from the 1960s period as I worked for Weston Hart at their West Street, Fareham branch in Hampshire.
(29 September 2013)

Name: Sally Macdonald
Comment: I am so delighted to see this page. My mother, Mary Mills, set up Weston Hart with her sister, Jill Lloyd (they were both née Leek). My mother heard in November 1952 that the television aerial would come to Portsmouth in time for the coronation in 1953. She immediately contacted Ferguson, who were the main source of televisions then and bought the entire factory's output on three months' credit. She and her sister, Jill, then sold and personally delivered every single set by Christmas Eve and the money they put in the bank effctively launched Weston Hart. From then on it always operated on negative working capital (where your customers pay you before you have to pay your suppliers) and this suported the business through thick and thin. I'm not sure how precise this is, but both mother and Auntie Jill told it to me on many occasions and it was the same every time. Given the expectation in the early 1950s that women would stay at home to look after their husbands and children, the sisters were extraordinary and all of their children have that same feisty spirit.

I spent many of my early years going into the shops with mother or to the factory (I think it did repairs) in North Harbour. The shops didn't sell furniture, as far as I remember, though - they were radiograms! I never dreamed of seeing the old paper bags again after all these years. Thank you for keeping the memory alive.
(20 February 2016)

Name: William Mills
Comment: Firstly my mother and her sister did not set up Weston Hart. Their mother Vera Leek did and the origin of the business was renting accumulators and wireless sets mainly to dockers. And yes, there was a massive change brought about by the coronation being televised. Mary and Jill may well have worked on the vans. But Vera Leek handed over the business in the mid-sixties when she became ill with cancer. The North Habour factory site was acquired in the late 1960s. Top floor accounts, and ground floor repairs and stock. Harry Raison was general manager, supported by Mr Munt.

Commercial Road branch was actually in Albert Street and was the largest selling record store at the time... it allegedly took £100,000 in a single Christmas week on the record counter. Weston Hart was a reseller for Dynatron, ITT, Ferguson amongst others but also sold white goods at the North End branch.
(2020)

Name: Howard Honey
Comment: I loved this shop and bought my first LP in Weston Hart, Commercial Road. (Arundel Street to be precise.)
(2018)

Name: David Wybrow
Comment: I remember Weston Hart in West Street, Fareham. There was a big cardboard cutout of 'Elvis the Pelvis' in the window, and I asked my mum who he was - 'some American Rock and Roll singer', apparently!

My first radio came from Weston Hart, for my birthday in 1958.
(2018)

Name: Susan Borra
Comment: I worked in the record department in the mid-sixties I was 17, it was a perfect job, I loved working there. My manager was Mr Fake, the assistant manager's name was Anthea and yes I remember the bags and single records were 6s 8d each, or 3 for £1 - great days.
(2020)

Name: Neil Buckingham
Comment: I started my first job at Weston Hart in Northarbour Road back in March 1973 aged 15. As the previous contributor mentioned, we had a warehouse and repair department where I was a trainee.

Dennis Munt was service manager and Peter Dupont the assistant. Unfortunately the company nearly folded a couple of times and North Harbour closed. Those that didn't lose their jobs were split up and worked in the different shops. I went to Gosport then North End and ending up at Fratton Road before I moved on.

Who remembers the Decca Bradford Chassis?
(2020)

Name: Patrick Stenning
Comment: Hi - yes I too remember those days. I was young and an apprentice who moved to North Harbour factory from working at Fratton. And as Neil said, Dennis was the service manager and Peter Dupont manager to field engineers. When this closed I moved to the Waterlooville shop for a few years with, I remember, Steve Jefferson and Paul Manchip. I've not seen either of them since, but I have seen Neil. Sort of happy times looking back I think. The Waterlooville shop was managed, I remember, by Ray Marsh and his assistant Sue. Both friendly, fun people. I did bump into Ray once in Fareham but that was a number of years ago.
(2021)

Name: Dave Seymour
Comment: I worked at the Fratton Road shop, it was my first job after leaving school. Mike Pain was my manager and Gavin was the driver of the van. Upstairs was the service department. I remember Greg Telfer.
(2022)

Name: Francis Catcheside
Comment: I worked for Weston Hart in the late 1970s although I also remember it fondly as a customer of the record department at the Fareham store as a teenager. As someone has said, it wasn't a furniture store but a radio/TV/record store although the radiograms and TVs in cabinets of the late 1960s could have been mistaken for furniture.

I don't claim to be an expert on the history of the firm's early days but was aware it had been set up by (as we were told) two ladies, although I understood it to have been even earlier than 1952. In the 1970s it had been absorbed into a larger company, the Woolacott Group who were, I believe, Haywards Heath-based, although the local stores continued to trade as Weston Hart.

Woolacott's folded in the mid- to late 1970s and a Gosport-based businessman with varied local interests, including the Gosport Rootes dealership (later Chrysler, later Talbot), Erskin Motors (if memory serves) bought the company which is about when I joined.

At that time the remaining branches were North End (head office), Arundel Street, Fratton Road (service department), Cosham, Waterlooville, and Fareham, although not at the original site, which had been towards the High Street end of West Street but a new location, adjacent to one of the entrances to the (then new) Fareham Shopping Centre.

I started off at Fareham as 'salesman'. There was a manager, Mike Southon was mine, a record department manageress plus a record department assistant. Dave Shaw was the manager at North End, Ray Marsh at Arundel Street, Ray Tasker was another name from the period but I can't remember which branch he worked at. The general manager was Ian Hoper. After a while at Fareham my manager and I switched to Waterlooville and later Mike transferred to North End and I took over as manager of Waterlooville.

Sadly the owners got into difficulties and yet again Weston Hart went bust in 1979. I was managing Waterlooville at the time, although the staff had dwindled to just myself, Mina, who ran records, and my mate Ron who was my 'Saturday' lad.

All the shops closed other than Cosham, which Ian Hoper bought and it continued for a few years as a record only shop, trading as Hart & Soul.
(2022)