Memories of the shows, the Queen and the Young Ones!

Mark Shenton our founder recounts a memorable day from his early life building the brand at the shows.

“Many of our long standing customers will remember Wool Overs as a small family business selling country knitwear at Agricultural, Equestrian and Country shows. We spent the spring and summer living on the road in two horse box trucks following the UK shows from the Royal Highland to the Royal Cornwall. We had some wonderful times in those early days, my wife Clare was 20 years old, I was 26, looking back I feel quite blessed to have stumbled across such an unusual nomadic working life, we were living in each others pockets and I loved it! We were on a non-stop learning curve, building a new and unique brand, meeting thousands of customers who were our guides to everything we did, without the ties of an office or shop.”

A Wool Overs event stall.

“At these events we would often meet and serve some real characters, unlike the hum drum of high street shopping, the shows were a day out for our customers, an annual event they looked forward to and they were generally a joy to work with, a real interactive audience and the applause for our knitwear which they loved was followed by ££££!

We met countless faces and some famous ones. One story that I often think was a bit too spooky was when we traded at Marlborough Cup race day. In the evenings in our trucks we would often watch a good movie after our meal and that week we have watched the Charge of the Light Brigade, which I think is one of the best British historical dramas ever. The star of the film was an actor called David Hemmings who played the part of Captain Nolan who led the charge. The following day we were serving at the above show, it was manically busy and thankfully cold so everyone was buying wool jumpers. A gentleman stepped to the counter and stacked up 17 lambswool vee neck jumpers, took a puff on his cigar and asked what my best price was, after a bit of banter and haggling I asked him what business was he in, ‘The movie business’ came his reply… at that point I suddenly realised who I was talking to, so I blurted out ‘Captain Nolan!’. David Hemmings sadly passed away in the making of the film Gladiator, if you recall he was the compeer with the turned up eyebrows, that’s how I remember him, quite a character. ”

David Hemmings
Image source: Obvious Mag

“Clare and I started the brand in 1989 and in the early nineties we managed to get a stand at the famous Royal Windsor Horse Show. I recall turning up on the opening day, we had travelled overnight from another show and I had to build our marquee on the opening day of the show. I recall our neighbour a huge booming Yorkshire man selling horse feed for a brand with a Royal appointment. ‘You cannot build your stand at the opening day of the Windsor Horse show!’ he exclaimed. I was racing to get ready and stressed enough building the stand and told him to mind his own business and leave us alone. Thankfully he was being playful and ended up helping us get ready on time, his name was Dave and became one of the many older experienced showmen who were supportive and mentors to us.

The Windsor event is synonymous with the Queen, as we know Windsor Castle is her one of her homes. It obviously crossed my mind if we might get a glimpse of her, but as things went we got a personal visit but as luck would have it I missed it! I came back to the stand after a visit to the loos to see our employee, Will with a big grin on his face. He had been serving a customer with his back to the opening of the tent, the customer was pointing behind excitedly, on turning round he found himself facing a group of people, film cameras and the Queen! Those of you who remember our stands will recall we decorated the counter with pure wool sheep posters. Her majesty was visiting us as she was intrigued by a poster of a rare breed. She tapped the poster and asked ‘What’s that?’, Will simply replied ‘It’s a sheep maa’m’ which was not to be the right answer, bearing in mind she wanted to know the breed! The Queen then just wished him well and said we should have a good trading day as it’s very chilly and off she went.”

“Well that was one I missed and as was another on the same day our other stand was at the Devon County show. In the early 80’s there was a zany comedy called the Young Ones, which even to this day affects the banter I use with old mates! The two comic actors that used to leave me in fits of hysterics were Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. They were and still are my all time favourite slapstick comedy duo. Our stand in Devon was being manned by a great guy who was himself a comedy genius and amazing salesman called Lee. He was a charming hippie and developed a real following of ladies who would come to my marquee asking for the ‘hairy one!’ We would often tell them, ‘Oh the hippie, well he went mad so we had to shoot him!’ We weren’t really jealous of the attention he got.”

The Young Ones
Image source: http://www.thetimes.co.uk

“Lee was manning the stand at Devon and caught sight of Ade and his celebrity wife Jennifer Saunders, apparently he went into a rather overexcited state and jumped into their space. Lee had expected them to be as they are on stage, but they were the complete opposite as comedians and actors often are without their stage character. Thankfully they left with a jumper each and Lee did not blow it!

In evenings we would call each other to check how all the shows had gone, I could not wait to tell the Devon team about our encounter with the most famous lady on the planet, when Lee gave us his story I did not believe him, I was sure he was just mucking about as he knew I often turned into Vivian off the Young Ones. But it turned out to be true, so on one day we went from meeting the head of the British Empire, to an anarchist punk comedian!”