Stringers

Stringers Home Decorating Centre

This family run company was started by the late Edward Stringer, senior, the first of four generations to run the business he had begun from his modest home in Spalding Road, Bourne, and workshop premises at what was then 10 Victoria Place.

Remarkably, the descendants of Edward’s early customers still look to the company for that reassuring personal touch which has stood the company in good stead over more than 85 years. Edward’s maxim was always: “Quality is remembered long after price has been forgotten”.

It all began in 1920 when Edward Stringer moved to Stamford from Eaton Socon, Huntingdonshire [now Cambridgeshire], to serve his painting and decorating apprenticeship. After safely returning from a stint in World War I and having fully qualified in his trade, he set up the business and worked long hours to meet customer needs. The days were spent decorating while the nights found him making up paints and preparing wallpaper which came untrimmed. None of your modern day technology!

In 1930, his son, also Edward. left school at the age of 14 to serve his apprenticeship with his father. He became a skilled paper hanger and helped the company’s glowing reputation grow still further. The two Edwards worked closely together throughout the 1930s until Edward junior was to see service in World War II with the Royal Air Force transport section in this country and in Egypt. He returned to the business and worked there until he died in 1992 leaving it in the hands of his son, Richard, who was born in 1946 and, as the third generation, is still there to help run the business and give good advice.

It was around the time of Richard’s birth that the two Edwards became partners and the business was to be known as E. Stringer & Son. After the death of Edward senior, Edward junior was determined to keep the business moving forward and fulfilled his interest in retail by opening up a painting and decorating shop on North Street, Bourne, on what is now the Burghley Centre. Three years after opening the store he made a significant move by purchasing 11 Abbey Road which he bought at auction in 1962 for £3,000, giving the firm much needed larger premises.

Two years after the Abbey Road store opened, Richard joined the business. Two events of significance then occurred for Richard, the first in 1970 when he married Barbara Romaine and the second when Richard was made a partner in the business. Barbara then joined him, helping develop the business further. Richard and Barbara had two sons of which Max has become the fourth generation of the family to join the business. At this time there were three generations working together Edward junior, Richard and Max.

When Max left school he worked for a couple of years with the business before spending three years honing his skills with Johnstone’s Paints. After returning in 1997, Max soon became managing director and took the next step in expansion by moving the business from Abbey Road where it had been for forty years to its current location, a 4,000 sq ft unit on Manning Road. The store opened in June 2002 under its new name of Stringers Home Decorating Centre.

Max is now married and he and Carrie have two children, Lexi and Frankie. Who knows, can they be the fifth generation to take the business on in the future?

NOTE: Reproduced from the Stringer's Home Decorating Centre web site, July 2009

THE MAN WHO STARTED IT ALL

Edward Stringer founded the present firm as E Stringer Ltd, paint suppliers and decorating contractors, in 1920. He was born at Eaton Socon near Huntingdon, but went to Stamford to complete his apprenticeship as a painter and decorator and after serving with the army in France during the First World War (1914-18), he moved to Bourne, married, and set up in business from his home at No 10 Victoria Place. His son, also Edward, joined the business in 1930 when he left school at the age of 14 to begin an apprenticeship but took over completely when his father died in a road accident on 3rd December 1957 at the age of 67. His wife Florence, who had been a considerable help in establishing the business in past years, survived him and she died on 9th September 1982 at the age of 92. Both are buried in the town cemetery. Edward junior subsequently opened a shop in North Street, now demolished to make way for the Burghley Arcade, but later moved to No 11 Abbey Road which he purchased at auction for £3,000 in 1962. The firm vacated the shop in June 2002 when they moved to larger premises in Manning Road where the business, now known as the Home Decorating Centre, is still run by the fifth generation of the Stringer family.