WIRRAL LIFE TALK TO LOCAL
FAMILY BUSINESS CHARLES STEPHENS
You’ve been in business for more than 100 years, how
did it all start?
Well my Grandfather, Charles George Rickard Stephens,
who originally came from Plymouth where he had
worked as a shipwright, moved to Wirral in the 1880s to
work for Cammel Laird. In 1896, he set up as a funeral
director at 44 Conway Street with stables in Raffles Road.
We have no idea how this came about and what made
him change his profession. He later became a town
councillor for the Clifton Ward and that is where Clifton
House came from, which is the name of our Head Office
in Rock Ferry.
What happened to Charles?
Charles sadly passed away in 1928. His wife, my
grandmother, had to carry on the business with the
help of my father, Lewis Clifton Rickard Stephens, who
at the age of 17 had to forego his place at university to
join the family business. They were difficult times and
the business struggled through the thirties and then
when war broke out, Lewis, my father, went to fight in
1939 leaving my grandmother to run the business whilst
he was away. On his return, he found the business had
difficulties and with a small secured business loan, he
continued trading and played the saxophone in a local
dance band of an evening to supplement the staff ’s wages,
whilst my mother answered the telephone through the
night.
Did you come straight into the family business Jeremy?
No. When I left school, I started working for Shell UK
as a trainee chemist with a view to becoming a chemical
engineer but after a couple of years dad said he needed
help. I said I would help for six months but would then
return to my studies at Shell – this never happened, and
I qualified as a funeral director in 1962 and also became
a qualified embalmer soon after. I worked alongside my
father at Conway Street until 1966 when Clifton House
Funeral Home opened. Heswall and Bromborough
branches were added in the nineties. In 1993 we acquired
another long-established Neston firm, Henry Norman,
and The Cross and Mellock Lane were added to our
branches.
Was your Father an inspiration to you?
My father was a great teacher and he ensured that I learnt
all aspects of the business, starting from washing the
cars and being on call throughout the night, before he
would allow me to do any of the administration work –
his philosophy was such that nobody would be able to
say that you don’t know what it’s like, because I did! Dad
died in 2000, after 71 years in the profession, at the age of
89. He had conducted his last funeral just a few months
earlier. Gemma, my daughter, joined the company in
1994 and gradually over recent years I have passed on
the running of the business to her and she is the current
Managing Director.
Gemma, this is a true family business isn’t it – literally
passed down through the family, how did you feel
about that?
I would have liked to join the business straight from
school at 18 but following on from my grandfather’s
philosophy, my dad insisted that I had to go to university
so that I had a transferable skill to bring to the business
and then gain some experience in the outside world.
After university I spent seven years at Ernst & Young
accountants before I joined in 1994. My dad had made
the business more secure in the preceding years by re-
investing everything he could back into the company and
expanding into new areas – he had the foresight to realise
that families preferred to deal with a company that they
could trust in their local vicinity. However, some things
had not been updated and my first task was to implement
an accounting system because up until then, everything
was hand written. I also had a passion for design, and
I believed that funeral homes were sometimes daunting
and dismal places, so gradually over the years I have
updated all of our branches to make them bright and
welcoming for our families. We have also opened
branches in West Kirby and Claughton.
What is the most difficult thing for you at the moment?
One of the most difficult struggles is remaining
independent. A lot of local funeral directors, whilst
maintaining their original name, have been bought out
by some of the national companies. We strive to remain
independent, despite being approached on numerous
occasions, and are currently the largest independent in
Wirral. This gives us the flexibility to help our families
through the bereavement process with decisions that can
be made on a case by case basis. We value the business as
a family business, and it has always been managed that
way and I personally feel that all of the staff are like our
family because we have all worked together for so long.
The local community and family is very important to
you isn’t it?
Yes! We are currently looking at different ways we can
work together. We are reaching out to various projects
to either promote them on our social media platforms
or offer staff to assist in providing resources. We also
sponsor a nurse at Wirral Hospice St John’s because we
know that these charities help families in desperate need,
and this is a way that we can help in some small way.
So where do you go from here then?
I have twin sons, Tom and Patrick, who are currently in
their final year at university and will one day move into
the family business as the previous generations have. I
hope they will find the same satisfaction, honour and
respect that I have felt working alongside my dad, who
has truly sacrificed so much to build the business to what
it is today.
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