07/02/2024
Over 50 years of Childwall Table & Chair Hire!
The business began in May 1972 as a part-time venture. Our founder, Peter, had bought 50 5ft round tables from a gentleman who no longer had use for them. Peter and his wife, Val, began hiring these tables out to events around the Childwall, Allerton, Greenbank and Southport areas.
After finding success part-time, Peter left his full-time job and he and Val decided to start their own furniture hire business, Childwall Table & Chair Hire!
They worked tirelessly to make the business a success, buying and making furniture to increase their stock. A timber firm gave Peter a contact name of Roy, who agreed to make tables for them. They went from just 50 tables to over 700 tables, 1200 folding chairs and 60 sets of patio furniture within months. Peter worked on spreading the word, whilst Val began sewing thousands of chair covers in their back room.
Over the years, they moved premises several times as they needed more storage space. In 1974 they were based in a prefabricated building on Harrington Dock, money was tight, so they didn’t have a telephone there. Fortunately, there was a red telephone box just outside the door. Peter would leave the warehouse door open, even in winter, so he could hear it ringing. Unfortunately, someone backed into it and knocked it over, so eventually they had to buy their own phone.
They spent the school holiday’s travelling all over the North-West with their three children, supplying horticultural shows, corporate events and marquee firms for their furniture requirements.
They moved to our current warehouse on Jamaica Street in 1996. By this point, Peter and Val’s two sons had joined, Colin and Jon, as well as Roy and his two sons, Mike and Paul.
Stock was increased to thousands of tables and chairs and grew to include more modern chairs which proved very popular, Childwall Table & Chair Hire became the biggest furniture hire company in the North-West and we still are!
Peter and Val retired in 2018 leaving their sons to run the business, but they still drop in regularly. Jon’s wife, Erika, joined the business in 2010 and Mike and Paul are still drivers with us!
