1974: Popular newsagent was jack-of-all-trades
ONE of the best-known names in Kettering was forced to retire in 1974 when his newsagents shop in Newland Street was demolished to make way for the town's new inner ring road.
Jack Cross worked seven days a week to complete the empire built by his father, Jack senior, 70 years earlier.
Even at the age of 60, Jack – who still lives, as then, in the town's Masefield Road – had been clocking up an incredible 95 hours a week as a wholesale newsagent.
From standing on a street corner selling the Daily Herald to supplying thousands of papers, comics and magazines to local news vendors, Jack – like his father before him – had become a part of Kettering.
Right up until his retirement this Jack-of-all-trades was involved in every department – from working in his own printing works behind the shop to delivering papers when newsboys fell ill.
Jack senior's first shop was a 300-year-old thatched premises in Northall Street, where he became the first wholesaler in the town.
Jack junior joined his father in the business when it moved near the top of Northall Street in 1930, became a partner after the Second World War and took over the shop when his father died in 1951.
The one-man business expanded tenfold over the next two decades. The council first wanted his land to widen the road in 1957 and the original plans were shelved in 1961. But it was only a matter of time before the council got its way.
He told me in November, 1974: "I enjoyed the early years but in the past ten years there has been too much to do because of the many disruptions and strikes in the newspaper world. I'm not sorry to be taking it easier."
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