Local Face: Jan Elliott

Jan Elliott must be on of the most helpful people in Wendover. Her shop is central to village life in so many ways. Officially known as Wendover Hardware, its aficionados fondly describe it as Aladdin’s cave or even The Tardis. Its position on the Manor waste makes it easy to find but village chat will lead you there in no time.

Jan knew all about Wendover before she came to live here. Once she married Jim, there was no question about it. He is Wendover born and bred and dreamt that his children would be too. As it happened, wanting to live in Wendover and being able to afford to live in Wendover were not necessarily the same thing. They lived in Princes Risborough to begin with but soon moved to High Wycombe where Jan had grown up and where Emma, Katy and James were born. While the children were still pre-school, the Elliott family was granted its wish and moved to Wendover. They are all well known in the village, partly because the children passed through Wendover schools campus (James is still at John Colet) and dancing, football, brownies, guides, cubs, scouts, swimming, music and drama. Jan helped at the Swimming Pool until she opened the shop. Emma is now known in her own right through part-time work in the Chemists and, yes, she is engaged to Darren Hunn who also works there. They originally met at John Hampden County First School (everybody say aahhh!). Katy helps Jan in the shop and in Stars.

Jan’s own career started in hairdressing but has taken a different path in recent years. When her children were at Wendover Memorial Hall Playgroup (now Wendover pre-school), she knew people who worked in catering at John Colet School. At that time, it seemed she would never leave playgroup but when James was coming up to school age, a friend asked if she could help out for a few hours while another worker recovered from a knee injury. Those few hours later developed into becoming Joint Catering Manager with Vicky Bunce and Jan was a familiar face in the school for 7 years. Many of her current customers have Colet connections either as pupils or staff.

Then it was all change. Jim had been running Wendover Televisions for many years and the video shop partner was moving on so Jan asked around, what did people think Wendover needed? Never in a million years had Jan ever expected to run her own shop, let alone a hardware shop so she started her own market research among actual and potential customers. The whole enterprise is Jan’s very real attempt to meet their needs. She opened on 1st November 1997.

Jan will always be in debt to the loyal people, shops and pubs who have supported her from the start. Customers don’t necessarily buy a lot but every little helps. In turn, Jan a tries never to turn away a customer from the Wendover shops and pubs, she will always send them to someone local if she can. For g example, one day a local business phoned to buy some simple picture frames. It was market day so Jan popped out to ask Nigel on the market stall if he could supply what she could not and returned with a yes.

In particular, Jan would like to thank the gardening gentleman who wrote out a list of suggested items, bearing in mind the lack of space. Similarly, two kind ladies took it upon themselves to make an invaluable list of general domestic needs, Jan is eternally indebted to them. She is ever grateful to Wally, her tool adviser. He will always know what specialist tool a customer wants and help Jan to order it correctly. He will even explain to her how to use it when it arrives just in case he is not there when the customer arrives. In this way, customers have access to all sorts of experts in one very small shop.

Jan remembers fondly how when her doors first opened she spread her wares very thinly to cover the space but now she finds it difficult to keep free the door space so that customers can come inside. And it is often worth going inside for the entertainment as well as the merchandise. The TV repeat of the Two Ronnies sketch meant that everyone who came in wanted to play it out with whoever was there: a continuous and rewrite of the script for a whole morning as each new customer joined in the fun.

Wendover Hardware now has an international reputation to keep up. Jan has worldwide trade with customers living in Nairobi, Tasmania and Tanzania. Usually these are the grown up children of customers who live locally. One granny bought Jan’s entire stock of plastic goods: buckets, bowls etc before going to visit one year. Jan is also very touched by the generosity of her customers, from gifts of home-made marmalade to rhubarb from a Chelsea supporter who knows Jan does not support Chelsea. You are bound to come out with more than you went in, including a smile on your lips and laughter in your ears.