Focus on business: 88 Antiques
Dave Lucas has been running his antique shop, 88 Antiques which, amazingly, is at 88 Golborne Road, for the last 30 years. He also lives above the shop, making him one of the few people who not only run a business in the area, but live here as well.‘I worked for someone else running a shop for about six months,’ says David, ‘ and I thought, this is easy, you just sit in the shop and the money rolls in. Sadly, after I started my own business, I soon found out that here was in fact a lot of hard work involved.’
‘I prefer to sell antique furniture that I like myself, though there’s always pressure to have stock that is currently in fashion, which changes all the time. My own favourite is rustic country furniture. It’s of the type that’s not been finely created by top craftsmen but by people who made it because they had a practical need, and have used whatever timber was to hand.
I ask Dave for his thoughts on the neighbourhood. ‘Of course, I’ve seen it change over the years, but I think it has retained its community spirit. On a Friday morning, I can walk along Golborne and exchange greetings with 20 or 30 people. They’re not necessarily close friends, but knowing each other is the essential ingredient of a good neighbourhood.
‘If you have a strong neighbourhood like ours, then I think differences of language, religion and colour become much less important. I know the Borough has talked about making changes, but on the whole, I say, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Though I have been pleased to see that Environmental Services have been clamping down on rubbish dumping which can be a real problem on the street.’
Dave decided to do something a bit different a few months ago, so he went on a five-day charity trek in Peru, from the Urubamba Valley to the lost city of Machu Picchu. ‘I’d never done anything like that before, I just had a desire to break the everyday sameness.
‘It was a challenging experience which I thoroughly enjoyed and we raised £130,000 for Scope, a disability charity whose focus is people with cerebral palsy.’
88 Antiques is at 88 Golborne Road, W10
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