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OVER THE COUNTER
High Street
Hustler Independent card and gift retailer, David Robertson, co-owner of JP Pozzi in Scotland, reflects on the daily hustle and resilience that retailers need to survive. January is always a time for reflection. New Year tends to do funny things to you in terms of thinking about what has happened in the past and what the future holds. Same can be said of when you return from holiday. Your brain almost seems to release a drug that questions everything you think or do. Or maybe that’s just me. I never truly switch off. This is a problem and the result is that my brain seems to be constantly idling like some racing car waiting for the green lights to come on and to blow the fuel into the engines to propel the car forward. I am constantly thinking about my business. I think about how I have to change to keep ahead. I think about what others are doing. I think about how cool that signage is. I think about the shops’ layout, the offers, the uniforms and just about everything in
between. I think about what I could do if the cashflow was better. I think about what I am doing even though the cashflow is tight. Why? Because… well… I do. It is instinct and I can’t help it. At the end of November, as many of you will have seen, I had a few crazy few weeks. Firstly, I was in New York to see Bruce Springsteen on Broadway and then I was a guest of VISA and the Daily Mirror
Above: Leonardo DiCaprio hustling in the movie The Wolf Of Wall Street.
Right: David accepting his High Street Hero of the Year Scotland award. Below: David meeting his musical hero in New York, Bruce Springsteen.
for The Great British High Street Awards 2018 as a High Street Hero. These two weeks resulted in me meeting my musical hero in Bruce (first name terms now I have shaken his hand!), a man synonymous with working class, blue collar America and stories of factories and hard work. The performance was a special one during which he shared a remarkably honest account of his life and career. It was truly unlike anything I had even seen in a theatre. Interestingly, on the way to Springsteen I sat and watched a homeless guy playing and winning money at chess in the City Park. He destroyed some, teased others, and, in the case of a youngster who took him on, nurtured and taught her some moves. Aware of my gaze he offered me a game but chess is not my sport, and with a $10 note dropped in to his hand, the offer of teaching me was extended. Maybe next time. Similarly, en route to the Awards in London’s Green Park, as I walked towards Lancaster House, I watched loads of tourists betting and playing a game with three cups and one ball - follow where it goes. Lots of money seemed to be changing hands and tourists were lulled into betting more by achieving a number of what I would have said were false victories. The basic premise of this ‘trick/game’ struck me, and it was juxtaposed with the lavish building I was about to enter for what are regarded as very prestigious awards. Within a few hours I had then won the title of High Street Hero of the Year Scotland.
As you can imagine both meeting Bruce and my award were personal triumphs, but somehow the award felt empty. It felt in someway wrong. I didn’t like the use of the word ‘Hero’ as to me that is how you would describe a fire fighter or a campaigner, NOT someone who has helped change the shopping/physical area within my local city. I believed the award fell to me, as chairman of the BID, as perhaps I was the most vocal or visible part of a large team that had completed a huge amount of tasks over nearly a decade. So for me to be recognised individually in this way didn't feel quite right or fair. I felt a little bit of a fraud. Back to Bruce. His one-man show started with him describing his beginnings and the fact that he had carried out an amazing magic trick for many, many years. In truth he had never worked a true hard days work in his life. He’d never seen the inside of a factory. Never done a 12 hour shift. In fact, his five days a week commitment on Broadway was perhaps his first true job and he wasn’t sure he liked it. What he didn’t say is that he was a ruthless perfectionist with the album Born to Run, taking 14 months to complete it. Springsteen was at that time a great PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
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