FACE TO FACE – PAUL SACKI, MD AT JAKAR INTERNATIONAL
Lydia’s legacy An incredible story of family, escaping the Nazis and sheer hard work lies behind Jakar International, as it celebrates its 75th anniversary and more than six decades of working with the Caran d’Ache brand. Managing director Paul Sacki sits down for a face-to-face with Stationery Matters.
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TOP: How to get yourself noticed! A 1930s advertising shot for Caran d’Ache. RIGHT: Lydia Sacki and one of the company vans at the old Jakar building in the mid-80s and its current stateof-the-art facility in Elstree.
hen Lydia Sacki arrived in England with just five Deutschmarks and a few sticks of furniture to her name, she had no idea that three quarters of a century later her grandson Paul would be celebrating the 75th milestone of the company she founded. Having set up the business with a fellow refugee in 1949, Lydia, her son Kenneth, and now md Paul have built the business into Jakar International, which sources products from 12 countries worldwide for its customers across the UK and Ireland – and is the longest-serving distributor for Swiss colour and writing manufacturer Caran d’Ache, with the partnership stretching back to 1960. Born in Britain, Lydia moved to Germany to get married but had to flee when Hitler came to power, escaping with her two sons and MSstricken husband just before war broke out, and she needed to find a way to look after her family. “Because of her British passport, she managed to get to the UK, but the Nazis took everything, they came here with five marks in their pockets and some furniture they’d managed to send on ahead
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– I’ve still got that furniture,” Paul explained. “They had to start from scratch and the Quakers very generously rented her a house in Welwyn Garden City, which Granny opened as a guest house with lodgers, one of whom was a man called Julius Kaufmann who she’d helped get over to the country. “He had connections in the toy business and they started on the kitchen table in the guest house importing toys, drawing instruments and cuckoo clocks from Germany.” After Kenneth joined the business in the mid-50s, there was a big change when Jacques Hübscher, then boss of Caran d’Ache, came to Britain in 1959 looking for distributors for the coloured pencils and stationery manufactured in
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Geneva since 1915, and sought out the Sacki family. “He’d heard about us,” Paul said, “and gave us the agency in 1960 which continues to this day. It’s great because they’re a family company, fourth generation with Jacques’ daughter Carole Hübscher now the ceo, and I’m the third generation to run our family business.” Originally the company was called Julius Kaufmann Ltd and, when Kenneth took over as md in the mid-60s, he modernised it using the initials to create the name Jakar, then continued building on Lydia’s legacy, bringing Paul into the business in 1979 – but he had to start at the bottom! Paul explained: “After leaving school my father arranged for me to