Beestonian
The
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ISSUE 18: Eight or ten readers can't be wrong.
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Contents University of Beestonia / BESTonian / Quids in / little sod / Once upon a time in a shed / Soapbox Brown / Horace's Half hour/ Flamin' Nora / Beeston Beats / Famous last words…
Auf wiedersehen, pet
The Beestonian is… Lord Beestonia – Editor and writer extraordinaire Tamar – print design; chivvying Top-notch scribes this issue: Lord B, James Brown, Nora Dimitrova, Joe Earp, Chris Fox, Lottie, Prof.J, Prof.S, Jimmy Wiggins, Tamar
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"Strangest pet we ever sold? Well, I once had to courier a tarantula to Edinburgh. Sat on a train, surrounded by people, with a box on my lap containing this exotic tarantula. That was pretty strange." I’m talking to Carol Zlotowitz, one half of the owners of Pet Mart. A much-loved institution, Pet Mart wasn't much more than a ramshackle hut, but it stood proudly in the centre of Beeston until succumbing to Tesco’s bulldozers. And the Zlotowitzs and their staff really knew how to apply the personal touch to the retail experience. "A customer in Edinburgh had ordered the tarantula. Back then
reptiles and arachnids were very rarely kept as pets, so we always ensured we checked the customers and their ability to home and care for the pet," says Carol’s husband Steve, in that endearing way of co-telling a story long-married couples use. "I got to Edinburgh, but then I was looking around and I thought how strange it was that the buses were red double-deckers and all the accents were southern. Then I realised I’d got on the wrong train. I was in London! I went to the guard station, explained my situation and the guard kindly let me keep the tarantula warm on the radiator while I went into London and sorted myself out.
I got back to find the guard had been delighted with the arrangement: nobody had dared venture into his office all day." This is just one of many anecdotes Steve and Carol tell us when we pop over to interview them. Living in what looks like a country cottage lifted up and dropped onto a side street near Beeston station, they ply me with posh lemonade and biscuits. Steve and Carol moved to Beeston after spending some years in the US (Steve’s home country, betrayed by an accent that sometimes rolls its ‘r’s). They took over a former pet shop, renamed it Pet Mart and worked on an ethos of "bringing American levels of service and atmosphere to the British small shop: brighter, lighter and carpeted." They also ensured they were engaged with the customers: they trained their staff thoroughly and in doing so, built up a strong relationship with the community. They were to pets what Hallam’s is to fruit, or what Hogg’s was to meat: a shop that is more than the sum of its parts; a shop rooted in the community and an antidote to the faceless banality of supermarkets and chains. (contd. on page 3)