B&Q founder Richard Block Obituary

RiChaRD BloCk, wirksworth resident, aquabox volunteer, and co-founder of the Diy superstore chain B&Q, died on 19 February. he was 80.

Living in Southampton in the 1960s and working for the pharmaceuticals company Warner Lambert, Richard got involved with the DIY trade when his brother-in-law David Quayle suggested a new retail venture. “Every year Warner Lambert seemed to make 10% of the staff redundant,” he recalled years later. “I was 27, and I thought I needed something else to do. So I didn’t need much persuading.”

The first Block & Quayle store opened in a former cinema in Southampton in March 1969, and was an instant success. In charge of buying, Richard had to chase suppliers for immediate replenishment. “They couldn’t understand that we could sell the goods that fast, and that they had to get more stock to us quickly,” he said. Although the store opened as Block & Quayle, it soon became known solely by the initials.

Two more stores opened very soon, and within two years, B&Q’s sales were nearly £124,000 (about £1.7m in 2023 money). Richard remembered the time as “immense fun”; but five years later, he decided he had had enough, and he left in 1976. Former B&Q chief executive Jim Hodkinson, who joined the business as a store manager in 1972, remembered Richard as: “a lovely guy – very supportive. He listened to people, didn’t try to push his own ideas. He always made time for you.”

After B&Q, he moved to Guernsey, and bought a house with a glasshouse complex which was leased to a tenant grower. When the tenant gave up the lease, Richard took over, first growing tomatoes for the commercial market, and when that became less profitable in the face of competition