UP CLOSE : Be persistent, speak in whispers. Business tips from a merchant who has spent decades serving Frome

Frome business owner Ernest Clothier, who runs the step-back-in- time seed and feed shop in the heart of Frome, has learnt a few things over the decades he has been in business.

His shop, which has never been painted, is lined with boards originally reclaimed from the city's trams dating from 1896.

Ernest Clothier has seen Frome flourish and prosper, and then decline, but at 75 he can't think of any reason to retire.

Frome Nub News loved catching up with this former farmer's son and hearing about his incredible life and shop.

Mr Clothier you first took on the shop on February 17, 1969. So you must have seen some changes?

" Indeed, back in the the 1970s it was a booming business. On one of our best days we took a record £1,742 in sales. Before that I think the first Easter Saturday was our traditional day for big sales, the busiest day of the year for seed and grain, we took in about £170, but we were serving all day and sales were just in shillings. So we had to work hard to get that kind of money. We would serve the farmers coming into town for the market. His wife would say I want to go to the chemist and get some lipstick, well he would go, he isn't going to go to town. But they would go off into all the other shops. Frome was so busy."

You used to run the business with your wife ?

" What I like to say is that my wife, never ever made a mistake and it is true. She never ever made a mistake and worked all day long; she worked harder than me . But then I had to do the worrying. She left that to me. Work never kills you - but work AND worry that will.

"When I came in 1969 there was a lot of industry in Frome. A LOT of industry. The big ones, Singers, Butler and Tanners. Loads of them all gone. But I think it is the same everywhere. If a big business did come into Frome that would be good, definitely.

"Business has changed for us. In the old days we dealt with loads of farmers, obviously now there are very few and one of our big sellers was dog food, we would sell tons and tons of it. Now all the supermarkets are selling it. We still sell it but not like it used to. Now we sell mainly animal feed, poultry feed, wild bird feed and grass seeds."

So what are your tips for running a successful business?

"Well first of all, I think it helps to talk very quietly : That intimidates the opposition. They have to lean in to hear you and that makes them concentrate.

Second : Never pay anything by direct debit. I never have and never will.

Third : Dig your heels right in the ground. You need to be a keen buyer. If you buy it is very important to keep your bills up together and pay on the nail. Never pay slow. For lots of reasons. When I first took on the business I had a book keeper who had been in the job since 1947. She paid all the bills on a Tuesday. Paid up so no one forgot."

Although the sign says Moore & Sons, the business was originally Moore and Toop - the two were in partnership in the 1920s. They fell out and in 1932 the sign was painted over, but after the last ten or 12 years the paint has gradually come off, so the sign was left as was.

So will the business continue after you?

" I have two daughters but I am not sure whether either of them would want the business and even if they did, it has got to the stage where there really isn't enough money in it. At my time of life, I don't feel any need to diversify, that said you cant go on forever and I do find it hard work now.

"As you get older it does get harder. I have a job to get a bag of potatoes, half hundred weight on my shoulder. You do lose your strength. Do I have a big business mistake ? I can't think of one .

I am persistent. I had to rent this place at first and then had to wait through two other names to get to buy it. But I did in the end.

"And I can sell pretty much anything. I could sell snow to Eskimos, (he laughs) so I never get stuck with any stock.

"I don't regret not staying in farming and I don't regret coming to Frome. As an only child, I have never listened to what people told me, no that's not right, I always listened to people but I always make up my own mind, made my own decisions. maybe that is another business tip. "

So what has the best thing been about his job?

"Over 52 years I want to say I have met the most wonderful people you can imagine. There are some I did not like so much, but very very few. I have met and dealt with wonderful wonderful people.

" I can very quickly sum people up business wise and I have been very lucky, my strategy is that farmers never want to pay you, they want to borrow money off you not the bank. But I have got most of them to pay up.

"What you have to do, you must always try to keep serving them and get some money from them, because if you stop serving them they will go somewhere else and leave you in the lurch. I did have one customer with whom I had a love/ hate relationship with. And we did tell him that if he didn't pay he couldn't have the goods, but within a few weeks he died. I went to the funeral, because I liked him. And I used to go and visit his grave and then I saw his first wife a few months later and she came along and she said I will see you get the money and she did, she paid me up. See persistence again."

Does that make you a hard headed business man?

" Well I don't think. I know a gentleman who comes from Glasgow and he finished up as a manager in the feed business and I talk to him quite often about the trade and he said to me once " You have to be such a hard business man (in this business) and you are such a nice man. I don't understand.

"So I said to him: " What makes you think I am hard? He said you would have never stuck 50 years in the trade . Actually our family are good at business if someone gets in your way we say that in our family we will tread on your foot - not your toe - tread on your foot. You know what I mean ?!"