Stuart runs 3 souvenir shops in London and says the secret to the shop's success is his wife’s touch. Everyday over 900 tourists walk through the doors and each one is looking for an authentic London experience.
This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a five-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view.
www.1000londoners.com
/ 1000londoners
1000londoners
Twitter: @1000_londoners
1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit www.chocolatefilms.com
Transcript:
We started souvenir shop in ’87 outside St. Paul’s Cathedral in the old Paternoster square building. Originally I had a food shop where we were dealing with city workers. And they only had an hour to eat their lunch. We were only open three hours a day Monday to Friday and boy did they give you hard times. Whereas now the customers are free to browse as long as they like. They're in no pressure, no hurry to get anywhere and just like to talk, chat - it's great! This is ratty, he's a director of a company and likes to show people round the shop. And then of course we have Sooty …Sooty...who likes to keep the customers amused when she's not sleeping! Everybody who comes in the shop are happy and they all go for different things, for instance: Americans love t-shirts and baseball caps, people from Germany like efficient things like pencils and rubbers and rulers, things that are useful. Japanese buy tiny little things because they live in tiny spaces, Indians love shiny objects and things with sparkles on them, I'll bring ratty in for this… He likes to show the English what we like to buy. This is our favourite selling bus. And we have little models here, we have Sherlock Holmes, The Queen, and she waves her hand sometimes... like this you know, she likes to wave. And then we have groovy sunglasses, I could try them on... no maybe not. Lady Diana is still popular. Out of all the Royals I think she lives on the longest. The only secret is my wife's touch. Most souvenir shops in London are run by guys. And there is definitely a distinct difference in having a lady's eye during the buying of the products. The good thing about my job is that everybody who comes in is on holiday, they're happy and they just like to talk and like to speak to an English person.
22 авг 2024
