FAMILY business Chingford Green Joinery has been providing carpentry services to local residents for 77 years, but at the end of this month the shop will close down. Proprietor Vic Berg told reporter CARL BROWN about the history of this well-known business

THE site of Vic Berg working with his saw outside his joinery shop is familiar to anybody who regularly travels along Station Road in Chingford.

The grandfather-of-seven was born in a room beneath the shop in 1936, and has seen the business through good times and bad.

But the 72-year-old has been given notice to leave the premises by the end of this month by his landlord.

The joinery business was set up in 1932 by Vic’s grandfather Frederick. It was originally further along Station Road, in Chingford Green, hence the name.

In 1935, a year before Vic’s birth, the shop moved to its present location, at 115 Station Road, and has been there ever since.

The oldest of three children, Vic grew up with his father Len and mother Doris.

He lived through the Second World War, and as he got a bit older he began to help his father and grandfather run the shop.

He said: “Every Saturday I used to take the orders wherever they were sent – later on I had a motorbike.”

Vic became a typewriter mechanic for 26 years, but following his father’s death in 1995, he came back to run the shop full-time.

He said: “I was never trained on the wood-cutting machine so I went to a woodwork exhibition and asked a man there to give me a demonstration.”

The business produces a wide range of wooden products.

Vic takes orders for fences, doors, trellises and other products, he treats or paints them according to the customer's wishes and then installs them.

Vic said the shop used to get a lot more business than it does now He said: “Before B&Q and Wickes began it used to be very busy, but a lot of people go to these stores instead now.

“We also don’t sell to the trade as much because of Selco.

“My customers are the people in their 50s, 60s, and 70s, who have always used the shop.”

Vic says Station Road has changed a lot in his time, with coffee shops and estate agents replacing businesses that manufacture things.

He says he is thinking about the possibility of continuing his business. He owns some nearby garages which can be used as storage, but is not sure where he can set up.

But he says he will miss the shop and the people of Chingford.

He said: “I have made a point of knowing the names of all the people - I think its important.

“The customers are what I will miss most of all, without them I would not have been able to survive.”