What I wouldn’t sometimes give for a ‘hot-line’ to God!

J.L. – B.&S.

January 7th, 1968

(Note for printers – please print as above – ie “TUESDAY’S P.S.” – if possible place directly following “TUESDAY’S PIECE” submitted separately – last time you changed “P.S.” to “PIECE”!)

Every day I think of closing this ‘headache’ of a business; almost weekly I determine to do so – I think my wife would clap hands if I did! We are sustained more by praise than profits – our losses are extensive. It might be significant that people find this hard to believe?

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

January 7th, 1968

A true story:

At the time of the ‘Buy Home Products’ campaign on television my son, Ross, then aged 2, was walking down First St., with my wife. It was armistice Day or some such occasion and toward them came a man wearing on his chest a bobbing string of medals. Ross tugged my wife’s hand and said “look! Mummy – ‘and your money comes back to you'”!

J.L. – B.&S.

January 6th, 1968

(Note for printer – please place immediately following “MONDAY’S PIECE” submitted separately – ie do not correct above to read “PIECE”).

Candour is a rare but precious quality in a man.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

January 6th, 1968

The happy beginning to many a day has for me been marred by those ‘eyes front’ – ‘never look left or right, never think of those behind’ types who drive with their elbows out of the window and have all the time in the world to waste. One can only assume that their time is not very valuable or belongs to someone else – the latter more likely. In the Republic ‘elbow driving’ is an offence for which you are fined ‘on the spot’……whew! Sorry – that’s the way I feel this morning.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

January 5th, 1968

We are always looking for new personnel – especially for the factory. Our most urgent need is for a man to help run the carpentry, joinery, painting and polishing department. Our ‘furniture clinic’ is very busy. Applications, please, to Heaton’s Personnel Bureau – ‘phone 28126.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

January 4th, 1967

Exclusivity is our strongpoint but it is not the most marketable commodity in Rhodesia.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

January 3rd, 1968

Apologies to the fifteen households in the Princess Drive, Highlands, area who didn’t get their Sunday Mail on Christmas Eve. I found the delivery man (Michael) in distress with a broken bicycle chain (and the added difficulty that some well-wisher had slipped some gin into his Mazoe Crush the night before!) so, with my three young sons, I put the bike on top of the car and we spent an uproarious 2 1/2 hours delivering 160 newspapers to puzzled Highlands residents – some of whom, in the confusion, might have got two! Sorry. I haven’t done the round before! In fact – I have not delivered a newspaper since before I was a boy of about 10 in sunny Somerset – memories galore come flooding back on Christmas Eve.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 31st, 1967

We are not ourselves blameless but if asked to state the most formidable obstacle or problem in establishing or maintaining an efficient or profitable business in Rhodesia – I would without hesitation refer to the acute shortage of experienced, versatile and generative staff. It is, in my humble view, becoming a national problem.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 30th, 1967

Would you believe it? A large quantity of colourful and functional glass paperweights were found in the back of a Salisbury warehouse. They had been lying there for 25 years and we were able to sell them in our shop for 2/6d each. They hardly moved until, told by a Johannesburg antique dealer, that they were worth much more, we put them up to 5/-d each. They have since sold like ‘hot cakes’ and only 29 remain. Daft isn’t it? But the same Johannesburg man told us that most of our prices are daft and visitors from all over the world tell us the same thing.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 29th, 1967

I need a businessman (or woman) with an accountant’s head, or an accountant with a businessman’s (or woman’s) head to assist me in running this not unsuccessful circus. Applications to HEATON’S PERSONNEL BUREAU, please. Phone 28126.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December28th, 1967

“A Christmas gambol oft could cheer

The poor man’s heart through half the year”.

(Sir Walter Scott)

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 23rd, 1967

Whatever one might think and feel about the issues of our Rhodesian day, I swear there is no other land where a stranger (once through Immigration and Customs!) is more readily, and unreservedly, accepted.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 22nd, 1967

Truly I do not like talking ‘shop’ on social occasions but in this business it is unavoidable. People just want to talk about furniture and they say the nicest things which, to be frank, keep me going when cold logic says ‘call it a day’.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 21st, 1967

Appearances are deceptive – my good-looking and comfortable car clocked up 180,000 miles last week. With luck it will be 200,000 by December 1968 and 250,000 by December 1970 or thereabout. What a friend – an Opel Kapitan – 1955.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 20th, 1967

I ran a ‘one-man’ business for eleven years (remember Jacob’s business and Twining’s Teas?) and swore I would never do it again. I have done it again and it is killing me. Decisions – decisions – decisions!!

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 19th, 1967

Many a chair or a piece of furniture has come into us for repair – some in bits and pieces from the loft or garage – and they go out worth a realisable five times the few pounds charged.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 17th, 1967

It would be foolish to pretend that I am feeling the spirit of Christmas. I am better off than many but I am nevertheless struggling to survive and I view 1968 with trepidation – what is the use of pretending otherwise?

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 16th, 1967

Everyone (friend and foe alike!) seems pleasurably surprised when they visit either our shop at C.A.B.S. Basement First Street or our factory at the Industrial Sites. We welcome visitors to the factory – it is a quick run from town. Ring 23673 for directions and bring that broken chair in the garage with you.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 14th, 1967

We are not selling as much as we ought at C.A.B.S. Basement First Street but (heaven be praised!) it does attract a lot of furniture repair, renovation and re-upholstery work. There is something funny about basements in Salisbury as former tenants and C.A.B.S. would readily testify – funny peculiar not funny ha! ha! The repair orders could be because we seem to be the only people offering on a factory scale woodwork and upholstery repairs combined.

John Lentell – Barum & Sarum

December 13th, 1967