Birmingham couple proud to own ‘longest-running’ corner shop

A husband and wife team behind a corner shop in Birmingham said they felt proud at being named the UK’s longest-standing business run by a married couple.

Derek and Pauline Hughes from Cotteridge have been at the helm of their store on Rowheath Road since April 1964.

Now in their eighties, they were picked out by financial technology company SumUp through a trawl of newspaper archives and company registers.

Mr Hughes, 89, said he was taken aback by the accolade, adding that it was “unbelievable”.

Remembering the day they opened, when a pint of milk sold for 9p and The Beatles dominated the charts, Mr Hughes said: “It was a Tuesday, we had a load of mushrooms from the market and we sold them all.”

The couple have lived in the house attached to the shop since it opened and brought up their children there.

They said they could not have stayed open so long without the support of their family.

Mrs Hughes, 84, said: “My daughter, my grandchildren they come and help, so it is lovely. To have a corner shop, it’s absolutely incredible.”

The couple’s daughter, Jennifer, described the shop as having a real “community feel”.

“We have a lot of local customers who come in and keep supporting us, which is lovely – it is just a really nice place to have grown up and to be part of,” she said.

She described her parents’ longevity as “an achievement” and the nod from SumUp as “a lovely surprise”.

“They love what they do. It’s a dream for them and they have kept it going and we as a family just want to support them in doing that too,” she said.