Souvenir trade gets set for a Royal wedding extravaganza

There is one customer from his early days in the retail business that Peter Jones will always remember. It was back in the mid 1960s. At the time he had just a single shop selling china collectables in Wakefield and whenever he doubted there was a market for small figurines, some costing more than an average week’s wages, he would get a visit from one of his regulars.

“There was one particular woman who was obsessed with Royal Doulton, but in truth she couldn’t afford a new coat,” says Peter, a genial 69-year-old. “She would save up a little each week and eventually she’d have enough for a new piece. She taught me that just because you haven’t got much money doesn’t mean you don’t like nice things.”

Fast forward to today and Peter, together with his son-in-law Andrew Cousins, oversees nine shops, a thriving mail order business and are bracing themselves for their busiest period in years.

While local councils may not have been inundated with applications for Royal wedding street parties, the Wills and Kate (or Catherine as she will be known after April 29) effect on the souvenir trade continues undaunted. Memorabilia sales are set to pull in £222m and shortly after the engagement was announced those looking to make a quick buck made their move.

This week even Travelodge got in on the act, with the very specific offer of free honeymoon packages for couples called William and Kate during the Royal wedding weekend.

Rather less glamorous is the West Yorkshire industrial estate where Peter and the rest of the staff are busy processing orders. Their Royal wedding memorabilia is along traditional lines. There’s a selection of china cups, a vase decorated with a scene of Westminster Abbey and for the most ardent royalist a limited edition Royal wedding peacock, yours for £2,950 or 10 easy instalments of £295. Being patriotic it seems doesn’t come cheap and even the most expensive souvenirs are unlikely to rise much in value.

“I remember the family going round to watch the Queen’s Coronation in 1953,” says Peter. “I’d never seen anything on television before and it was a real moment in history. I have no doubt that children today will remember William and Catherine’s wedding in years to come. It might not rival Charles and Diana, what could? But when anyone says the country’s apathetic towards royalty I take it with a pinch of salt.

“When the Queen Mum turned 90 we got a few calls from national papers inquiring how many mugs we’d sold. They were desperate to run a story that we’d only sold half a dozen, but that wasn’t the case.”

In fact, Peter Jones China stands to make about £1m from sales of Royal wedding souvenirs and after a quiet few years, the calendar of future events is looking healthy.

Once the nuptials are over, they’ll be looking ahead to William’s 30th and with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee following in 2013, it seems royal events are a little bit like buses.

“We had the engagement pieces ready to go for some months. All we had to do was drop in a photograph and we were the first to get our mugs into the shops,” says Peter, with more than a degree of pride. “It’s a pretty seamless operation, but it should be given how long we’ve been doing it. When Princess Anne got married, I noticed there were hardly any people producing souvenir china, certainly not enough to satisfy demand, so when the Silver Jubilee came along in 1977 we moved in.”

The company’s success is largely down to its mailing list – 40,000 customers at the last count. Most are British, but there are a few thousand scattered across America, Canada and Australia. Shortly before I arrive 30 Steiff Catherine teddy bears, £165 each, have been sent out to one particularly royalist customer in the US.

Not that Peter ever rests on his laurels. The other day he spotted a news story about an avid collector from London. He took the clipping into the office and told his office manager, “she should be on our mailing list”. As it turned out she already was and had called earlier that day with a fresh order. Still, it pays to be on the look out for new markets.

One company which banked everything on the Millennium and Golden Jubilee went to the wall and the country is littered with hundreds of similar cautionary tales. Even with all his years of experience, Peter admits this Royal wedding range hasn’t gone entirely without a hitch – the company had to stop production of one early set of mugs to replace Kate with the Lord Chamberlain approved Catherine.

“It happens, but sometimes you can turn it to your advantage,” he says. “There was all sorts of fuss when Charles and Camilla had to postpone their wedding because of the Pope’s funeral. A lot of souvenirs printed with the original date were pulled, but actually they were incredibly desirable. We bought a whole lot of stock and sold it incredibly quickly.”

With everyone from garden gnome to tea bag producers attempting to cash in on the Royal wedding and the Middleton family stocking up on corgi-themed cake toppers for their party business, there’s inevitably been murmurings commercialisation has gone a step too far.

Even the online shop for Highgrove, Prince Charles’ Gloucestershire home, is now advertising a 250-piece jigsaw puzzle featuring his son and soon to be daughter-in-law for £29.95.

Peter has little time for the cynics, besides, he says, the souvenir business has history. The first commemorative mug was issued back in 1660 when parliament restored the monarchy following the death of Oliver Cromwell and Charles II took the throne.

“It’s a celebration of Britishness,” he adds. “Many of the designs we use are from the royal archives, the templates are all painted by hand and even the boxes we use are all made here. The souvenir businesses has been going for hundreds of years and really accelerated during Victorian times. Britain is a nation of collectors. Whether it be grown men with their Dinky car collections or those with rooms packed full of royal memorabilia, it’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

Born in Hull, Peter inherited his love of the business from his parents who bought a gift shop in Filey. When he was involved in a serious car crash which led to an £850 insurance pay out – about £10,000 in today’s money – Peter decided to go it alone and over the years has come to realise that even the most tragic of royal events demand commemoration.

“When Princess Diana died the phones rang constantly with our customers, many of them in tears who wanted to offer their condolences. First it was people from this country, then America and by the evening when Australia had woken to the news they began ringing too. The next day they were ringing to order commemorative souvenirs

“When she had lost the title Princess of Wales we had a new set of mugs commissioned. They’d sold in small numbers but suddenly we had orders flooding in.”

While he resists filling his own house with too much memorabilia, he say’s he’ll probably keep a few pieces from this royal wedding and may yet buy a tea towel. “Everyone likes a tea towel, it’s part of British tradition.”

[email protected]