Tony Baines: 68 Years at the Same Cycle Shop

A man who has worked at the same cycle shop for 68 years says his time there has "flown by." Tony Baines, 83, started working at D Speight Cycles in Scunthorpe when he was 15. Now the owner of the shop, he works alongside his grandson selling and repairing bicycles. "I just don't know where the time's gone," he said. "If I'm 93 and I'm still fit, I'll be here." Tony got his start at the shop in 1957 because he lived next door to then owner Don Speight. "He asked me if I wanted to work, because I couldn't get a job anywhere. "And I said, well, it will be all right until I get called up in the Army – which didn't happen – and I'm still here!" He described the 1960s and 1970s as "always busy". "We even did motorbikes in the earlier days – it wasn't just bicycles. "We sold more mopeds from here than anywhere in Britain." Tony recalled seeing Scunthorpe's steelworkers cycling home from their shifts at 16:30 GMT every weekday. "You would never have crossed Frodingham Road for a row of bicycles, and they used to queue outside the door to come in." He took over the shop 37 years ago after the former owner died. "I wanted to keep the name. I could have changed it, but I kept his name there. People knew it," he explained.