A second-hand furniture store which has been in the same family for almost 40 years is being passed on to a new generation once again.

IN 1976, the Sex Pistols released their first single, penniless Britain was forced to take a £1.9billion loan from the International Monetary Fund and China was mourning the death of Chairman Mao.

It was in this vastly different world to ours that Les and Gary’s was born and, in changing times, the family business is preparing itself for its next big move, with newpremises, new owners, and a new business plan.

Gary Bell, 58, and wife Sue, 54, will give up the reins of the business, which was once the largest second-hand furniture store in the country, to children Madeleine, 26, and Matt, 30, as well as Madeleine’s fiance, Chris Storozynski, 30, at the end of the month.

Under the new regime, the shop will be renamed Les and Gary’s: The New Generation and move to a smaller shop a few doors down, in London Road, Westcliff, in order to place a larger focus on online sales.

It comes 20 years after Sue became a partner and a decade after she and Gary took over the business from her father, and cofounder Les Harvey, who died suddenly while on holiday in Las Vegas last year aged 76.

“The shop is huge and just doesn’t need to be this big in the age of the internet,” Sue said.

“We want to thank all the customers who have been with us since 1976 and all those generations of people who have supported us, but the younger generation are going to get looked after with our children.

“They’re very computer savvy and understand that a lot of the trade has got to be online these days but, although the premises won’t be the biggest in England any more, the business still will be.”

It’s all a world away from the business’s beginnings on Southchurch Road in 1976, prior to which Les was working as a taxi driver and Gary as a window cleaner, though Sue says her father was always an entrepreneur.

“He had a shop called the Orange Bowl, which was a greengrocer’s, he had several of them throughout his life,” she said.

“He was always doing something and I’ve worked in one of those businesses since I was nine years old.

“He never really retired until he was 74 and, if my mum had her way, she would come back and help out now.”

From those humble beginnings, the business grew and grew to the point it actually began to become a victim of its own success, due to the rules of VAT eligibility at the time which, for a period, made it difficult to makemoney after the firmgot to a certain size.

Sue said: “I think that’s a testimony to us, that we took the second- hand trade from the level of junk shops to a respectable trade. I’m hoping my children will now take that to the next level.”

Can it still be Les and Gary’s without Les or Gary, though?

“We’ve tried all sorts over the years and it just hasn’t worked,”

Sue laughs. “It’s stuck over 30 years and we didn’t want to change it. People know who we are when they go to us and that’s our advantage.”