Moneywatch: Question time: Don Lewin

NATALIE GRAHAM talks to Don Lewin OBE, 66, founder and chairman of Clinton Cards, which has 740 outlets in the UK after starting with one shop in 1968...

HOW do you relax out of work?

I SWIM every day, do Tai Chi twice a week, and enjoy listening to crooners like Frank Sinatra.

WHERE do you like to eat out?

THE Ritz and The Savoy, because they are always comfortable. I love traditional food like roast beef followed by bread and butter pudding.

WHAT type of Christmas cards do you send?

TRADITIONAL ones. I send about 300 cards at Christmas and another 50 throughout the year.

WHY bother sending a greetings card?

IT'S a way of expressing sentiment and when times are hard people will send a card rather than a present. In this country we send more cards per person, 55 a year, than any other country. The nearest is America, with 45 a year, then Australia, with 20.

WHAT was your biggest break?

JOINING the greetings card business as a freelance salesman in my 20s. I used to sell cards from the back of a car, which led to me getting an agency selling cards to retailers. I realised I was on to something when retailers said they had no Christmas cards left two weeks before Christmas. HOW much money was spent to set up Clinton Cards?

pounds 500 of borrowed money in l968, which was a huge amount then.

WHAT was your worst day?

GOING back to the Army after my mother died. She was 41 and I was l8.

YOUR idea of a perfect holiday?

TWO weeks in Disneyland, or a beach in Barbados, or a villa in Portugal.

WHAT issue are you concentrating on now?

TV advertising, especially for our new three-storey shop on London's Oxford Street, the largest greetings card store in the world.

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