Maxine Duffus is closing her Sheffield dress shop after 39 years

Maxine Duffus is closing her Sheffield dress shop after 39 years. She was also Sheffield's first black bus driver in 1983.

Transcript

00:00I'm not going to lie, I'm going to really really miss it because it's been part of my life, it's

00:06like I call it my third child and I'm not trying to cry right now but I think I will cry once I'm

00:14at home and it's the first day of working mobile. I've been here since 1985 and I'm going to be

00:22closing shortly on the 31st of July and then I'm going to move on to mobile alterations.

00:31I'm going to say that I've enjoyed meeting so many different people,

00:36not even just people but the generations of families and that is what I'm going to miss the

00:42most. I do enjoy what I do, I'm not going to lie, it's not fun and games and it's a survival process

00:51sometimes instead of a thriving process so hopefully slowing down a bit I'll be able to do

00:59more personal meetings. This is where my love of fashion started when I was 21 and I took a job

01:08on the buses to save money to get fabric to make dresses to do fashion shows and

01:16that's the beginning of the journey. The journey then came when I came to the shop

01:22and now the journey is carrying on and I'm going to be doing it mobile.

01:27Being a bus driver was quite daunting because I always used to get a double stare off some of the

01:33passengers. They probably thought I was too young to be driving such a big,

01:39operating such a big instrument and I enjoyed it to a certain degree but it wasn't my first

01:48passion. My first passion was to have my own boutique and I succeeded in that for the last 39

01:53and a half years.