After leaving Hunstanton Secondary Modern School, Ivan worked for a short time at Suntester in King’s Lynn before serving an apprenticeship and qualifying as an electrician.

He experimented with trading on Sunday markets selling small electrical items, clocks, watches, radios, cigarette lighters, umbrellas etc – ‘swag or tack!!’  People had these items in their homes for many years.  This went well so he decided to become a full time market trader, settling down to be a regular at King’s Lynn, Fakenham, Swaffham and Hunstanton markets, through all weathers, not an easy life.  At this time market pitches were sort after and valuable.
 

Ivan led trends in goods sold and when CB radios became available he was the local supplier, these weren’t strictly legal but people had great fun using them and many friendships were made on the airwaves, Ivan’s ‘handle’ was ‘Sharp Dealer’ as he traded in many Sharp products.

At this time, the early 1980’s,  Video Cassette Recorders were becoming a popular feature in many homes. And this led to a demand both for the rental of equipment and feature films on VHS cassettes.  Ivan satisfied some of the local demand by offering rental of both from his market stalls, with people travelling between the different market locations to ‘swop’ their tapes midweek.

Eventually, despite having a purpose built articulated trailer made specially designed for the job, he tired of trading from the markets, with early mornings and sometimes harsh conditions. So in 1987 with wife Maureen leased the first shop in Greevegate, Hunstanton and opened as a full blown stand alone video library, initially continuing from  the markets.  A couple of years later he opened another store in Norfolk Street, King’s Lynn and then others at Swaffham and Fakenham, the latter two being fairly short lived, but continued trading in Kings Lynn for approximately 32 years and in Hunstanton for 34 years.

With changes in technology it became obvious that the video library wasn’t going to survive as a stand alone shop, so in the late 80’s fast film processing was introduced to the Hunstanton store, being a holiday location this was a perfect, but scary opportunity.  It was a whole new learning curve, and there were some tense times, but this introduced him to many great suppliers (Agfa, Swains etc) and met many new acquaintances in the business.  This was a good investment and led to similar set up in the King’s Lynn store where there was an opportunity to serve more professional photographers. Once a good customer base had been established using old second hand equipment, new equipment was purchased.  Agfa was the main equipment supplier, the investment was huge compared to anything done before, and took lots of long hours and hard work to make it work, but it did work and he had many long standing and satisfied customers.

Soon after introducing the photo processing to Hunstanton, he decided to give photography a bash and after many hours of experimenting with his patient children and wife, felt he had sufficient knowledge to do some wedding photography, starting out using a Mamiya twin lens camera and 120 film, which gave amazing quality images.  This also became successful, and hundreds of weddings were photographed with wife, Maureen, as his assistant this expanded to school/playgroup photography, social events, a portrait studio in the King’s Lynn shop and lots of other photographic work, giving many memorable and unusual moments which otherwise would not have been experienced.  During this time equipment was continually being updated, Ivan preferred to use film and continued doing so until the digital cameras were providing images of comparable quality.

As more and more amateur and professional photographers were using digital imaging, the process became more challenging as initially many digital cameras were not giving the same quality as film, this led to some loss of interest as quality had always been his main priority. He continued for many years and embraced the changes, but with the introduction of cameras on mobile phones and the lack of knowledge of the users it all became very frustrating.

So after 30 or so years in the business it was decided that when the lease on the King’s Lynn shop terminated in 2019 that it would be closed, all the equipment was moved to Hunstanton and he continued trading there for a further two years….well it would’ve been trading for two years if not for Covid – as a non essential business the shop has been closed for most of the last 12 months!!  Brexit has also played a major part in his decision to finish as the parts for the equipment are generally supplied from Germany. This used to be on a next day delivery service, which is essential  as breakdowns meant no output and no income, but this fast delivery can no longer be relied upon.

So on the 18^th April 2021, Wolfys Video & Photography at Hunstanton closed for the last time, after 34 years, the lease terminates on 20^th April and the shop must be empty.

People ask, what will you do?   Well, for the summer of 2021 hopefully  cycling, paddleboarding, dog walking, drinking wine and beer and all nice things,  after that who knows, he is 69 you know!! As for Maureen she’ll probably have to get another job…..

MORE CHALLENGES AND ENJ0YMENT AHEAD FOR IVAN AND MAUREEN IN THEIR RETIREMENT
CYCLING, PADDLEBOARDING, DOG WALKING, DRINKING WINE AND BEER.
CROSS COUNTRY SKIING HAS BEEN AN ANNUAL EVENT IN OUR LIVES OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS IN PLACES LIKE ITALY, AUSTRIA, FINLAND AND ESTONIA. WE HAVE MADE LONG-LASTING FRIENDSHIPS FROM IT. THE SKI MARATHON A REGULAR EVENT IN FREEZING CONDITIONS WHICH IS A BIT OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONE.

I would just like to add my own bit to this fascinating career of Ivan's. I have known Ivan from the very early days when he was a market trader and I had many visits to his market stall both at Hunstanton and King's Lynn. I have memories especially in the days of CB radio. On the days Ivan left early around 6am to travel to Fakenham and Swaffham market I would get on my CB at home and make that well known call sign 'Do you copy'. As Ivan's name on the CB was Sharp Dealer it was mostly abbreviated by his friends to 'Do you copy Sharpie'. Those were great times had by all and now over 35 years later I am proud to say we are still the best of friends and I wish Ivan and wife Maureen a very happy retirement they both certainly deserve it.