Bird Opticians: 40 years of jokes and insults - amid a 'dying' Sheffield city centre

A Sheffield opticians is celebrating 40 years in business with fond memories of the “daft” founder who insulted customers - and sad reflections on the state of the city centre.

Elaine Bird inherited Bird Opticians on Surrey Street when husband John died in July 2020. He set up the business in 1983 and built it into a success based on customer service, with a few jokes along the way. Run today by daughter Eleanor and long-serving staff Samantha Law and Suzanne Lynch, it still sees up to 270 patients a week, many elderly, including one who has been coming for 39 years.

But Elaine believes the city centre has “died” and customers who used to come into town on a shopping trip now just visit them and maybe Marks and Spencer on Fargate.

Here are Elaine’s memories and reflections after 40 years in Sheffield.

John trained to be an optician on leaving High Storrs Grammar School at 16. You might wonder why he chose this profession. Well, his mother used to work as a cleaner for an opticians in Firth Park where they lived. He used to meet his mum after school and, seeing the optician standing in front of a fire in his consulting room, thought that it looked like a cushy job. So began a career spanning 57 years which saw him working in Newcastle and Derby before finally opening his own practice in Sheffield.

John Bird used to work for D&A Opticians at Castle Market. When they sent him out to find other premises, on Surrey Street he found an old tobacconist shop for rent. D&A declined but he thought it was a prime position, so quit his job and set out on his own. At first, to make it look busy, he used to write Mickey Mouse and Scooby Doo in the diary. Soon he became busy and when the tobacconist’s shop next door became vacant, he expanded to create the premises it now occupies.

He loved his work and was always being daft – winding customers up, insulting them, giving them nicknames and singing songs related (however tenuously) to their names. A chorus of ‘The Campbells are coming, they are they are’ heralded any one of the family concerned. 

He went on a cruise and on coming back to work one of his customers called in to complain about the service she had received. The lady then went on to explain that everyone had been lovely, very professional and she was very happy with her spectacles – however, she hadn’t been insulted once and could he please insult her so she could leave with a true Bird’s experience.

John did resemble John Cleese and had one customer (a university professor) who looked and sounded like Manuel. One day he ran into the shop shouting "Mr Fawlty, Mr Fawlty, my glasses are broken.” (he had sellotaped them to his face) - without blinking John mock cuffed him round the ear declaring “you silly little man!” just like Basil Fawlty, causing another staff member to fall off the chair from laughing.

John was exceptionally good at choosing frames for his customers and used to play a game where he wrote down the frame the customer would choose – fold it and give it to them to keep. After trying on half the shop, he got them to pull the paper out of their pocket and 90 per cent of the time he had chosen correctly.

Our longest serving member of staff is Samantha Law, 25 years last year. Suzanne Lynch has been here for 22 years and Eleanor, John’s daughter, for 16 years. John retired slowly – from 2012 on up to his death in 2020. 

We do support the Sheffield Theatres by advertising in the programmes and we sponsor the traffic island on Arundel Gate. However, we firmly believe that word of mouth is the best recommendation you can have. 

Sometimes, customers who have found it difficult to reach Surrey Street have had to go somewhere else but often come back, telling us service is key and worth the effort to get here.

John taught his staff well and if in doubt, managers Suzanne and Eleanor ask, “What would John do?” They want to carry on his legacy of treating everyone equally and fairly. If asked for ‘a deal’ he always used to reply that ‘Everyone gets our best deal’.

We believe that children are just as valued customers as adults. Many have stayed with us through their teens and as adults bring their new families to us too. We are lucky to have the Royal Hallamshire Hopsital eye department in Sheffield and we provide a lot of spectacles for their patients. Children’s eye care is very important and the new ways of helping children slow down the progression of myopia are very exciting.

For our 30th anniversary, John hired a John Travolta white suit and wore fancy platform shoes. He wore it in the shop and also to go to Lynne's Pantry for his lunch. That's the kind of person he was.

John died in July 2020 and I inherited the business from him at that time. Our daughter, Elly, had already been working with John for around 14 years so she carried on with the running of the business and I just help out with admin and finances. She is there for the long haul and won't sell or close it. We are very busy still with many loyal patients and we see lots of children with health and social issues too

Before the city centre died, John used to have lots of patients who used to pop in for a chat or leave parcels for other relatives to call in and collect while in town. One just used to come in and offer his latest joke.

Now, most of our patients just come in to see us and maybe call into Marks and Spencers. Heaven help us if that ever goes.

Some patients have stopped coming because either town is too hard to access for them or they just don't have any other reason to come into town. It can be expensive or long-winded just to come and get their spectacles adjusted. Some have had less-than-ideal experiences elsewhere and have ended up coming back to us. It cost one couple £35 for the round trip to come to Surrey Street. They have health issues which mean they cannot use buses, never mind walk or cycle to us!