Founder of the Pavers shoe empire

Born: May 5, 1928;

Died: February 16, 2017

CATHERINE Kinloch Paver, who has died aged 88, was a Scottish retailer who started the Pavers shoe company in 1971. Over 40 years, the firm expanded to become an international chain with more than 160 shops across three continents and almost 2000 employees; it also has its own successful shopping channel dedicated to selling its shoes.

Catherine Paver started the company with a £200 bank loan - the only time the company has ever been in debt - after attending a home-selling party and thinking that she could do it better herself. She bought shoes, clothes and household items direct from factories in Yorkshire, where she was living, and sold them on through parties and at friends’ houses. The scheme was a success and Paver bought a warehouse to sell her merchandise all year round.

She then made a decision to specialise in shoes, particularly shoes for people with awkward shapes and sizes, and before long she had opened her first shop in Scarborough. Another followed in York and from there she kept on adding branches, as well as selling through concessions in department stores.

Paver always believed that the work ethic that helped build her business came from her father, who told her that from little acorns grew great oaks, although she did not start her business until she was well into her 40s.

She was born one of five children in Kirkcaldy in Fife, where her father worked for a local engineering firm, and left school at 14, working in a library and as a nanny.

In 1943, she moved to York to find work and her first job was helping wounded soldiers in the military hospital in the city. She later moved into retail, takin a job with Boots the Chemist, where she worked in the framing department. It was around this time that she met and subsequently married her husband of 51 years, Michael.

Paver worked at Boots for 11 years, but decided she wanted to try something different when her sons started to grow up and rely on her less. “I was bored,” she said. After attending a home sale for lingerie at a friend’s house and finding that there was nothing she could buy, she went back home and told her husband that she could do better.

Her original business loan was rejected however, so she reapplied two weeks later for £200, telling them it was to buy a sofa, and was given the money.

With Catherine Paver’s plain-talking approach, combined with an splash of Scottish verve, the shoe business quickly grew, although sexism was a problem in the early days. “They didn’t want to deal with a woman then,” she said. “I had a terrible job to make suppliers realise I was the boss and I was buying. If my husband came, they wanted to speak to him.”

After a period of selling from people’s living rooms and pioneering out-of-town retailing, the company opened its first high street shop, in Scarborough, in 1982. Others in York, Hull and Newcastle quickly followed.

A few years later, spotting a trend early in its development, Pavers opened its first outlet store in North Shields offering footwear at 30 per cent less than normal retail prices. Many more shops throughout the UK and Ireland have opened since, as did an overseas venture, Pavers England, which is based in Dubai, but operates retail locations throughout the Middle East, India, and Sri Lanka. Despite this growth, but in line with its proclaimed traditional Yorkshire family values, the company remains globally headquartered in York.

Over the course of her near 50-year career with Pavers, Cathy Paver was frequently recognised as one of the most successful female retailers of her generation, winning the Draper’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. She was also recognised alongside James Dyson, Vivienne Westwood, and Victoria Beckham in Management Today’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs in 2015, and 2016.

Catherine Paver certainly had a passion for an industry she loved, although her first love was for her family. A devoted mother to her three sons, all of whom later joined her in the business, and as a grandmother, and great-grandmother, she considered this element of her life probably her finest work.

However, she remained involved in the business well into her 80s and once said that she would rather go to a shoe fair than on a cruise. “It’s not about the money any more,” she said at the age of 82. “It keeps me going and it keeps me young. As long as I am doing a good job and my memory is fine, it gets better as I get older.”

Away from the business, Paver’s great hobby was breeding racehorses and over the years she had several winners.

Illness and pain in her later life never diminished her love for shoes and she was brightest in her last few days when discussing the plans for autumn/winter ‘17.

Catherine Paver spent the last couple of weeks surrounded by family, friends and colleagues enjoying every last moment of a long and well lived life.

She was pre-deceased by her husband and is survived by her three sons, Graham, Ian and Stuart, her grandchildren and her great grandchildren.