A former businessman behind the company that became furniture giant ScS will see his latest book promoted in New York’s Times Square.
Alan Share ran Sunderland-based family business A. Share & Sons throughout the 1970s and 80s - introducing the ScS brand - before selling up in the early 1990s.
The 92-year-old Oxford-educated barrister has since penned a number of books which offer wisdom from his life experiences, which also include working for the Liberal Party, significant involvement in the Rotary Club of Sunderland and a school for children with physical disabilities and learning difficulties.
His latest book, Miraculous Images, features pictures almost entirely created on Mr Share’s Iphone with the help of co-author Chat Smith. Using the idiom “a picture is worth a thousand words”, Mr Share aims to be thought provoking and encourage others to adopt a motto he has lived by, and one associated with the Rotary Club, which is “service before self”.
The book - which is being promoted in a US publisher in the high profile surroundings of Times Square - offers a polemic with criticism of the Ƶ’s higher education system. It covers diverse topics including education, social justice and business management.
Mr Share explained: “There are certain things that grab me enormously today. We’ve got no kids but I see the present generation of kids and I think they have drawn a short straw in many respects because the education system is lousy - not least because when they leave it they can have a debt of £70,000, which I regard as obscene and a form of slavery actually.
“It really isn’t necessary when you think about it. The people that need graduates should pay for it via scholarships, and furthermore they should relate to the universities so that the subjects the universities teach should be relevant to the needs they’re trying to supply. You necessarily force a dialogue between the people that need graduates and the people who supply them.
He added: “That’s one of the issues I want to raise - and put it into the middle if I can - and I can do it with the aid of this book.”
Mr Share returned to Sunderland after the death of his father to run the family business, A. Share & Sons Limited, which had been founded by his grandfather. The firm started selling suites from premises in the Mowbray Buildings on Sunderland’s Borough Road, and Mr Share came up with the name Suite Centre Sunderland - ScS - while in the bath one night, as a move to differentiate it from competitors.
The business was later sold in a management buyout and went on to become a major Ƶ chain with more than 100 stores across the country. In 2023 the plc was taken private in a near £100m deal which saw Italian retailer Poltronesofà take control.
Mr Share’s other books include ‘Letters to management: the serious pursuit of excellence’, which brings together weekly letters that he penned to managers of the A. Share & Sons business, offering “home spun” wisdom about strategy.
He added: "I press on in the hope that people will read this because I think I have something to say. I'm running out of road, as I put it to my friends, and I just count my blessings when I wake up in the morning. I'm very lucky that I have a very lovely wife of more than 50 years and together we enjoy life enormously."
