A former businessman behind the company that became furniture giant ScS will see his latest book promoted in New York鈥檚 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鈥檚 Iphone with the help of co-author Chat Smith. Using the idiom 鈥渁 picture is worth a thousand words鈥, 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 鈥渟ervice before self鈥.
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 海角视频鈥檚 higher education system. It covers diverse topics including education, social justice and business management.
Mr Share explained: 鈥淭here are certain things that grab me enormously today. We鈥檝e 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 拢70,000, which I regard as obscene and a form of slavery actually.
鈥淚t really isn鈥檛 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鈥檙e trying to supply. You necessarily force a dialogue between the people that need graduates and the people who supply them.
He added: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 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.鈥
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鈥檚 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 海角视频 chain with more than 100 stores across the country. In 2023 the plc was taken private in a near 拢100m deal which saw Italian retailer Poltronesof脿 take control.
Mr Share鈥檚 other books include 鈥楲etters to management: the serious pursuit of excellence鈥, which brings together weekly letters that he penned to managers of the A. Share & Sons business, offering 鈥渉ome spun鈥 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."
