Saturday boy Chris celebrates 60 years at the family butcher shop in Stoke-on-Trent

A Stoke-on-Trent butcher who started in the business as a Saturday boy aged 11 has spent an incredible 60 years in the same family business. Chris Deaville, who turns 71 this month, has worked for four generations of the W James Butchers family in Baddeley Green.

Chris grew up in the area and was attracted to the idea of ​​working as a butcher. In 1964 he managed to get a Saturday job. At 15 he left school and worked full-time as a butcher.

Feeling he’s worked full-time long enough, Chris recently reduced his workload to just 40 hours a week. “I thought I should slow down a bit after working 70 hours or more in a normal week for so many years,” he said.

Chris has seen the business grow from an original front room shop to the current premises where up to ten staff work behind the counter. W James Butchers is one of the few remaining family butchers with their own abattoir. Chris obtained a license early in his career and spent many hours preparing a variety of locally raised meats for the counter.

“There’s no time to stand still,” said Chris. “Not to mention Christmas! It’s an enormous amount of work to prepare the store, and several hundred orders every year.”

Chris has witnessed the growth of the company from the time when W. James’ original sons – Bill Jr., Malcolm and David – worked in the company until a few years ago when Adam and Karl – Bill Jr.’s sons – took over the company.

Of course, their children are now fully involved in the business and employed on the family’s cattle and dairy farms in the area, raising all the beef that is sold there. Chris takes great pride in temptingly displaying the many roasts and cuts, sausages, home-smoked bacon, pies and all the other varieties on offer, and speaks fondly of the hundreds of customers he has met over sixty years.

“I’ve been very lucky to work for so long in a job that I really enjoy,” he said. “After so many years, I still look forward to being here before 7 a.m. and helping to prepare the store for the day ahead.”

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