A popular jewellery shop owner has officially retired after 43 years in the business.
Alan Nisbet-Baldwin, 82, of His Nibs in Ayr’s Newmarket Street, is keeping the business in the family by handing over the reins to son Gareth.
The jewellery and collectables shop, which originally started in nearby Queen’s Court, has been trading for over four decades in the town and will continue to serve loyal customers during a retirement sale.
Alan, who lives in Kilmarnock, first opened the shop in 1978 after being made redundant.
He said: “I was given a £400 redundancy payment and my company car to keep.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to have to wait a long time before I get a job’, so I thought I’d open a little gift shop in Ayr."
Alan started out selling tourist souvenirs before specialising in jewellery, small antiques, and watch and clock repairs.
He said: “It’s people who steer you into what you’re doing because I had more requests for other jewellery, and so I kept on building it up.
“I was born during the war and my mother was left after the war with six kids to look after, so she used to go to auctions, buy stuff, do it up and resell it.
“She did jewellery and almost anything she could get her hands on, and that gave me the liking for jewellery.
“Any money I made went back into the shop, that’s the only way to do it.
“I didn’t take a wage, I just took petrol for my car."
Alan, a former entertainer who has starred in various TV programmes including Taggart, ran the shop up until the pandemic hit, retiring aged 80 after leaving school at 14 to work.
“I’ve always had a job, and was a full time entertainer for a while as well,” he said.
“A friend of mine’s 21st birthday came up and I put a little act together.
“I did it on stage and this man in the audience was an entertainment man for a Masonic Club and he asked if I would do the act down there.
“At the Masonic Club there was a guy who was an agent, and then I started doing the clubs all round the middle of Scotland.
“And my very first job at Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, this Walt Disney film crew came in and asked me if I’d like to appear in a movie, so I did that and got paid a lot of money for it. That was my first gig when I was 15.
“I met lots of big stars who used to come in; Salvador Dalí came in with a young lady on each side of him, and a silver topped cane walking elegantly into the hotel."
Alan said he will miss the customers of His Nibs, adding: “I always kept my customers happy.”
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