The team behind Newcastle's most popular fancy dress shop are getting ready to hang up their wigs, capes and tutus - but first they're determined to make sure this beloved local business is left in good hands.
For 30 years, Clive Richardson and wife Carole have been the faces behind Magic Box, the Northumberland Street shop known for the huge queues it draws around Halloween.
As they approach retirement, in May, they've reflected the "rollercoaster" of establishing and running the shop, as they launch an appeal to find new owners.
Go here for the latest news live from Newcastle city centre
The couple first opened their shop in Percy Street when their daughter, Paula, was one, after a successful but exhausting stint running a fancy dress hire business in Gateshead.
Clive, 61, said: "I was working 18 hour days - hire was a killer, you had to get the costumes washed, dried and ready for the next hire so you were working all the time.
"When we opened Magic Box it was a weight off our shoulders, not that we didn't work hard, but it wasn't quite as hard. We knew for retail that being on the Gateshead side of the Tyne Bridge wasn't going to work, it was location, location, location."
The business, named for amateur magician Clive's love of impressive tricks and initially selling magic supplies as well, opened two new branches in the Metro Centre and Northumberland Street, before the couple decided to concentrate their offering into the one Northumberland Street store.
"Rather than have three good shops it was better to have one great one, and that would be my advice to anyone," the businessman added.
Whilst Magic Box is a business, the nature of their products has always made it a fun one, he said, and regular customers have now become part of the Magic Box "family".
"We've still got customers from day one who support us and these customers are now friends, whether it's the drag queens who com in for lashes and feather boas, whether it's lads who came in as kids wanting something for World Book Day and still come back 15 or 16 years later.
"It's been a rollercoaster, that's the term I would use. Going to work has never been a chore, every day there's something that brings a smile to your face. When the drag queens come in it's brilliant, it's like your own private panto, or when you get the stag dos coming in wanting to get the groom dressed up as a French maid or whatever and you see the horror on his face, it's great.
"So many stories, laughs and memories. When people come into Magic Box, it's always friendly, it's more like they come into my living room."
There are memorable moments that stick out - filling the whole shop with black and white for Newcastle United's FA Cup final attempts in 1998 and 1999, for example; stocking up for the Millenium celebrations; or supplying flags and costumes for a number of the Queen's jubilees.
Then there are the yearly events that always have the shop bustling: Halloween, of course, but also the increasingly popular World Book Day, and the universities' Freshers' Weeks.
Clive said: "They're great business for us, these are the events that we live for. The students are always great fun, when you've got 15 or 20 of them coming in all wanting to be nurses or something, that's not work, that's fun."
As they prepare to retire, Clive and Carole are searching for the perfect team to take over their lease, and they hope to pass it on to locals who are as passionate about the business as they are. It's been a "difficult decision" to hand over the shop, though the business' other arms, selling magic supplies and facepaint from a unit in Killingworth, with continue, and their fondness for their brand means they'd be willing to part with it for less money to the "right people" rather than see it close or fall to people who won't get stuck into it.
Clive said: "It would be tremendous if we could get the right person in, because we don't want just closure.
"Whoever takes over we will be more than happy to work alongside them to help them get started. I'm from orginally from Scotswood Road, we had nothing when we started and we've worked and worked to get here and I've always said I want somebody else to get that opportunity.
"I'm not interested in passing it on to a national company, I want somebody to carry on that name, to have the laughs and the memories that we've had. We'd love to be able to pop into the shop and have a cuppa with the new people."
As for who could take over, Clive said the right person needs to be "hard working" but also sociable and up for plenty of fun.
If the right owner is found it will mean the business' dedicated staff will stay on, and Clive says this team has been crucial to the success of the shop which has just marked one of its most profitable years ever, 5% up on 2019 despite the impact of the intervening pandemic.
He said: "We worked out we've had about 50 staff over the 30 years and a lot of them have been young school kids who've then gone off to university but they've still kept in touch, they treated us like surrogate parents.
"It's all been one huge team effort. It wasn't that we were special, it's the staff, they've really taken the pressure off us. Everything we've done is through teamwork, without a shadow of a doubt."
For the latest local news in your area direct to your inbox every day, go here to sign up to our free newsletter
