Rick has made his final fish delivery to his Grantham area customers
Rick Streeter, retiring from selling fresh fish after 50 years. Photo: 003D
After delivering fresh fish to one-and-a-half million customers for the last half a century, Rick Streeter has retired from the family business.
Rick’s van has been a familiar sight around Grantham and the surrounding villages as he made his daily rounds to hundreds of homes across Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. There will be no more early starts and long days for him now his son Nick has taken over the reins but he will miss the job.
Rick, 65, of Welbourn, said: “I delivered to 600 customers a week and I would say I was calling on at least 20 of them when I first started delivering back in the early 1960s.
“I reckon I have served one-and-a-half million customers in those 50 years and I would say I enjoyed it 97 per cent of the time. The job is not so much about making sales, it is about meeting people and building relationships with them.”
The business was started in the late 1950s by Rick’s father, Harry, who had been concerned he was going to lose his job at an aircraft manufacturing factory. Rick joined him after leaving school in 1963 and eventually took over the business on his own.
The job involves picking up fresh fish from Grimsby early in the mornings and then delivering to towns and more than 30 villages across an area including Lincoln, Sleaford and Newark, as well as Grantham.
Rick said: “We deliver up to 30 varieties of fish every day.
“Years ago there was no farming of fish so something like salmon was a luxury back then. Now salmon is one of our biggest sellers along with the white fish.”
Rick, who is married to Janet with four children and six grandchildren, will also be well known to some readers as the owner of a fish and chip shop in Caythorpe which he ran for 25 years up to 1990.
He plans to spend his retirement mountain biking and playing golf and has no regrets about the way his career panned out.
Rick added: “It’s been a good life but I’m not a millionaire.”
Email to a friend
Print this page- EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Lincolnshire Police and Crime Commissioner Alan Hardwick says he has no intention of resigning and has a good relationship with Neil Rhodes
- Grantham Journal Letter: ‘Poor political performance triggers cynicism’
- Grantham Journal Picture of the Week
- Grantham school bids to take an extra 100 pupils
- Ex-police cadet from Grantham who filmed himself raping a child is jailed for 16 years
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Grantham
Tuesday 21 May 2013
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 8 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 3 C to 14 C
Wind Speed: 24 mph
Wind direction: North west
