Graeme moved to Leeds at 19 years old to go to Art College and then spent quite a few years as a musician - touring & releasing records in the UK, Germany & Japan, but - as the cliché goes… “on the verge of making it big", it all fell apart and he quit the "crazy rock and roll life style".
THEN... he got a job at Dinsdales Art Store in King Charles Street in Leeds city centre.
“Having always bought my art materials at Dinsdales as a student, it was nice to be the other side of the counter, and in a shop that has been a constant in Leeds since 1883” says Graeme. “I spent the next few years becoming indispensable and within a short time of the shop moving up to Headingley – I found myself as the only surviving member of staff along with the then company owner.”
However, financial difficulties and family illness led the last Dinsdale family member who had any role in the company to offer the business to Graeme. “So in order to save the only ‘proper’ job I'd had as a ‘grown up’ and keep the company alive - I pooled my life savings, sold a few guitars and bought the business.” Since then, Graeme has brought the company back from the brink and survived against all the odds.
“It certainly has been difficult but this is a job I love, I'm my own boss and I love my customers - because they are genuinely nice people. I couldn't imagine doing anything else, anywhere else, but here in Headingley.”
Dinsdales is situated on a quiet back street (Chapel Place – between Otley Road & North Lane) in central Headingley just 100 yards from the Arndale Shopping Centre.
Graeme Lindsay-Jones
Dinsdales Art Shop and Stationers
