April 2022 ertonline.co.uk


on to a local farmer’s tractor to get them to a customer’s house,” he says. “We’ll deliver anywhere if we have what the


customer wants, and we can offer them the service they need.” A few years ago, he and a colleague had to deliver


a TV to a customer who lived in a remote cottage on the west coast of Scotland – the catch was that it involved taking a boat for part of the journey. “The customer was a famous yachtsman called


John Ridgway – in 1966 he sailed across the North Atlantic with Chay Blyth in an open-top rowing boat,” explains Mr Freeman. “He’s also ex-SAS. We struck up a relationship


from the very first moment he came into our shop – and he’s quite a character. He told us about how we would have to get to his house because his property is landlocked. It’s an hour-and-a-half walk across open hillside and it’s very impractical… especially with a TV and tools!”


Gaining access Mr Freeman adds: “The normal way to access his house is by boat, so we drove an hour-and-a-half from Inverness to the west coast, to where he was waiting for us with his boat, which had an outboard motor. We loaded everything into it; the boat felt quite big until we got out into the open water and then suddenly, we felt quite vulnerable! We had the TV and of course all our kit – our tools and all the necessary cables. Once we docked, we had to drag everything up a 200ft hill, on open heather, with no steps or handrails. We did eventually get there… and it was an amazing adventure!” Was John happy with the TV? “He certainly


was,” replies Mr Freeman. “To this day, he’s still a really good customer and we are actually planning a trip back out there soon. It always requires a bit of advance planning!”


A big birthday Last year, the Panasonic Store Inverness celebrated its twentieth anniversary. The shop opened in December 2001 as a shop@Panasonic store – the first of its kind in Scotland. In those days, Mr Freeman managed the city


centre shop for its owner, Graham Begg, who also had several multi-brand Euronics stores in the north of Scotland. “We’re slightly off the beaten track, but we are


classified as a city centre store – we’re in the old town,” says Mr Freeman. “20 years ago it wasn’t the best of places to be honest, but in the past five years there has been massive investment in and around the area, so we’ve ended up in a really lovely part of Inverness. It looks fresh and new and it’s changed so much over the years.” In 2009, the store rebranded as a Panasonic


Store, although it now sells other brands following its decision to join the Euronics buying group three years ago to move into selling white goods from various suppliers. >>


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We once had to transfer our goods on to a local farmer’s tractor to get them to a customer’s house


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