The Little Ark: Chesterfield Market Hall toy shop that puts ethics before profit

This is the voice of Liz Telford-Sides, 33, who runs The Little Ark toy shop in the Chesterfield Market Hall with her dad, Gary Telford, 64. This small family business drips with colour and character. And not just the shop, or the eco-friendly toys they stock. This daughter and dad team are ripe with humour, this soft stubborn of independent thinking that sees these two individuals seem like jigsaw pieces from different puzzles, and yet, fit together to make a perfect picture.

Who’s in charge? Liz grins and points to herself. Does Gary see Liz as his boss? Gary nods, laughing. “To a degree… yeh.” Liz pulls a face at him, and after more laughter, Gary adds “I do call her boss. Tell you what, she checks up on me more than my actual last boss did when I worked!”

But, this scene is arguably misleading. Hearing Liz discuss her ethical views and business aims show her to be a person of savvy, compassion and self-belief. Gary is clearly someone hard-wired to do the right thing, for both daughter and planet.

Liz gives us some background. “As a family, it’s always been ingrained into us about recycling, and making sure we recycle appropriately instead of sending things to landfill. And when I had the kids, I thought, well ultimately, this is their future and their children’s future, and every decision that we make now, impacts on them.

“I’ve got two children, and when my first was born he got toys bought for him, or you buy toys, and it was just a sea of plastic. And when my second was born… she was born in lockdown, so we were spending a lot more time at home… and I looked around and thought ‘there’s too much plastic here’.”

Sparked by this epiphany, Liz started the business in June 2021 on Dronfield market. “The feedback was really positive, and people were asking for things, and so we were sorting those for them, but then trying to cart all this around is a big ask, so we were thinking we needed somewhere more permanent.”

And here is where that other piece of the jigsaw, Gary, fits in. “I used to do the New Square market, selling tools. When we decided to do this, obviously I’ve got more idea of what to do, so we worked together and planned out what we do. We’ve not had any arguments really.”

Liz also has another job: working in HR, as well as being a mother of two, as well as being a shop owner. How does she juggle all this?

“It works because Dad’s really passionate about it as well. And he’s got a lot of experience that we can tap into. He’s very much my sense check. So if I’ve got an idea I’ll say ‘what do you think to this?’ And he’ll either say ‘yeah, that’s great’, or 'maybe park that for a few months?’… it just works.”

As a father and daughter business team, do you ever clock out? Gary laughs, shakes his head. “Best thing is when you go round for tea, and you still talk about it. You suddenly think ‘I’ve had an idea!’” Liz nods, as Gary adds “If you’re not thinking and evolving all the time, you’re going backwards, aren’t you.”

Wisdom indeed. We pause as a grandmother and her little grandchild walk in the shop, the kid pointing to a shelf of wooden animals, a smile curving on her face. Gary points to a Christmas display near the shop entrance. “Like this post-box… it was an idea. So Liz found it… I paid for it.”

The family humour is apparent as Liz quickly picks up the conversation. “We’re doing letters to Santa… so children can come and drop their letter off. And then, a week later they can come back and get a personalised letter and some reindeer food.”

This lovely act is free of charge, with an optional donation to the Nightingale Neonatal Ward. The grandmother and little one leave, the words ‘Okay, let’s see what Santa brings you’ heard as they head towards the sweet shop next door.

“We do get a lot of grandparents,” says Liz. “And a lot of them will say, ‘Oh my gosh, we had something like this when we were young!’ Or they’ll say, ‘This takes me back to when I was a child… I had one of these!’.”

“And the other thing we really want people to do, is to get the toys for their grandchildren, and then for the grandchildren to pass them on to their children, or somebody else that they know… because they last… and it’s really nice to play with something that you know someone else has played with previously.”

This view seems to underline The Little Ark’s passion for sustainability.

The shop’s shelves are cardboard. Their toys are made from Forestry Commission certified wood. Liz checks the working conditions of the manufacturers before ordering. And plastic? “Plastic still has to go somewhere, and the problem is that it won’t go anywhere.”

This dedication is far from an easy task for the shop. Liz explains: “It’s restricted us, in terms of what we could stock, because a lot of the items were eco-friendly, but when I asked for a picture of the packaging, it had the single use plastic film on the front of it, or it came wrapped in plastic, so we said no, we can’t stock those.”

And from what they’re seeing, Liz and Gary aren’t on their own with this approach.”There’s a lot of suppliers now that are taking feedback on board from businesses, and are refusing to wrap their products in plastic.”

And how do you feel you fit within the market hall? “The other traders, they’re brilliant,” Liz says emphatically. “There’s a real sense of community. We like to have a laugh and a joke.”

Liz pauses. “Honestly… footfall isn’t where any of the traders need it to be. I think there’s a few reasons for that. Online shopping is convenient, it gets dropped off to your door. We weren’t here before the pandemic, but I think people are still a bit unsure about coming out, socialising and mixing.”

And the current economic climate? “I understand that people are nervous. The shift that I hope it creates is that people do move away from spending at the big businesses… The money that small businesses create often goes back into the local economy.

“Something does need to change. It would be great if the council would either reduce the parking fees, or scrap them for a period.”

“The parking permits that the council do, we’re very lucky to have that but they start from 3pm on a Monday to Friday, which often, when you’ve got kids, you’re going to be on the school-run and getting your kids fed, you’re not going to be taking them into town because it’s going to be meltdown central if you do that.”

Liz takes a breath. “And rents are too high.”

Does this cork the idea of ‘thrive’? “Yes, because we can’t move on. The natural chain of progression would be that someone comes in and uses it as a pop-up shop, sees that it’s doing well, then there’s the next step available to them, and that next step doesn’t seem to exist.”

This seems a very clear-sighted view of what could slow the growth of the town centre.

“Obviously, we’re limited on space and we can only do so much here,” says Gary. “We want to get bigger items etc, that’s the idea… We just hope Chesterfield embraces us and sticks with us. That’s the plan. This is nice work. We meet some lovely people.”