Bird Opticians: 40 years of jokes and insults - amid a 'dying' Sheffield city centre

A Sheffield opticians is celebrating 40 years in business with fond memories of the “daft” founder who insulted customers - and sad reflections on the state of the city centre.

Elaine Bird inherited Bird Opticians on Surrey Street when husband John died in July 2020. He set up the business in 1983 and built it into a success based on customer service, with a few jokes along the way. Run today by daughter Eleanor and long-serving staff Samantha Law and Suzanne Lynch, it still sees up to 270 patients a week, many elderly, including one who has been coming for 39 years.

But Elaine believes the city centre has “died” and customers who used to come into town on a shopping trip now just visit them and maybe Marks and Spencer on Fargate.

Here are Elaine’s memories and reflections after 40 years in Sheffield.

John trained to be an optician on leaving High Storrs Grammar School at 16. You might wonder why he chose this profession. Well, his mother used to work as a cleaner for an opticians in Firth Park where they lived. He used to meet his mum after school and, seeing the optician standing in front of a fire in his consulting room, thought that it looked like a cushy job. So began a career spanning 57 years which saw him working in Newcastle and Derby before finally opening his own practice in Sheffield.

John Bird used to work for D&A Opticians at Castle Market. When they sent him out to find other premises, on Surrey Street he found an old tobacconist shop for rent. D&A declined but he thought it was a prime position, so quit his job and set out on his own. At first, to make it look busy, he used to write Mickey Mouse and Scooby Doo in the diary. Soon he became busy and when the tobacconist’s shop next door became vacant, he expanded to create the premises it now occupies.