A Little Bit About Us
Meet The Barnes – Hello . . . And welcome to our new website. I thought the first post should definitely be about us. Who we are and how we got here.
I’m Hollie, the lady behind the posts and social media updates. I’ll be keeping you up to date with all the latest news, offers, family updates and the daily running of the business.
I am also the partner of Clive Barnes, the founder of the business. Together we live with our 4 boys Dylan, Louie, Arlo and Axll. We are a family run business. The children very much enjoy an afternoon helping out in the showroom, as long as they get spending money for doing so of course!!
How It All Began
Well what can i say, its definitely been a roller coaster. Clitheroe Security is the newest chapter of our already existing story “Accrington Aerials“. Clive Barnes started the business simply from the sale of his car. Having previously being a wagon driver he wanted to spend more time at home with the boys. So he bought a van from the sale of his car and went into roofing. We soon learnt that although the work was there. There just wasn’t enough of it for the amount of roofers in the area. He then found himself erecting TV aerials in between the roofing, pretty soon the diary was full of TV aerial installations. And that’s basically it, that is how Accrington Aerials was born, from the sale of a car.
There has been blood, sweat and many tears, anybody who has there own business will fully appreciate the continuous pressures. Clive Barnes built the business from scratch, single handly. Putting in a ridiculous amount of hours. I have genuinely never met a more driven, ambitious, harder working person, I am so super proud of him. He will complain that I have put that on the website BUT I am and I want the world to know. The stress we have been through as a family has been unbelievable, but the rewards have been endless. It has been an uphill struggle for Clive, but he didn’t give up, and look at him now. As a family we are all proud of what he has achieved.
Forever Growing
Pretty soon it was obvious that the business was going to need more than Clive’s pair of hands to keep up with the demand of work. He was soon training up other people. 1 van grew into 2 vans, and soon another engineer was required. Also meaning that the dining room table wasn’t the place to be running a business from. So he eventually moved into an office in Leyland. I was to go in the office and work behind the scenes, paperwork, taking calls, basically what i do now. Only it didn’t work out to well, have you ever worked for your partner? Let me tell you now . . . Its hard work! It didn’t last long, we had to prioritise what was more important, me working for him, or our relationship. I was pregnant at the time too, so that didn’t help. So we gave up the office, and hired somebody else to do my job, which i forever felt incredibly guilty about.
Moving on a year or so Clive Barnes got the opportunity to rent another office, this one was closer to home. He was at a point where there was 2 engineers on the road and he was in the office. Doing the paperwork, taking calls, something that he despised. He’s a very hands on man, sitting in an office drove him mad, me mad. Meanwhile the services he was able to offer grew much further. TV Aerial Installations, Satellite Services, TV Wall Mounting Service and eventually CCTV.
Trying Again
In January 2019 I decided it was time I tried again to help out. I could see the pressure he was under with the paperwork and as a result we were both suffering from it. Id been at college doing an accountancy course the previous year, so this time I wasn’t walking into it blindly. He had the office run to absolute perfection, military. I was and still am in awe of his business head. Definitely makes up for his inability to move his dirty socks to the washing basket. He trained me up, again this wasn’t easy, I cannot stress enough how hard it is to work for your partner, we fight like cat and dog some days . . .still!
Biting The Bullet
Throughout all of the above we were getting more and more requests for CCTV. At first it was commercial systems. And then the word soon got spread and then more and more residential queries were coming in. Soon we were doing them weekly. Alot of our work has always been based in and around Clitheroe. For some time Clive had wanted to expand the office, and have a shop front, show room even, where we could display CCTV systems. After HEAPS of thought he decided that the new base was to be in Clitheroe, so on went the shop hunt. And that is when we came across this little gem on Wellgate.
Hello Clitheroe
From finding out that we (I feel like I can say we now as I work for him) had been accepted for 14 Wellgate, it has been non stop. Clive Barnes knew exactly how he wanted the showroom to look. So he worked sometimes 16 hour days to get it done. Bear in mind he fractured his foot in 7 places on the morning that we got the keys. Worked all day on it too. The showroom needed a name. We didn’t want the shop to be named Accrington Aerials as the main selling point was to be CCTV, so that is how Clitheroe Security was born. Within a short space of time we had new logos, new artwork. It didn’t seem to take long at all. Can I just take this moment to mention the grass floor. I got a lot of frowns when I decided we were going to have a grass floor. Its one of the first things people notice. So yes we are the shop in Clitheroe with the grass floor!!
Its been one hell of a journey to get here. But we are here, together, and still learning how to work together. But that just shows how real we are. The showroom is complete and looks epic. Please do and pay us a visit in the showroom, even just to look at the grass ha ha.
Thanks for taking the time to read about the new people on your busy high street, do give our Facebook page a visit and a like. Call us on 01200 760603 for all you CCTV, TV aerials, Satellite Services, TV Wall Mounting Service.
Massive shout out to our website designer Sean Mitchell of Northweb Design.
