Longserving furniture and beds industry professional Alan Scott, with a history of working for brands such as Rest Assured, Bridgecraft Furniture, Health Beds and Somnus Beds, has sadly passed away.
In a moving tribute by his late wife Norma, she shares a wonderful insight into his career and how he became a much-loved character within the trade.
An obituary of Alan Scott
Most of Alan’s working life was spent in the Furniture/Bed industry. Alan was born in Levenshulme, Manchester in 1946. He worked in Sales from being 16. The first more professional sales job was selling chocolates for “Terry’s of York”, his territory was East Lancashire and the less salubrious parts of Liverpool. He did this for 3 years and became quite good at it but he had ambitions for better things. There was no LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or social media then and the good sales jobs were advertised on Thursday in the Daily Telegraph.
At the age of 23, in early 70s, he secured a job as Sales Representative at Rest Assured for North Lancashire. Interviewed by the Sales Manager, Jim Lewis and the Production Director, Bernard Fox. Both men helped him enormously. On the first day, welcomed by Jim and then introduced to the team at the Batley, I was then given a list of customers, a shabby car (previous representative) , a brochure, price list, and swatch ticking’s to be used as special offers on beds.
He felt he was lucky at Rest Assured with good training followed by promotions from Sales representative, Sales Manager to Divisional Director.
At the age of 28 he was promoted to Sales Manager North based at Batley managing 11 sales people. This meant moving from Lancashire to Yorkshire in 1973. Then on to Divisional Director based at HQ Northampton, when he first managed John Lewis Partnership account before coming back to Bridgecraft in Yorkshire in 1983.
Over next 30+ years he held senior roles at Bridgecraft Furniture Leeds – (Sales Director), Slumberland Beds – (Sales Director), Sales Manager at Health Beds, improving their brand and products then Managing Director of Pocket Spring Beds, part of the Silentnight Beds. He then joined Harrison Spinks as Sales and Marketing Director of Somnus Beds from where he retired at the age of 68. Shortly after this Alan was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia, which he has coped with stoically over the last ten years.
Most of his roles were about repairing brands that were not working. In the 80’s he moved to Bridgecraft Furniture, Leeds, which was in receivership and was put back in recovery. Slumberland Beds, brand leader, had lost its way, but under Alan’s Sales and Marketing expertise he took the brand back to strong sales and profitability and said that it was one of the easier jobs. In the 90’s at Silentnight, his role was to develop a new brand, Pocket Spring Beds at the top of the market which he did. His working history was more about bringing brands back to health. He never joined a company/brand at top.
He was given Freeman of the City of London, Citizen and Furniture Maker of London, Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers on 28 June 2007. Prior to this, he joined Harrison Spinks in February 2007 as Sales Director, Somnus, his role was to re-launch the Somnus brand and see if they could build up the brand which had been dormant for around 30 years.
He often joked about the conversation with Peter and Simon Spinks before he accepted the job. Peter informed him that they had a waiting list of customers who wanted to become stockists, “You know what? He believed them!
In late February 2007, Simon introduced him to the small team of people including Julie Cameron, Paul Morley, Carl Platts, Wendy, Mick Early, Paul van, then over to you Alan. They designed a range, developed a marketing plan, recruited a sales team and launched new collections in May 2007 in the Leeds showroom.
Over the following 5 years, Somnus put down some good foundations in the UK and built a reputation for high quality beds, innovation, design, good marketing/customer service. Somnus now trades with many of the best shops in the UK, supported by a strong sales team led by Jason Lowden.
Somnus was introduced to the world of export, researching markets and investing in the markets that can produce a timely return on investment. With the help and support of many people here today, too many to mention, and together with the Somnus team, Alex, Didier, Jacques, Dicky plus James/Sinead achieved success and put down good foundations to provide a platform for growth in future.
Alan passed away on Sunday 2nd March 2025 at St James’s hospital, Leeds. For any information about the funeral arrangements please contact Co-op Funeral care, Otley, West Yorkshire, 01943 462185 or frlotley@coop.co.uk
