Don Lewin

Lewin was born on 11 June 1933 in Bow, London, the son of a chimney sweep.^[1][2] After leaving school at the age of 15, he worked for a building firm, did two years of National Service, sold brushes from door to door, sold credit and, when he was 26, got a job as a freelance salesman selling greeting cards to retailers.^[1][3]

In 1968, he opened a specialist greeting card shop in Epping, Essex, and created the company Clinton Cards, named after his son, Clinton.^[1][3] He opened a chain of seven shops, five of which he then sold to reinvest in larger shops in better locations.^[1][3] By 1988, he had created a chain of 87 shops and floated the company on the stock exchange for a valuation of £20 million, retaining 50 per cent of the shares and using money raised to acquire rival greeting cards chains.^[1]

By 2004, the company had 800 shops in the United Kingdom and Ireland, was valued at £180 million on the London Stock Exchange and had sales of £360 million.^[4] The family stake in the business, share sales and other assets were estimated to be worth £139 million in 2008.^[5] In 2012, the business had 767 shops and employed 8,000 people but went into administration later that year.^[6] Lewin was made an OBE in 1996 and his autobiography, Think of a Card, was published in 2008.^[7][8] He died on 25 October 2024, at the age of 91.^[9]