What a week!

No silver spoon at birth for Louis Carabott, or ‘Louis tad-deheb’ as he is known, who is currently holding an innovative silver and gold fair in Attard. Zillah Bugeja meets this astute businessman

This week was hard work. We had every detail to think of to set up the fair, from getting the necessary permission to building our own display cases. We were out by 7.30am and worked till 2am. I certainly wouldn’t be able to do this without the help of all my family.

We set up this fair because the shop can’t cope with the business at Christmas. Plus it gives a chance for our clients from the central and northern areas to pop in too without having to cope with the inevitable queues.

The fair is an opportunity to give good discounts on both gold and silver. I don’t like silver myself, although my wife loves it.

Good prices and quality are always guaranteed. My aim is to help – if you come wanting to spend Lm100 on an engagement ring, I won’t try and make you spend all of it (and maybe more). That way you won’t be out of pocket and you can go out and take your girlfriend out for a drink afterwards.

I like to spoil my clients. When they come for repairs, which are carried out both free of charge and on the spot, that’s the time for us to forge a friendship.

One of the reasons people come to the shop is because of this friendship. Some want to be served by my wife, others by my daughter Elvia. They like the personal touch and advice we give.

I learned a long time ago not to hurt anybody, which could happen by having items in the shop that are out of people’s reach. I do have very expensive items, but they can be seen by appointment only.

Our first fair, held at the time of the millennium celebrations, was a great success. There were many people who wanted to buy a gold memento of the occasion for the family. I had already foreseen this, and had prepared mementoes along those lines. We worked so hard that we had to close shop for two-and-a-half months to recover.

The first fair had cost a fortune just to set up. What a far cry from my early days!

The Marsa shop was opened 27 years ago. I took an interest in gold at an early age. When I was eight my father had a coffee shop in Valletta, and I would help deliver tea to outlets there. I was fascinated by the men who I’d see making gold jewellery. By the time I was 17 I was practised in jewellery-making myself, and started working with a jewellery workshop, making the equivalent of ten cents a week. By 18 I had met Marie, today my wife, and kept learning more about the goldsmith trade. The incentive to make money and better myself kept me going. You can imagine how I felt when I knew that Marie was making £30 a week as a nurse, while I was only earning £6.

That was when I opened my own workshop in New Street off Victoria Gate, selling my work to other shops. Slowly, very slowly, work picked up. Even during our honeymoon in Italy (I was 25 then), where we stayed with my sister-in-law who was a nun, I went around gold workshops and came back determined to open my own shop. I was penniless, but a good friend, Delicata tal-Hwejjeg promised to make good for me, and I gingerly approached the owner of the place where my shop is today. Would you believe it, I had followed a friend’s advice and set up on a main road so that clients could easily hop on and off a bus, and as soon as I opened, the main road was closed off! They had opened 13 December Avenue!

The good times were in 1979 when the English left, and so many ex-servicemen had a lump sum to spend, so they opted to invest in gold. The same thing happened with decimalisation – instead of putting their savings in the bank, people opted to swap it with gold.

I give thanks to my wife, whose courage and backing has never faltered. She is so strong, never grumbles, and brought up the children herself while I was out at work. I even had a workshop at home. I always wanted to better myself. Her only payment was that on Sunday I wouldn’t let her do any cooking, and we’d go out as a family.

Really, work to me is a hobby, so I don’t ever get tired. I like to go round band clubs and bars, and in that way create goodwill. I love all kinds of sport and because I don’t have time for it myself I participate by giving sponsorships. I’d rather give a sponsorship for sport than take out formal adverts. I also do a lot of gold work for churches.

We sell and stock items according to people’s pockets, so that varies according to time of year and the economy. At Christmas people need to find more affordable items than, say, for Valentine’s. Every three weeks to a month we go abroad to buy new stock. That way we keep up-to-date with fashion and if people need more time to save up to buy something, they won’t mind because the stock is always improving.

If things don’t sell I prefer to melt them down, because they cost me more in real terms to leave them there.

Every day there’s a new story to tell. Like the client who thought a diamond ring was going rusty when she had just dropped sauce on it. I don’t lose my cool with customers – I’m honest so I can easily keep my calm, and I like to keep that relationship.

We need to make a living, and cover our expenses, but because it’s a family concern we don’t have too many overheads – that way we can keep prices down. First the relationship, then the sale, that’s our motto.