Bream comes true as Pauline keeps the fish shop open

A WOMAN with no experience of business or cooking trained as a fishmonger to save her local shop.

Pauline Ivaldi, 43, had been a customer of West Norwood Fishmongers since she was a child, and was disappointed to see the shop go out of business when it ran into financial difficulties last year.

So she decided to train at the Billingsgate Market Seafood Training School and buy the store, opening five days before Christmas. She said business had been excellent so far.

"We are losing far too many independent shops. It made me so sad I decided to take the plunge and buy a shop with my husband Piero. People really want to support local traders so we have a lot of loyal customers."

Mrs Ivaldi bought the shop knowing the financial crisis would make things difficult: "We opened as the credit crunch was starting to bite. I wondered if I had made a huge mistake. But in some ways we have benefited from the credit crunch. People seem to be eating at home instead of restaurants."

Mrs Ivaldi wakes up at 3.45am to get to the fish market every day and closes the shop at 5.30pm.

"The transition from housewife to fishmonger was extremely difficult. In the first few weeks, I felt like I had been hit by a high-speed train," she said.

She took out a 10-year lease on the shop, paying £18,000 a year in rent, and intends it to be a family business. Her son Gianluca, 18, and daughter Francesca, 13, often work in the shop at weekends and the family invested £30,000 to get it started - an expenditure that has greatly reduced profit.

Mrs Ivaldi believes family-run businesses are a vital part of London life and hopes people will follow her example. "In our rush to embrace supermarkets we have lost far too many local shops. London needs all the small, local shops it can get. They are fantastic for a community's identity," she said.

Charlie Caisey, 78, who taught Mrs Ivaldi at the Billingsgate seafood school, said: "Pauline was so brave to take on the shop. Unfortunately, independent fish shops all over London are folding.

"Pauline is a wonderful success story. She came to us having never worked with fish before and now owns a successful fishmongers."

Mrs Ivaldi is hopeful for the shop, despite the recession making things tough. "We are just about making a profit," she said. "I'm making enough to break even in three years. Originally, I thought it would only take 18 months."