HE may be the joint managing director of the firm that his father started decades ago, but life could have worked out very differently for Chris O’Connor.

As a youngster, he never imagined going into the family furniture retail business because he wanted to follow his own path, and instead enrolled at Teesside University on a graphic design course.

After completing the course and working for a few years in the industry, aged 29, he decided he wanted to go it alone and approached his father with a proposal to set up his own design firm.

Instead, his father, who was nearing retirement, asked him if he would be interested in joining the family business.

“He put a proposal together.

The deal was I would come in as joint managing director with Robert Stevens, a senior manager who had worked with my dad for 18 years.

“I declined. It wasn’t something I envisaged doing.

“But I went away and I thought about it for six months, and then I made the decision to come in.

“I had always wanted to go and make my own way in the world. It was a very, very difficult decision for me. I am quite a proud person.

“I don’t like to be handed things.

“I had to see it as an opportunity which had to be taken.”

Since then, Chris has never looked back.

“When I came into the business, we had two small stores in Hartlepool and Peterlee.

“Within the past ten years, we have got four huge stores on retail parks and the business has trebled in size.

“We have grown quite organically – the opportunities have arisen and we have taken them.”

“The partnership with Robert works really well. We are both very hard workers and will do whatever needs to be done.

“My dad worked very hard to build the business to the size he got it to and he’s still a director.

“We would always consult him on any major decisions.”

For Chris, the best part about his job is helping people make their homes comfortable.

“It is nice when you can help people make their homes look beautiful. It is really nice when you go round someone’s house and spot a bit of our furniture.

You get a bit of a kick out of that.”

As the firm’s main buyer, Chris travels extensively to hunt out the best pieces for the firm’s distinct four stores.

“We buy a lot of British stuff, but we also get a lot from Europe – France, Germany, Italy and Holland. The most compelling place I have been was Tallinn, in Estonia. The contrast between wealth and poverty is vast. You could walk out of a really nice restaurant and see an old lady carrying a huge bag of sticks on her back. That was a real eye-opener.”

Being part of a family business has advantages, Chris said, and came in handy when the firm’s two newly-acquired and refurbished stores – formerly Home Interiors and Race Furniture, in Portrack Lane, Stockton, – recently flooded during heavy rain which washed out Teesside last month.

“When disasters like that happen, being a family business is a real advantage. People just rallied round and everyone pitched in.”

And he said it worked both ways.

“I think when you have this much responsibility to your staff and their families to make something work, the pressures are high.

“It’s the pressure of not letting yourself fall or being defeated, because you have got so many people depending on you.

“It makes you a serious character at work and makes you enjoy your free times outside of work. I wouldn’t change that.”