THIS Christmas, the windows of the Entertainer are likely to look noticeably different. For many years, the toyshop chain was known for featuring a nativity scene in every festive shop window. At a time when most retailers lean firmly into the shiny and profitable, the owner, Gary Grant, placed the Christmas story quite literally front and centre of his shops.
“All of our shops would have had nativity scenes in the windows at Christmas . . . just to say, this is why we are celebrating. This is why we have this little thing called Christmas: it is the birth of Jesus,” he says.
But, this year, for the first time in four decades, Gary and his family are no longer in The Entertainer business. In late September, the Grant family transferred all their shares into an employee ownership trust. The business is now managed by its staff, and, with the exit of Gary, his wife, Catherine (Cath), and his sons, come new choices for the business, based on what the staff believe will make it successful.
“Why would a new management team put a nativity in the window?” he says now. “It would be completely uncommercial, because they could put toys with prices in instead. That’s their choice. Now, if they do, I’ll be even more overjoyed, but I’m not expecting it.”
To expect more would be like telling the new owners of your home what colour they should paint the walls, he says. He seems remarkably free of any desire for any lasting legacy, and is surprisingly matter-of-fact about the huge change in his own life of letting go of the business. “We had the privilege of running our business the way we felt God wanted us to. Now, the new owners need the same privilege.”
When the Grants opened their first shop in 1981, making choices about what products to stock, or opening hours based on faith, was not part of their plan. “Neither of us would have said we were Christians,” he recalls.
Cath had trained as a paediatric nurse; Gary had recently lost his job. They opened their first small shop in Amersham in Buckinghamshire on 5 May: a date that would become unexpectedly significant.
Gary Grant
Three years later, Cath became a Christian after attending church with a friend. Gary remembers her returning home “talking absolutely complete rubbish. . . I had no idea what they’d done to her.” For several years, he remained, as he puts it, “a very remote husband from the point of view of faith”.
Then, on 5 May 1991 — ten years to the day after opening the business — she gave him a ticket to a men’s breakfast event at her church. He went along “to keep the peace”. The speaker was the Revd Barry Kissell, who played a key part in the foundation of New Wine. His message of Christianity as a relationship hit hard.
“I’d learned all the Bible stories at school like history lessons: water into wine, feeding the five thousand. . . I knew the timelines. But I didn’t know about relationship.” Hearing Mr Kissell describe faith as something “real, living, active” made sense of something he felt he had vaguely suspected, but never named. What followed was, in his words, “a 100-per-cent U-turn”.
A VERSE from 1 Samuel — “Those who honour me I will honour” — has become a foundation stone for Gary’s life and business since that day. “I’ve seen it work. If you honour God with the right motive, things happen. The world might call it coincidence, but I know differently.”
His new faith began having an impact on the business within weeks. Over lunch with a Christian accountant friend, Gary admitted that he wasn’t sure if a Christian could run a successful business. The response was blunt and transformative: “Maybe the way you’re running your business and being a Christian aren’t compatible. You need to tidy up your act.”
“That was exactly what I needed to hear,” Gary says. “We had to sort out areas of honesty — dealing with suppliers, returns, the way we banked money.” It may have cost something financially. “Maybe we paid more tax; maybe our margins were lower.” But he quickly saw the fruit. “Honesty pays. The business has only grown and thrived since the day I became a Christian. . . There is nothing in our company’s accounts I’d be ashamed of.”
At the time of his conversion, The Entertainer had three shops. By 2021, it had 170. “The turnover was probably 80 times greater in that period — and we did it all honestly.”
The next test came through a stranger in the Amersham shop in 1990, who challenged him over selling Hallowe’en products. At the time, Gary was not a Christian and brushed her off. But, once he came to faith, he remembered her challenge.
He sought advice from two evangelists, J. John and Mark Greene, who did not tell him what to do, but pointed him towards scripture. “J. John said to me: ‘The Bible doesn’t say avoid evil — it says avoid whatever even appears to be evil.’”
Gary withdrew Hallowe’en stock entirely. In October 1991, that decision coincided with the biggest monthly increase in turnover the business had ever experienced. “‘Those who honour me I will honour,’” he repeats.
This pattern was repeated with Harry Potter merchandise, which, for a time, included the world’s best-selling toys. When it arrived, Gary felt uneasy, and decided not to stock it. “I’ve never said ‘Ban Harry Potter,’” he says. “I’m not the Christian policeman. I’m just responsible for what God tells me.”
A similar experience came with the original Troll dolls. He initially refused them; later, uncertain, he asked for a second look. When the salesman returned, the pictures now carried the tagline: “Creatures of mystical magical power of good luck.” That confirmed his original instinct. “Sometimes God just says, ‘You were right the first time — trust me.’”
His son Stuart learned the same spiritual reflex. When a large American manufacturer presented a doll range branded “OMG”, Stuart insisted that they could not stock it unless the initials were defined. By the next morning, every box globally had been reprinted with “Original Millennium Girls”. Gary laughs. “That was influence. Even if they only changed it for us, it happened.”
WHEN the Sunday-trading laws changed in 1995, Gary assumed that the business would open with others. But a sermon series on the Ten Commandments changed his mind. One command in particular, “Keep the sabbath day holy,” unsettled him. He prayed for months, mostly hoping that God would say, “It’s not a problem.”
One day, he says he sensed God saying: “No amount of praying is going to get me to change my mind.” So, The Entertainer stayed closed on Sundays, even while its competitors opened. Yet the business continued to flourish. It was another example of honouring God and seeing him honour us,” Gary says. “Against all the odds.”
Gary Grant
But the pandemic was to bring the business to its knees and begin a chain reaction that resulted in the decision of the family to withdraw.
“We were closed for 17 weeks from March 2020, losing a million pounds a week. By June, we thought we’d run out of money.” Government intervention — furlough payments, rates holidays — saved the company. “They saved hundreds of thousands of businesses and millions of jobs,” Gary says.
But Covid revealed something deeper: the family was over-exposed. “Everything we had — our income, our mortgages — all depended on this business.” It forced them to consider the question of the future.
During a phone call with a Salvation Army colleague, as he prepared to end the conversation, the man offered to pray for him. Gary called back later, having felt uneasy about the rushed ending. Over the phone, the man prayed, “Have the confidence to do the right thing.” For Gary, it was confirmation of what he was to do next. “I’d only hear from God once or twice a year,” he says, “but when you need to know, you really do know.”
His two adult sons, although involved in the business, did not want to take it on fully. The family explored options. Selling in part would force them to compromise: “We knew a new owner would change everything straight away,” he says.
They concluded that the most honouring step — to God and to the staff, many of whom had worked for the business for decades — was to hand the company to the employees themselves. On 26 September, they did just that: “We’re no longer involved. No management control, no ownership, nothing.”
NOW in his “seventh week of unemployment”, as he describes it, besides buying a narrowboat, he has thrown himself into Restore Hope, the charity that the Grants founded in 2002. It is undergoing a big expansion. They have bought an old Methodist church in Amersham to convert into a community hub — a £6-million project, half-funded so far.
“For the first time, I’m on the receiving end,” he says. “It’s humbling writing letters asking people for support. It’s much easier giving cheques than asking for them.”
Christmas is also one of the charity’s busiest seasons. Their firework display draws 1200 people; the nativity light-trail provides an affordable alternative to high-priced attractions; this year, they are also selling Christmas trees and lights to support families in need. “I’m just using the skills I’ve spent 40 years learning — but now I’m changing lives, not looking at a balance sheet.”
He is moved by the charity’s work to give children a sense of purpose. He recalls a boy on a trip to the seaside who, when asked what he wanted to be, could not imagine a future in work at all — until a charity volunteer suggested that he could be a plumber. Months later, at a barbecue, the child ran across the field: “‘Do you remember me? When I leave school, I’m going to be a plumber.’ He had purpose. If you take purpose, welcome, and hope away from people, there’s nothing left.”
That word, welcome, has been preoccupying him over recent weeks, though he doesn’t want to make it political, or discuss immigration. “I’m not arguing for people to stay or go. But in the moment that they are with us, they are human beings, and one of the Ten Commandments is love thy neighbour.
“Our society is full of people who don’t feel welcome. People will notice what we do more than what we say. If we want to turn our communities around, we’ve got to be a welcoming community — we have to be outrageously generous.”
As he has four children and ten grandchildren, his own Christmas is “complete chaos, but wonderful”. What he hopes readers will take from his story is simple: “I’d want them to feel encouraged. God does exist. He still does amazing things. And those who honour him, he really does honour.”
