The funeral of Alan Woolven, co-founder of Sussex retailer Supafit Flooring and its wholesale arm SF Wholesale, will take place on 23 February. He died on 15 January, aged 95.
The funeral will take place at Worthing Crematorium at 11am, followed by a celebration of his life at Southlands Barn, West Chiltington, West Sussex. Family flowers only have been requested. Donations can be made to Dame Vera Lynn Children’s Charity and Alzheimer’s Research UK via funeral directors Freeman Brothers.
Woolven was a skilled musician as a child, playing accordion and piano, and played for Canadian troops as part of ENSA concerts: it is thought he was the youngest person engaged to entertain troops on behalf of ENSA.
‘I loved playing for the troops. I played on Christmas Day and Boxing Day at the Canadian hospital in Roffey, after the soldiers had been badly hit at Dieppe. As usual, I wasn’t paid any money but the soldiers would give me pies, chocolate and sweets. I was thrilled, as we didn’t have much to eat during the war as everything was rationed. If you lived further than three miles from a venue, you’d be picked up by an ENSA truck. But anyone living closer had to ride their bicycle or walk, because of a shortage of petrol. I remember the top of bicycle lights were painted black so that any German aircraft overhead couldn’t see you,’ he recalled in an interview with All About Horsham.
‘On 17 March 1945, I cycled to Southwater Village Hall to play for Canadian troops with The Serenaders. The concert finished at about 10:30pm and me and my mum were among the last to leave. We rode home, down Picts Hill where The Fox and Hounds pub was (now The Boars Head). You didn’t have things like crash helmets back then. We were passing the pub when my mum hit a Canadian soldier, who had left the pub to go back to camp. He was so drunk that he’d collapsed in the road. She hit her head as she was thrown backwards, just in front of me. A Canadian truck coming along the Worthing Road stopped and they took my mother to Horsham Hospital, but she died from the bleeding before we even arrived. She was 40 and I was 14.’
He won a technical college scholarship, but with left after concerns that working with bricks was damaging his hands and became an apprentice hairdresser. During his national service he was trained as a wireless operator at RAF Coastal Command, which also involved RAF concerts across the south of England.
Aged 20 he married June, who he had met at a dance when he was 16. ‘I was studying to become a concert pianist, which I eventually gained from Trinity College, London. June helped me with the written work and exam preparation, which I wasn’t good at. When the Korean War started, I was recalled as a wireless operator. June thought it was the end of the world. She didn’t think she would ever see me again! I was stationed in Northwood, the headquarters of Coastal Command, and then Gibraltar. But once again, my time in the RAF was defined by music.’
After being de-mobbed he set up as a hairdresser in Horsham, eventually running two outlets. He teamed up with school friend Charlie Berwick – who later founded Horsham flooring retailer Berwick’s – as his move into flooring, before founding Supafit.
June died in June 2019, aged 90, after suffering from Alzheimer’s.
‘Alan was a force of nature and will be missed by many, including his contemporaries, competitors, customers and staff. It truly is the end of an era,’ says one customer.
