Turning down a job in the mid-Sixties helped shape retail in Cumbria for the next six decades.
When Radio Rentals offered Peter Tyson a new role to avoid redundancy, it came with one catch: he would have to leave Carlisle for Glasgow. Rather than leave his hometown, he decided to start his own business.
Now, as the family-run electrical retailer marks its 60th anniversary, Tyson’s has grown into a local institution with shops in Carlisle, Workington and Newcastle, a customer base stretching across the country and an instantly recognisable name.
From that modest beginning, the company has become one of the biggest hi-fi dealers in the UK, employing 79 people, and the country’s biggest retailer of luxury hi-fi.
Company director Peter John ‘PJ’ Tyson, one of Peter’s six children, says the business was born out of necessity.
“My dad worked for a company called Radio Rentals many years ago. They were making people redundant, and he was offered to be relocated up to Glasgow. He already had two young boys, and he didn’t fancy leaving home, which was obviously Carlisle. He’d been born and bred here.”
Peter began by fixing and repairing radio sets and televisions, but customers soon wanted new ones. “He’d fix an old television, but they said, ‘Oh, could you get us a new one?’ And he started to supply one or two new ones. And then before he knew it, he had to open up a shop.”
By the late 1960s he had a small team and, as PJ puts it, “a little business up and running, just off his own hard work and graft out of his little van”.
Timing helped. “Colour TV was becoming more mainstream and more affordable, so he was getting asked a lot more for colour televisions,” PJ recalls. “It’s supply and demand and he filled that gap.”
The business moved premises a couple of times before settling on West Tower Street, the shop the family occupied for most of its history, and the founder’s reputation for service did the rest.
“Dad was very conscientious, always trying to help people out. He’d work late nights and weekends,” said his son.
He highlights one unusual request that his father was happy to oblige.
“One customer wanted to buy his son a television, but he wanted it in the colours of his favourite football team, which was Celtic.
“So my dad had a TV, he took the screen out and had the TV sprayed green and white just for this young lad.
“It was so popular – we told a few people and it took off. We sold quite a few where we had them sprayed up for the colour of their football team.
“It’s funny, but it showed the kind of man my dad was, because he’d do anything for anyone. Even if he put himself out and he made no money on it, he’d be just happy to have a happy customer.”
The arrival of Japanese hi-fi in the late 1970s and early 1980s led to a second site, on Abbey Street, which became a destination in its own right. “It was the only specialist hi-fi shop of its kind in the north for decades,” says PJ. “And that’s what we’re known for nationally as well now.”
Adapting to technology has been a constant – Tyson’s was among the first in Cumbria to offer satellite television – and it has weathered format wars too, from Betamax and Video 2000 to Philips’s CD-i. “The good ones stay, like VHS – that was the one that saw out everything else,” says PJ.
It was also an early adopter of online sales, starting with mail order before the website took off. “We’ve been selling online for 25 years,” PJ says. Today, most sales happen online, but the shops remain central.
“We’ve still invested heavily in the award-winning Carlisle shop. We’ve just opened up a Workington shop. So we know retail still has a big role to play.”
For bigger purchases in particular, he says, “a lot of people like to come in and have a touch and a poke and a prod and ask for some advice on how it works”.
The Workington store, which opened in summer 2025, represented a major investment. It is a purpose-renovated showroom on the Lillyhall estate, more than twice the size of its previous premises in the town’s Finkle Street.
PJ said his father’s work ethic became part of the family culture and still guides them now. Peter and his wife had six children – David, Paul, Rachel, PJ, Martin and Matthew – and all six have had some involvement in the business over the years, with three still actively involved today.
“Dad wasn’t precious,” he added. “We were allowed to work there if we wanted to, but we had to get our heads down and get into the game of what we were doing. We weren’t allowed to mess about. Dad was a grafter, so he taught us all to graft and get stuck in.”
The family connection has now continued into a third generation, with two of PJ’s nephews – the sons of his older brothers David and Paul – working in the business.
Even as a family firm which prides itself on its exceptional customer service, it is still able to offer some of the best prices in the UK in the very competitive world of online sales. And, as a proud Cumbrian brand, it continues to support other local businesses where it can.
“We’ve always kept it local,” said PJ. “We like to use local suppliers when we can for anything we need, like sundries and things that we might use around the office, equipment, forklift trucks, anything we can buy locally. We try to support local businesses because we know what it’s like being a local business.”
Although it is synonymous with music systems and televisions, Tyson’s is expanding beyond entertainment to offer a huge range of small appliances and kitchen appliances, always aiming for the mid to top end of the market.
“People would be surprised that we sell hundreds of air conditioning units online,” PJ says. A newly fitted home cinema room at the Carlisle shop, complete with acoustic insulation, electric screens and cinema seating, is open for customers to experience.
“We’re in a healthy place. We’re pushing on with the future with the next generation of Tysons who are taking the lead.”
As it celebrates 60 years in business, Tyson’s is continuing to invest in its high street presence, with its Early Black Friday in-store sale returning to Carlisle and Workington from Monday 9 November to Saturday 21 November. Customers can sign up to receive the latest offers via the Tyson’s website
