THREE generations of the Whittle family have worked at Peters store.

It is, says Caroline Whittle, who now heads the King Street department store with her husband David, "central to all of our lives."

When the BBC made a documentary about the store back in 2007 the couple’s two sons Jonathan, 20, and Joseph, 17, told the programme makers that Peters was an extension of their family life.

"They were always here, they’ve grown up with it," says David, who was himself raised with the retail trade.

In fact, Jonathan, who is currently studying in Hong Kong for part of his degree in international business management at Manchester University, used to manage the store on Sundays. His brother, also pursuing business studies, but at New College in Huddersfield, has now taken over this role.

"We are not leading them into the business," says David. "They are genuinely interested in it and have both worked in the store at weekends and during holidays.

"But when people ask if they are going to take over we can’t say what the future will bring."

The story of Peters in recent years is a dramatic one, worthy of any soap opera. After being owned by the family since 1982, when David’s father Peter Whittle founded the business from the ashes of the former Kayes department store, Peters encountered major trading problems in 2006.

The company’s bank called in the administrators, jobs were lost and for five months the future of the store hung in the balance.

Caroline and David went off to work for other people - David at a friend’s retail business in Workington and Caroline at a Huddersfield town centre restaurant.

"We didn’t sit idle for one day," says Caroline, who worked front of house and waitressing. "We had to put money on the table while we fought to get the business back."

And fight they did.

"We had made some bad business decisions," David admits.

"My father was absolutely devastated because at the time he was still chairman and it hit him very hard. Because of the administration he had to leave the business."

Looking back at the events leading up to the administration, David and Caroline say they can see where they went wrong.

"We took a big loss on the cookshop that we opened in the town centre and we were faced with direct competition from the Kingsgate development," explained Caroline. "We lost half our perfumery department."

"It all came at once," added David. "And we didn’t really understand what would happen when the bank called in our overdraft."

The administrators ran the business during the couple’s absence and until a deal could be worked out.

In the end one of the store’s existing concession partners became an major investor in the store and got the Whittles back through the front door.

It was always, they say, intended to be a temporary measure but it wasn’t until September last year that they were finally able to pay off their partner, dissolve the partnership and regain complete control of the store.

"One of the first things we did when we got the store back in 2006 was pay back all the small traders who we owed money to when Peters went into administration," said David. "But we will always feel a certain degree of sorrow about the people who lost their jobs. That still hurts now."

Peter Whittle, the 84-year-old former chairman and founder, is, says his son, "quite delighted that it’s back in family ownership.

"He was very proud to have his own shop with his own name and very proud it was continued."

However, the news that Peters is once again in Whittle ownership was not widely broadcast. David says: "because we had made people redundant it didn’t seem right to go shouting to the rooftops that we were back. We wanted to quietly carry on."

This year David and Caroline will celebrate their silver wedding. Even their relationship was forged behind a counter in Peters, where they both started working in 1982.

Because retail was in his blood - his grandfather was a joint managing director of Kayes - it was assumed that one day David would take over the store. Like his father he trained at Schofields in Leeds, also taking a business studies course.

Caroline was a 16-year-old Saturday girl when she joined Peters and started working full-time at the store as a management trainee, studying on day release at Huddersfield Technical College - enrolled on the same course that her son Joseph is now taking.

The Whittles are known for their amazing capacity to bounce back from difficulties. It is a strength that they have needed in both their business and private lives - they lost their cherished eldest child, Charlotte, who was born with a heart defect, 13 years ago at the age of 10 - a truly devastating blow for the entire extended family.

Now they face the new challenge of seeing Peters through the current recession and into a new period of prosperity. "After what we’ve been through we are now more experienced at dealing with the changing high street," said David,

l Retail time line

The former Kayes store in King Street was founded in 1863 and traded until 1982 when it closed. Peter Whittle, who had worked there from 1948 and was a joint managing director with his brother Alan, used his share of the business to launch Peters.

Peter’s father Ernest Whittle had been a joint managing director of Kayes until his death in 1976.