Sheffield’s first black female bus driver to close clothing shop

Sheffield’s first black female bus driver is to close the business her earnings supported after almost 40 years.

Maxine Duffus, from Walkley, said becoming a driver in 1983 allowed her to follow her dream of running her own boutique.

The 62-year-old said she will have to close the shop at the end of the month as her lease expires.

Mrs Duffus opened Maxine’s in Sheffield on Queens Road in January 1985.

She said her decision to open the shop was a “hobby turned job” and she would be “sad and devastated” to leave the business after 39 years.

However, the property owner wants to sell and the lease ends.

“I would have loved 40 years in the building, but I will still be working,” Ms Duffus said.

“Things happen for a reason. It’s time to take a step back.”

In the early 1980s and at the age of 22, he had become a bus driver.

Child fares were 2p and adults paid 5p to travel from Commercial Street to Walkley,” she said.

“The conductor was walking up and down collecting fares and chatting,” she said.

“It was a different age. It was easier to talk to people.”

She said she hopes her next venture, when she closes Maxine’s, will “take some of that back.”

She plans to operate a mobile business carrying out alterations and repairs from her home workshop in Walkley.

Ms Duffus said people increasingly wanted clothing repaired or altered rather than buying for one-off occasions.

“It’s even more sustainable,” she said.

“And I love making alterations and transformations, giving new life to a garment.”

Ms Duffus said it was the “end of an era” to leave her Queens Road shop and said the messages of support she had received had been “heartbreaking”.

“The shop is my third child and I will grieve for him,” she said.

“My daughter was seven months old and my son was just under four when I opened it, they spent a lot of time there when I was working.

“And my niece was a child here.”