A BLACKBURN uniform provider that sells to pupils from more than 50 schools across East Lancashire is opening a new shop in the Ribble Valley.

Grays, which also has premises on Northgate, opens an outlet in Clitheroe this weekend on Castle Street.

Its menswear shop on Penny Street in Blackburn closed in 2011 - 91 years after brothers George and Will Gray took a stall on Blackburn’s open market.

They built up the business so quickly that within 12 months they had moved into their shop at 67, Penny Street, on the corner of Old Chapel Street.

Grays moved into the market in 1964 and opened a second in Northgate, selling school uniforms a decade later, after taking over a business originally run by Johnny Forbes.

George and Will were in their twenties when they came back home after fighting in the First World War and decided to set up in business.

They approached a northern wholesaler without having any money to pay for stock - but the owner of the business, appreciative of their service to the country, agreed to give them credit.