A SEASIDE town's oldest family business and shop is to change hands.

AA Sotheran's printers, stationers and book shop has been known to generations of Redcar shoppers, going back to 1890.

But, after 43 years as a printer and third generation owner, charity and community volunteer Peter Sotheran is finally to hang up his apron.

The shop on Queen Street will be sold on to Teesside company InBiz and the factory will be transferred to two former employees in a management buy-out.

Father of four daughters Mr Sotheran, 59, had mixed emotions when he contemplated finally handing over the keys to the shop this weekend.

He said he had been looking to sell up for some time but was sorry the family tradition was coming to a close.

As he spoke he pointed out a framed copy of his grandfather Alfred Alexander Sotheran's apprenticeship indenture as a typesetter to a Mr Coverdale. The historic document said that AA Sotheran had to 'serve his master and not play cards, dice or other unlawful games and not to go to the tavern'.

Eventually the young apprentice took over Coverdale's which was situated in Redcar's old railway. The business moved to its present address in 1932 and began to rapidly expand under Alfred's son Ken in the Fifties and Sixties.

Peter, chairman of the historic Sir William Turner's Almshouses in nearby Kirkleatham, said: "I now plan to have some of the holidays I never had. My wife, Sue, and I have only once had a 15-day holiday.

"Looking after the 326-year-old Almshouses is totally absorbing. I would also like to develop my bellringing skills to a higher level and polish up my foreign languages."

Peter Sotheran is very well known in the town as a Justice of the Peace, member of the BBC's North-East Regional Advisory Committee and chairman of the Community Chest Grant Panel for Redcar and Cleveland.