The word Mend has been over this door for more than forty years. It started with our grandmother, Parveen Rahman. Her sign said Parveen's Alterations and Mending, and she painted it herself in cobalt blue with a coral shadow, because those were the two tins of sign paint the hardware shop had left that week.
Parveen came to London from Sylhet in 1973 and spent ten years as a machinist in a garment workshop on Commercial Road. When she took the lease here in 1984 she had one sewing machine, a steam iron and a rail of school trousers waiting to be taken up. For thirty-two years she let out wedding suits, turned collars, put new zips in winter coats and told people, kindly and firmly, when something wasn't worth the money. Plenty of Tooting still remembers her holding up a jacket and saying, "This one is finished. Buy a new one."
This one is finished. Buy a new one.
Parveen, most weeks since 1984
Adil, her grandson, started fixing phones at a small counter in the corner in 2012. He was nineteen and halfway through an electronics course, and the first job was his cousin's cracked screen. Word got round. By 2014 the phone counter had taken over half the shop, and Parveen's machine had moved to the back, next to the kettle.
When Parveen retired in 2016, Adil took on the lease. He kept the word Mend and he kept her lettering: the new sign was copied from an old photograph of hers, brush strokes and all. Her sewing machine sits in the window now. She still comes in most Thursdays, mainly to check we're charging people fairly.
These days there are three of us behind the counter. Adil looks after phones and tablets. Sam Oduya joined in 2018 from a console workshop and does the fiddly board-level work: charging ports, HDMI ports, liquid damage, and getting photos off phones that won't turn on. Nadia, Adil's sister, runs the front desk, fixes the laptops and looks after our business accounts. She's usually the one who rings you with a price.
The way we work hasn't changed much since the alterations days. You get a price before we start, and if we find a second fault we ask before we touch it. Most screens and batteries are done the same day, often while you get a coffee from across the road. Everything we fit has a warranty, and the dates are printed on your ticket.
If the repair costs more than the phone is worth, we'll tell you, and looking won't cost you anything. We sell refurbished phones too, so we can show you what the alternative would cost. Those are phones people have sold or traded in to us, checked, repaired where needed, wiped properly and graded honestly, each with a 12-month warranty.
Parveen's rule still stands. If it can be mended, we'll mend it. If it's finished, we'll say so.
Forty-two years in twelve dates
1973
Parveen Rahman arrives in London from Sylhet and starts work as a machinist in a garment workshop on Commercial Road.
1984
She opens Parveen's Alterations and Mending on Mitcham Road and paints the sign herself, cobalt letters with a coral shadow.
1997
The August school-uniform rush begins: two weeks of taking up trousers, with a queue out of the door most mornings.
2012
Her grandson Adil sets up a phone repair counter in the corner. The first job is his cousin's cracked screen.
2014
Phone repairs take over half the shop. The sewing machine moves to the back, next to the kettle.
2016
Parveen retires. Adil takes on the lease, names the shop The Mend Shop and copies her lettering for the new sign.
2018
Sam Oduya joins from a console workshop. Board-level repairs, consoles and data recovery start.
2019
Nadia Rahman joins from school IT support. Laptops come in, and so does the first business account, a primary school in SW17.
2020
The shop shuts its doors for weeks. Repairs are collected and returned by bike around SW17.
2021
The first refurbished phones go on sale, each with a 12-month warranty.
2023
Business accounts get proper terms: cab offices, schools and local firms, one invoice a month.
2026
Online repair tracking and drop-off booking, so nobody has to queue to ask how it's going.
Who you'll meet
P
Parveen Rahman
Founder, retired 2016
Parveen opened the shop as an alterations and mending business in 1984, after ten years as a machinist on Commercial Road. She ran it for thirty-two years, took up more school trousers than anyone could count, and painted the sign we still copy today. She retired in 2016 but hasn't really left: most Thursdays she's in the chair by the window, next to her old sewing machine, asking customers what they paid and whether they were happy. She still uses a basic flip phone. When it breaks, she knows where to take it.
A
Adil Rahman
Owner, phones and tablets
Adil started fixing phones at a counter in the corner of his grandmother's shop in 2012, when he was nineteen and still at college. He took on the lease in 2016 and named it The Mend Shop. He does most of the phone and iPad work, and he's the one who'll tell you when a repair isn't worth it, which he says he learned from Parveen rather than from a course. On Sunday mornings he coaches an under-11s football team on Tooting Common, which is why we don't open until eleven.
S
Sam Oduya
Technician, board-level repairs and consoles
Sam joined in 2018 after six years repairing games consoles in a south London workshop. He's the one at the microscope: charging ports, HDMI ports, liquid damage and data recovery, the jobs where the fault is on the board rather than the screen. He's patient in a way that's hard to teach, and he'll show you the damage on the monitor if you want to see it. If your console comes back quieter than it went in, that's Sam's habit of cleaning anything he opens. He grew up in Streatham and still gets the bus in from there every morning.
N
Nadia Rahman
Front desk, laptops and business accounts
Nadia joined in 2019 after five years doing IT support for a group of primary schools in Merton, which is how we ended up looking after school laptops and iPads. She runs the front desk, fixes the laptops and looks after our business accounts, from cab offices to a dental practice down the road. If you've had a phone call from us with a price and a plain-English explanation, it was probably Nadia. She keeps the booking diary, the parts orders and her brother in order, roughly in that order of difficulty.
The lettering
Parveen painted her sign in 1984 with a brush, a pot of cobalt and a pot of coral. When Adil took over, he had the new sign copied from a photograph of hers, down to the shadow on each letter. The dashed line under our name is a running stitch, for the thirty-two years of mending that came first.
The 1984 sign, drawn from the original.The sign today.
Parveen's sewing machine sits in the window now. It still works, and the chair beside it is hers on Thursdays.
The Mend Shop is a fictional business, made by Oski Marketing to show what we would build for a local repair shop. Nothing you typed or tapped has been sent anywhere.