He became its chief executive in 1987 and over the next decade the company – which takes its name from the strong and level-headed first mate in the novel Moby Dick – grew to more than 1,300 stores. Howard says: “At first we wanted to open 100 shops. But we had no money. We scribbled out 100 and wrote 75. We settled on 60. I had no idea we’d get to 100 stores, let alone thousands.”