Mary Perkins sold for £2 million in 1980, and continue to receive income from. After the sale the couple moved to Guernsey, where Mary's father had retired. Mary and Doug Perkins established Specsavers in Guernsey in 1984. In 2007 it was the largest privately owned opticians in the world, with nearly 900 stores across the UK and Europe. By 2011 the company had an annual turnover of £1.5bn and over 30,000 staff in markets in the UK, Europe and Australasia. Her current title at Specsavers is "founder". Dame Mary sits on the company board, oversees business development and has particular responsibility for
Dame Mary Cook Dame Mary Cook Dame Mary Cook (née Turner; – 24 September 1950) was the wife of Australian Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Cook. Mary Turner was 22 years old and had been a schoolteacher for eight years when she married Joseph Cook in 1885. Beginning as a pupil teacher at Chesterton Girls' School, by 1885 she was an assistant mistress. Like Cook, she came from a Staffordshire mining family. She appears to have had a role in helping both her brothers and her husband to overcome their lack of education. At their Lithgow home, Cook studied in the evenings, moving from