FM Conway - Going the Extra Mile

A New Start 3

I n 1981, our turnover crossed the £1 million barrier for the first time. We were growing again, and I was determined that we would continue to do so. At that time, we were running two businesses out of our yard: F.M. Conway Ltd., and Penge Plant Hire (PPH). It was clear that Ancaster Road was no longer big enough for the two businesses – clear both to myself, and to our neighbours, who didn’t appreciate the amount of traffic that we were generating. And the amount of traffic was increasing all the time. In order to deal with the extra work, I had bought two new lorries, Spanish Dodges. (Chrysler was trying to get its vehicles into the European market through its subsidiary, Barreiros, in Spain.). I didn’t like hiring plant; if the work justified it, I preferred to buy what we needed. Investment would lead to growth – with more plant we would be able to take on more work. That was my philosophy right from the start; it worked then, and it still works now. But I couldn’t leave the lorries out on the street, so I hired a yard and some office space around the corner in Jasmine Grove, and I moved PPH and all our plant into it, with John Corcoran as Hire Manager. Work was starting to pick up, and we were beginning to make a name for ourselves in the area. At the end of the following year, I won a tender for a job that would put our name firmly on the map – and put some of our faces on the front of the local papers. The London Borough of Croydon wanted to do a large renovation job on the Town Hall Gardens. At the centre of the redesigned gardens, there was going to be a grand new feature: a large circular stone stairway would lead up from the lower garden to the upper garden, with a fountain in the

The company logo that we used for many years was designed by my father. It consists of his initials, FMC, with a shamrock and a rose to symbolize the union of the two countries he loved, Ireland and England.

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