FM Conway - Going the Extra Mile

Going the Extra Mile

If I needed a vehicle, I would buy it – and I wouldn’t buy it unless I needed it. I have never minded putting my money into the business: that’s the kind of risk that I like to take.

So we had to use our own people – in fact, I had to do it myself at the start. Gus Smith took over from me, which was great because he was a really conscientious worker. And then John Stern and Chris O’Neill took over from him, alternating the work between them. This kind of work could be dangerous. I remember seeing Gus one night, using the JCB to pick up a street lamp that had fallen over but was still connected to the power supply. He scooped it up with the front bucket, dropped it onto the footpath, and used the bucket to chop it into pieces – and all the while, the lamp was still lit! There were sparks everywhere! They did eventually manage to turn off the power supply – but only after he had done most of the job. That’s how it was in those days. B y the end of the year, it was clear from the amount of work that we were getting that we needed a larger base than we had at Ancaster Road. Our turnover for 1983 had topped £2.8 million. It was time to get a proper company headquarters. So, I started to look around. And while I was looking, I got an architect to draw up some plans for developing the site at Ancaster Road. I was

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