Page 125 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

BACK TO UNIROYAL
Earlier we mentioned Uniroyal and their expansion plans. We were looking at distributing
for them in the Midlands and decided on locating at Loughborough to cover the area from
Nottingham down to Leicester.
This depot would be exclusively for Uniroyal and would include all their tyres and
Treadaire carpet underlay.
Much against our better judgement. we eventually settled on a new two bay unit on a new
industrial estate. Hugely expensive compared with our humble premises at New
Bolingbroke.

The figures though looked healthy and
we duly proceeded with a lease and
more new vehicles.
(Windmill Road, Loughborough. It was
on this industrial estate that we
established depot number 2!)

When we knew a second base was likely
we took on Steve who had been Office
manager at Firestone Lincoln before it
closed and knew our operating
procedures backwards.

We even paid for Steve to commute to
Bolingbroke but with a view to him being manager at the new Loughborough location.
Steve’s home was on the Newark side of Lincoln and in the 1970’s roads were still
relatively good to drive on.
Loughborough began well and Fred my old Firestone boss had located himself in his
retirement in a little cottage in the village of Harby not far from Loughborough.

I had been in the habit of visiting Fred every six months or so and on one of these visits
posed the question of part time employment at Loughborough.
He did not take much persuading as his cottage was quite small but “affordable”.
The little extra would help run his car and in return he could help keep an eye on Steve.

Loughborough lasted for almost three years. The treadaire contract was very worthwhile
but Steve was not so good as watching his expenses as he was on the other management
jobs and I was still running the Bolingbroke main base.

Loughborough never made money as the overheads were huge. I would have been much
happier with modest premises but the industrial Midlands was not like our rural heartland
and “modest “ premises with planning permission for vehicles, Operators licences etc were
not available.
Loughborough tended to be overlooked too much due to the next turn of events and
constant pressure here in Lincolnshire where suddenly there was a lot of money to be
made.

This next major situation to affect us was brought about by a change in government and

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