Page 126 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

“The strength of the pound.”

BLACK EXPORTS....AND IMPORTS
For a long period we found ourselves in cahoots with F & T’s manager at Lincoln, Keith
Roe. He had found a niche in the tyre market created by the change in the value of the
pound.
Through various contacts on mainland Europe, he was being asked to supply huge
quantities of tyres because European retailers could buy cheaper from England than in
their own countries.
We were bombarded by requests from Keith for huge amounts of tyres. Lorry loads at a
time. This meant that our earnings per tyre were really worthwhile as in fact we were not
even transporting them anywhere. The transport came to us and someone else paid!
Within a few days we were organising specific stocks of tyre sizes largely used in the
European sector. This meant that a large percentage of these had actually been made at
Uniroyal’s European factories. Shipped to Edinburgh for UK use and then we were
sending them back.

Complete articulated lorry loads were arriving at New Bolingbroke. We then booked similar
sized lorries from our area to transport them to European destinations. Fossitt and Thorne,
Lincoln paid the transport, we simply transferred the load to another lorry.

This caused a furore at Uniroyal Edinburgh. At first they did not comprehend what was
going on, but when our orders exceed two loads a week on top of our normal weekly artic
load, bells began to ring.
Our friend from Leeds arrived first, snooping around asking silly questions about who
wanted so many tyres. He went away with a flea in his ear.

The question was so important to Uniroyal that Brian Daltry was next on our door step. Our
contract gave us complete control over what we ordered and when, so apart from
disapproval and actually withholding stocks they could not stop the situation. Particularly
when the client was Fossitt and Thorne, the one account they did not wish to loose.
We knew it could not last, just as soon as the £ lost its edge on European currency the
situation returned to normal. Sufficient to say though it earned us enough for Ruth and I to
buy our first newish car.

(The XJ6 pictured at Sable ‘Or in northern
Brittany.)
XJ6
Austin Munks had been the most respected
car dealer in Lincolnshire.
He was the original Jaguar dealership in the
County. He also raced motorcycles in the
heady days after the Second World War.

An I.O.M. TT veteran, he had lost an eye
some years previously but still flew his own
Auster light aircraft.
During my time at the “Standard” in the early
1960’s, I had created every special
advertisement he required.

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