Page 187 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

I had worked for over eighteen months travelling the length and breadth of the UK seeking
suitable permanent sites as collection points for complaint tyres to be “dropped off” and
consequently collected by our lorries.
After years of a good relationship with the TMC at Burton on Trent I had been informed of
their intentions to centralise their network. All tyres requiring examination, from the whole
of the UK would end up at Burton on Trent.
I had negotiated the contract to do this with TMC head office in London and consequently
begun the long and very involved process of setting up the system, my system!

I had bought very very second-hand lorries to begin the service, ex Curry’s electrical shop
distribution vehicles. Old but still serviceable, at minimum cost to keep the investment low
until proven satisfactory. The lorries were large demountable boxes, 12 of, together with
two Leyland Mastiff four wheel chassis vehicles that came with the boxes.

The system began operation and worked, our vehicles were delivering new tyres to
various parts of the UK then eventually arriving at one of the six collection points at fairly
regular intervals. The full box of complaint tyres was then taken to Burton on Trent and the
box left there to be unloaded in their own time. An empty box collected and so on.

Picture right: Commercial tyres
awaiting examination.

Suddenly, pressure from our bank to reduce
our borrowings could not be ignored. For no
apparent reason we were being strangled. I
managed to get the aid of a very good, kind
and Christian accountant from Peterborough
who travelled with me to seek new sources of
finance. He as did I, believed the contract was
sound and profitable.
All was to no avail and eventually the business
was liquidated and the contract lost.
“Strangely” a subsidiary transport company
belonging to a UK tyre manufacturer was
waiting to step into our shoes!
I had done all the hard work and now been squeezed out!

With the loss of ECYB, we lost our depot at Horncastle and through accompanying
litigation, some of our lorries. We still retained our original regular TMC (complaint tyre)
collections from individual tyre retailers in the East of England. Money was tight and I
could not sustain the drain of finance much longer.
Midland Bank were still pressurising us to the extent that the family home was for sale to
pay off our bank loan.
At this time we had some newish drivers and together with some of the older ones they
had intimated they could make a better job than me.
We agreed to change ownership of the business to them collectively and they would pay
us bit by bit for the capital asset value in the best lorries on finance. They were quality
vehicles and had good genuine book value in excess of £15.000 each and less than
£5.000 of finance left to pay. Arrangements were made with the finance company and all
our clients to the affect that the business was changing ownership.

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