Page 195 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

1984
CHAPTER 38

BUYING NORTHCOTE
A brief outline of events to date are that my ECYB Transport business had finally failed
despite all our combined endeavours. Midland Bank at Lincoln held the house deeds as
security and would not release them. Ruth and I had to sell Ivy House at New Bolingbroke,
a most beautiful and desirable Georgian country residence and our home for the previous
14 years.
The already unhappy circumstances were overshadowed by an unpleasant court action
which had to be resolved and then the task of finding a new home with no savings and me
with no job; our only income coming from Ruth’s job as a District Nurse on a Temporary
contract.
The actual end of ECYB Transport was marred by physical violence as the drivers who
were working for me at the time had agreed to take over part of the old established UK
wide tyre transport business including the finance on my best asset, the firms beautiful ’
MAN’ box van lorries.

These vehicles I had purchased two years previously with the intention of keeping them for
perhaps ten years. They were the “crème de la crème” of commercial vehicles. Very
expensive initially but built to last.
There was just one year of finance left to pay on them and their book value was
considerable.
My ex drivers had conspired to take over these assets for no payment to me and during
the time I was organising the auction sale of my worldly goods at Ivy House, New
Bolingbroke, they had contrived their plan.

The day I returned, they confronted me with wooden clubs and threatened me most
assuredly with physical violence if I did not leave “their” premises immediately and with no
further argument.
In fact I had to take shelter with my neighbour traders on the site and call the police to get
me away. I have never been so close to real violence ever before, certainly never aimed
specifically at myself.
It had been too easy for them. I had informed all my clients of the change and all dealings
with the finance of the lorries had been finalised. I was locked out and had no option but to
try legal help.
Legal aid was granted and my solicitors began negotiations with my ex “drivers”.

FRUSTRATION
Needless to say, as the months passed, my solicitors managed to make a “pig’s ear” of
their task. As the 12 months came closer I asked them specifically to ensure the drivers
could not sell the lorries. I asked for a court order to be imposed on the vehicles. All the
solicitors did was obtain an agreement from the driver’s solicitors that they would not sell
the lorries.
I could read their minds. I knew at the bottom of everything they were after the pot of gold.
True to form, at the end of those 12 months the business I had created and had been
taken from me turned to dust. The driver’s solicitor “lost contact with their clients”; the
business ceased to trade and the lorries disappeared from the face of the earth. The final
assets of near £25.000 were gone.

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