Page 7 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

CHAPTER ONE
“EARLY DAYS”

It all began with a failure, Ruth and I had been in business for over 12 years, involved in
the national transport and distribution of motor tyres.

To take a step further backwards I should explain that the motor tyre industry was my most
recent forte. I had worked for the World Wide conglomerate, the Firestone Tyre and
Rubber Company for the previous seven years, then left to start our own modest
enterprise.

In the early days we began with commercial tyres that needed independent examination
after a complaint had been made for poor service in one form or another.
We took them from the retail tyre trader to the three examination centres around the UK.

This was hardly a full time occupation and we spread out into general haulage in a small
way. During the next three years we took hay and straw to Wales, potatoes to UK wide
wholesale markets, bar billiard tables to Dundee, agricultural equipment to Inverness and
lots more of course but equally varied.

It was at the beginning of 1976 when Firestone UK had eventually been driven to the wall
after 40 years of continued success, by inept American management introduced to make
“improvements”.

Uniroyal, another international company stepped into the breach and began to offer ex
Firestone retailers a good alternative premium product. My experience of all those years
serving faithful Firestone retailers paid off, when one of them, the largest independent tyre
retailer in the UK, Fossitt and Thorne told Uniroyal that if they wanted F and T to sell
Uniroyal tyres, then Keith Sanders' company would be the one making the deliveries.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think Harry Thorne would remember all those days and
weeks and months I spent with his company staff promoting sales and helping with clients'
problems.

Ruth and I became the distributors and ran the “stocking point” for Uniroyal tyres covering
the area between the Humber in the north and Cambridge in the south. West to the A1 and
east to the coast and into Norfolk as far as Swaffham.
Harry Thorne ensured we were given autonomous powers to decide on our own stock
levels and the type and sizes of tyre we would always have available. We were in fact
unique in the UK, there were other “stocking points” set up the same year but they were all
strictly controlled by Uniroyal themselves. Our uniqueness was due to my previous
experience and the buying power of Fossitt and Thorne.