Page 8 - IT'S A RUM LIFE BOOK FOUR Volume 1 "Northcote 1984 to 1998"

Eventually in 1983 following policy changes and other imponderables, our small but faithful
company bit the dust and we should pass on to the beginning of Northcote. Readers can
follow the fortunes of Fossitt and Thorne, Uniroyal and ECYB Transport in “It's a Rum Life”
Book Three “Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984”
available as e book or pdf download from https://richardkeithsanders.selz.com/

CHAPTER TWO
“THE MOVE”

We were virtually penniless and almost homeless. Our lovely Georgian Country home for
the last 14 years had been successfully sold to our neighbour, the bank had been paid off
and all we had to do was find somewhere else to live.

Our family was three strong, daughter Helen and there was Ruth, our one and only wage
earner. Ruth had been a nurse all her working life, she had been working in orthopaedics,
eye theatre, Senior Sister in charge of our local Cottage Hospital, but at that time, she was
running the small operating theatre in that same hospital. Not far into the future, the
theatre was to close due to cutbacks and Ruth would become a bank nurse taking jobs as
they came, from all over the County to help make ends meet.

Ruth was far from happy about the move! She had loved Ivy House with passion and
nothing we looked at would suit. Eventually early in 1984, as time fast approached for Alan
to take possession of Ivy House we had to fix on somewhere to live. The fact that we had
two horses and a dog ruled out anything urban and we eventually settled on a
smallholding with tiny cottage plus outbuildings and five acres of fields at Great Steeping
near Spilsby about 12 miles from Ivy House.

BUYING NORTHCOTE

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 theatre sister at the Grace Swan
Hospital at Spilsby.

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 firm’s beautiful
M.A.N. 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.