Charlie again.
We did have fun together and Lily got on with all the customers and I didn’t mind chatting to them either because I knew them and wanted to please them. Over time, the weekly takings got better and better and I am proud to say that we were very successful.
After a few years of the greengrocer’s round I decided it was time for a change. What I needed was a job with regular hours and regular pay. It wasn’t fair on Lily being stuck with me all day in the back of a van or on Brian who didn’t see much of us. We both wanted to enjoy a proper family life while Brain was growing up. Lily also wanted to broaden her horizons and had an eye on working again using her sewing skills.
She soon found work in a clothing factory owned by singer Sandie Shaw’s father out in Hainault, I think it was. She took Brian to school before work and picked him up after. Then she went on to work for a large furniture manufacturer where she learned to do upholstery and became very skilled in that specialist work. She continued making her own clothes in her spare time and made all Brian’s when he was little. He was always perfectly turned out, whatever the occasion.
One day Lily and Brian, who was four years old at the time, were in Dolcis Shoe Shop in Romford. Lily was looking for new shoes for Brian and he caught the eye of a photographer who was doing some advertising work there. He was setting up a shot and thought Brian would look good in it. Brian had to sit next this glamorous model and look on as she tried on shoes. He looks angelic in his beret and best tailored coat, another of Lily’s creations. It’s a lovely picture and appeared in several magazines.
What about me, then? What was I going to do with myself? All I was qualified to do was drive and sell things. And that is what I continued to do in my next job, which lasted twenty-seven years. However, the difference was that this job took me from the bottom rung of the ladder almost to the top.
16
On the Road Again
I nearly didn’t get the job at Macarthys Ltd in Romford because of the young girl on the reception desk. ‘The advert clearly says, “Drivers between 25–35 required
I had seen the advert for drivers in the local paper and thought I would give it a go. I stopped off on my way back from market with a lorry load of potatoes. I went in and filled in a form with my personal details and passed it over to the girl. When she saw my date of birth she pushed the paper back to me.
‘I’m sorry. It’s no good me passing it on upstairs. They won’t even look at it. You’re too old.’ That was it and I left and went back to deliver my spuds. I persisted however and some days later I started working for a company which grew from small beginnings, from working out of the back of a chemist shop, into one of the country’s leading wholesale pharmaceutical distributors.
My first job was accompanying one of the drivers in his 12cwt Bedford van full of surgical dressings which we delivered to the hospital at the Ford Dagenham Works. I suppose I was the spare driver and now I knew what Pony Moore felt like in France when he was sitting in the passenger seat beside me. I accompanied this chap for a few days to learn the ropes and then I was given my own route and left to get on with it. I collected the orders from the warehouse, loaded them up and then went out on my round to the various customers, mostly pharmacists. I was out on the road again, on my own.
I didn’t think of myself as just another driver or delivery boy – well, certainly not a boy at nearly forty. I didn’t want to be one of those fellows who just dumped the goods out the back and then drove on to the next job. I took an interest in the people I met and spent time chatting to them and tried to be friendly and helpful. If somebody wanted to change or add to an order I would see to it personally. I got myself a notebook and started keeping records of the various requests. I sorted them out myself in the warehouse when I got back. Nothing was too much trouble.
I was doing well and enjoyed what I was doing, particularly offering a more personal service. People told me, including customers and reps from other drugs companies, that I ought to be out on the road selling. ‘Got the gift of the gab,’ I heard somebody say. ‘You’re a natural.’
‘They don’t take drivers off the road and make them reps,’ I said.
One day a sales rep from Pfizer was standing on the kerb outside one of my regular customers. As I passed him to go into the chemists, he said hello and started chatting. I had seen him before and didn’t know his name but he knew mine.
‘Awright, Charlie. How you doing?’
‘Fine, thank you,’ I said, ‘and you?’
‘Tickety-boo.’
I thought that was it but he continued, ‘Little birdie tells me,’ and he tapped the side of his nose, ‘Little birdie tells me that a certain person not a million miles from here is coming up in the world.’
I had no idea what he was talking about.
‘They’re trying to get you out on the road, repping. You know, like yours truly.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Your bosses. Haven’t you heard?’
I shook my head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a driver.’
But you know what? They did want me out on the road, wanted me to become a sales representative. What’s more, I did become one and continued to do so for the next 20 years until I retired in 1984.
Things have happened to me more by accident than intention. I’ve been lucky. I left school at fourteen without any qualifications but I’ve done well. People always seemed to take to me and my face fitted. I worked with two regional directors where all the other reps worked with one. They left it up to me to organise my work load which I really appreciated. I remember the first time they called me into their office to tell me the good news.
‘You see that desk there.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘It’s nice and empty.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, I want it staying that way. I don’t want a load of rubbish on my desk on a Friday afternoon.’
‘No, sir.’
‘We know where you are and what you’re doing. If we want to speak to you we can find you at home, can’t we?’
‘Yes, any time,’ I said.
That was fine by me. There was nobody breathing down my neck and there were no piles of paper to deal with or reports to send in. I was very lucky. I had good bosses who respected and trusted me enough to let me get on with my job.
I was put in charge of part of the South East area: the whole of Essex, part of Hertfordshire and part of Kent. We were living in Thundersley, near Southend, by then, so I was travelling a good deal on my patch but soon got to know all the other places. Sometimes one of my bosses asked me to cover for another rep in a different area if that chap was absent or unavailable.
Most of what I did was what is known as ‘cold calling’. I went out and visited chemists, pharmacists and doctors who didn’t know me from Adam and didn’t buy from us. My job was to sell my company to them and get them to move their accounts from their wholesaler and sign up to us. I wasn’t pushy or grasping or greedy. I know some reps would do anything to get a new customer but I treated people with respect and I did very well. Occasionally people closed the door in my face but mostly they were polite and spared me the time to hear what I had to say about the service and competitive prices my company could offer. You did need a bit of a silver tongue and I had that, so it seemed. As my boss said, ‘We employ you because you’re a good talker.’ Funny to think how shy I used to be and how I would go out of my way to avoid meeting people.
When I went out in the morning I was my own boss in my company car, out on the road, not stuck indoors – what I’ve always liked best. I didn’t have to report to anybody or ask for permission to do so and so. I used my initiative in arranging my visits. If I had been on a long journey one day I worked locally the next. If I fancied an
