Starting Out On The Road To Business

The last three months of my apprenticeship were spent on a placement with an outside contractor, to gain wider experience. The I.C.I. apprenticeship finished at the end of August 1984 and I was kept on by the contractor. However his workload was unpredictable. Worst still so was payment of wages. We parted company by November. Jobs were few and far between at that time unless you "Got on your bike" to London.

I decided to try my hand at starting my own business and quietly 'launched' in December 1984 aged just twenty.

In February 1989 I went into partnership with Jon Mitchell. We rebranded the business as Plannet Plumbing Services and began to expand.

Within a couple of years we had a small fleet of vans on the road and a busy office in Wavertree.