AN INDEPENDENT REMEMBERS


STEPPING BACK IN TIME


Sticky Syd, our independent hardwareman, takes a step back in time with his latest story from the shop floor.


silly as to allow talk of drills to bore everyone I spoke to. Having said this, I do remember seeing some people’s eyes glaze over.


N


Forearmed Anyhow, having become forearmed with the knowledge that the typical Black & Decker range was not intended for constant, heavy usage (or, to quote the area rep, more than three weekends’ use per year), I would ask potential customers how much stick they expected to give it. If the visiting B&D rep had heard me asking such searching questions, then I’m certain I would have been taken aside and given a sound talking to. But I was more concerned about faulty stuff not being returned, with risk not only to B&D’s reputation, but also our own. So if people wanted a DIY tool for heavier use, then I showed them the Bosch range: higher selling prices, better margins. At that time Bosch had taken some inspiration from the B&D special offer kits (where a drill would also come, say, with a free attachment), and had similarly made up some attractive-ish presentation boxes. Stocking these two ranges guaranteed us a sale almost every time. We just couldn’t go wrong. And the sheds didn’t have Bosch, which made it even sweeter.


Four-railed It was rails


time we bit the curtain


bullet and bought in some Swish, instead of just providing a large range of fittings to service those people who’d bought from somewhere else. So when one of our wholesalers’ managers was delivering due to driver sickness, the boss and I took the opportunity to get some inside info.


“It’s a lass called Stephanie that you want to see,” he told us, promising to phone her number through to us


12 DIY WEEK 08 NOVEMBER 2019


ow, I wouldn’t want to give the impression


that


I was power tool mad. Obsessed maybe, but not so


Sad to say, but within a few months of us taking the range, Stephanie’s employer, in restructuring its sales force, made a number of its reps redundant, replacing them with new people of a different job title, and she was one of the cast-offs. When I phoned her about a vacancy I heard of close to where she lived, she was grateful for the heads up. We didn’t hear from her again.


Foreseen


Another manufacturer’s stand that we took on around this time was for the Sellotape draught excluder range. I wonder if those people had a crystal ball? Same with Ronseal and the wood repair


system I


when he got back to the warehouse (no texts or emails back then). He also said that she was very nice and – I’m merely being precise, here – would do anything for an order, which we took to mean discounts and/or other material incentives to entice us to sign up as stockists, so please don’t write in. I phoned her at home (no mobile phones for we plebs back then) and she came to see us the following lunchtime. To this day I can’t remember what she, the boss and I talked about. But she gathered up her bag at 5:05 and wondered what the area manager would say about her taking over four hours to sell the smallest display stand (it was 20 inches square). I also remember the number of tab ends that she’d stubbed in the ancient ashtray that we’d cobbled up just for her. At least now we could offer


rails from the big three, though I suspected that Swish believed they


“I wonder if my fellow retailers had as much trouble in explaining just how to fit these excluders as we did in Little Sniffingham.”


were the big one. We also stocked Harrison and Decorail on a roll, cut to length for people. Yeah, great fun. Or perhaps not. We sold miles of it, though. Actually there were four manufacturers in the marketplace, and the one that caused the biggest headache was the Winfield brand from Woolworths. There will still be people


in Little Sniffingham


wandering around looking for spare glide hooks for that rubbish, I kid you not.


mentioned in part 27. Just how did these industry-leading giants know that plastic windows were on the way in and that 30-odd years in the future the number of people blocking up door draughts and repairing wooden windows would be as rare as tortoise hair. I mean, they must have seen the trend for uPVC blitzing the wooden doors and windows industry and thought they’d better blast out the wood repair system, draught excluders and seasonal double glazing products, making hay whilst the sun shone, or rather cash whilst the wind blew. I wonder if my fellow retailers had as much trouble in explaining just how to fit these excluders as we did in Little Sniffingham. I became so fed up with people bringing allegedly useless excluders back for refund that I made a small door model, using 2 x 3 timber for the frame, rebated (of course), and a smart-looking glazed door. It was around two feet tall but not exactly lightweight, to which I fitted samples of each and every draught- proofing product we stocked, just so I could show them where to stick the stuff.


I have to say that


this gadget, despite being a little cumbersome, soon paid for itself many times over – well, at least until sales finally slipped through a gap that was impossible to block.


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