Instead of starting at the beginning, I want to fast forward to 2nd May 1977. That was the day I re-joined Henry Boot Construction after a five month spell with a small builder in Dunstable (more later). Little did I know the fledgling Southern Division would have seven changes of management in seven years. A period of exciting skulduggery as managers conspired to oust their predecessors.
In 1977 there were two major housing contracts in Harlow and Cheshunt, both won and run by the Midlands Region. I joined as Area Surveyor, based on site at Cheshunt, and reported to a Birmingham Senior Contracts Manager called Henry Atkinson. When rumours grew in 1978 that the company was serious in expanding in the south, we all expected that Henry would be first in line to manage the new division.
However, the Midlands Region was struggling. The success it had with huge housing contracts in the early seventies ( particularly the spectacular profit on the second of the Peterborough phases of housing where I was resident) came rapidly to a halt with a number of loss making contracts. So in the second half of that year came the first of the many changes.
Our two contracts were transferred to the Yorkshire Region that was run by Regional Manager Peter Horth. He and Regional Surveyor Ken Ottley only visited us occasionally as, more importantly, a new Senior Contracts Manager arrived. Tony Whale joined the company from Bovis, a hint of things to come as David Woolf from that same company was taking over as Managing Director at the company's headquarters in Sheffield.
Things suddenly started happening towards the end of 1978. Plans for the Southern Division became a reality. A small Projects Team under Colin Brooks was set up in the company's house/office at The Boltons in Chelsea. Another Senior Contracts Manager started. Mike Stafford was another ex-Bovis man. He was given the first new contract won for the south, a warehouse and offices in Brentford. In the absence of any new surveying staff, he relied on me to do the business. We were running the operation out of a back room in The Boltons office, at the same time I was dashing to Sheffield and back to report on Harlow and Cheshunt.
By the end of the year, the company had found a new Divisional Office in Castle Street in High Wycombe. We were still having regular management meetings at The Boltons, so it was a huge advantage when we finally moved into the High Wycombe office on 3rd January 1979. The first shock came when we found that the Divisional Manager would not be Peter Horth, who was moving down from Yorkshire, but Colin Brooks. His small Projects Team were primarily responsible for finding work and I'm not sure if Colin had any experience of running construction operations. So Peter Horth moved into the office next to his, and next along was that for Ken Ottley as the now permanently resident Divisional Surveyor.
Only his occupation of that office didn't last a day. On the 3rd January he was sent to Birmingham to close that office and it's contracts. He still had some responsibility for the old Harlow and Cheshunt contracts, and I did meet him in Birmingham on the odd occasion. But in the south we Surveyors were left without a leader for the new contracts. That was resolved when I was made a Regional Surveyor. I already had been given an office in High Wycombe, the first time in my career that I had not been site based.
However by September, we only had three of the new contracts, Brentford at £715,000 and two even much smaller jobs. Brian Gregory had joined the surveying team to look after these two at the Architect Association and IBM. When we won the prestige refurbishment and restoration of Nuneham House at Nuneham Courtney in Oxfordshire, we were making progress. Then in October 1979 we hit the big time. White City Industrial Park turned out to be a massive warehouse and office contract that did well financially. I was interviewing for new staff while setting up both of these highly dynamic projects.
During this time, management was going through an interesting time. Brian Warren had joined as another Senior Contracts Manager. That made three with Tony Whale and Mike Stafford. All three we ex-Bovis and got together to form an informal and secret Divisional Operations Board. I was co-opted as the top operations surveyor, and attended the first Divisional Operations Board Meeting on 13th July 1979. No Peter Horth, no Colin Brooks. The writing was on the wall for both of them. This new cabal had only one thought in mind, their exit. And it was probably in September that Peter Horth left.
I cannot remember many more such meetings. Brian Warren had a personal friend from Bovis in Brian Gregory to look after his jobs, small as they were initially. Brian Warren was obviously instrumental in getting the other Brian the position of Regional Surveyor of which there were now two. We actually got on pretty well, we ran surveyor's meetings between us, co-operated on reports to senior management. I knew the Henry Boot system very well, Brian was experienced in the cost recovery type of jobs, and this was where his specialism lay.
Early 1980 was a busy time starting the new big contracts. Mike Stafford had moved to Head Office in Dronfield to get involved in management contracts. I visited him there to finalise the account on Brentford. It was not until June 1980 that we had the next big upheaval. Colin Brooks left the company and was replaced by ...... Brian Warren. So that was Midlands Region with Henry Atkinson, Yorkshire Region with Peter Horth, Colin Brooks and now Brian Warren, all in two years.
Brian was a lovely guy, Bunny to all his friends. The next year would have been great except for one thing. He promoted Brian Gregory to Divisional Surveyor. So instead of running the commercial side together, I now reported to someone I knew was my inferior. The only thing that kept me from leaving was that I was left to supervise my own contracts exactly as before. White City was taking up a big chunk of my time and it was turning out to be very successful. We won the second phase, and then later, the third. I was working very closely with Tony Whale who was now pretty much deputy to Brian Warren, as I was to Brian Gregory. Tony and I were on Cheshunt together, before the Southern Division had become a reality, and we had worked on the same contracts together since the beginning.
It was a good thing I stayed. In March 1981, less than a year into his job, Brian Warren left and Tony Whale took over as Divisional Manager. The fifth change of leadership. But nothing changed on the surveying management. Brian Gregory was still in charge. For a meeting with Tony on 31st March 1981, I had kept a note in my diary. There are hardly any such notes of a personal or political nature. However this time I wrote "We discussed the new management chart. I made it clear that I accepted what he had done was the only possibility at this stage, but that I was unhappy with my personal circumstances, and that if I didn't think the situation could be changed , I would find things impossible. Tony mentioned that possibly by December things might change, so that was a good date to work to."
However I only had to wait until 24th July 1981 when Brian Gregory left the company. Tony promoted me to Divisional Quantity Surveyor, a position I was to hold for the next three happy years. However, there were still a few major surprises to come, most of them unpleasant.
Another year another Divisional manager! Tony resigned in June 1982. Our biggest contract at that time was the Holiday Inn, Croydon. It was destined to become a huge problem, and the rumour was that the Managing Director only took on the project to appease Tony who wanted it badly. So when it ran into trouble, I guess Tony thought it might be a good time to depart. So who would take over this time? John Marshall had been based in the Dronfield head office in charge of Management Contracting. He was parachuted in to run the Southern Division in his own inimitable way. We were onto number six.
John Marshall relied heavily on Mike Ellis, who was now the Senior Contracts Manager and myself. Mike and I had worked together on the division's biggest contracts. First Cheshunt, five years previously, where he was Site Manager, White City and now the headache that was Holiday Inn, Croydon. (I can remember being on site one day when an operative plonked a second world war bomb on his desk, that had been found during excavations. More of that later).
It wasn't long before Mr Marshall decided that he needed to strengthen the surveying management, and brought in Joe Scroxton in January 1983 over my head. Joe was an ex President of the Institute of Quantity Surveyors before that Institute was absorbed by the RICS. So he was coming towards the end of his career. However we never really knew what his role was to be. All the day to day commercial work went on as before with all the Surveyors still reporting to me. Joe seemed to be in a kind of consultancy role as I was still attending the quarterly meetings of Divisional Quantity Surveyors in Dronfield.
There were more changes in the autumn of 1983. First John Marshall announced on 21st October that he had resigned to take up the post of Managing Director of Mowlems. Roger Coombes from the Civil Engineering Division took over on the 31st. The following month saw a huge reorganisation of staff with massive redundancies, almost one in two of all staff. I know from conversations later that either Joe Scroxton or myself had to go. The committee who had to decide apparently had to cast their votes. It was no surprise that John Marshall voted to keep Joe. But in the end, he was outvoted, Joe left that day, and I started to work with my seventh boss in seven years.
I liked Roger very much. We had a difficult time with the decimation of our resources, and 1984 turned out to be a momentous year in more ways than one. Croydon was at last finished, although the financial situation was disastrous. Amazingly, we were recruiting in the Spring. A large contract at Ipswich was about to start and a number of smaller jobs were underway. Mike Ellis had left to join Farrans, and I knew that if that went well I might be joining him in the autumn. But there was still time for one last reorganisation. In the summer of 1984, the Southern Building Division ceased to exist. The company amalgamated Civils and Building and split the country geographically East and West. It was the head of Civils Quantity Surveying that was appointed to lead both Civils and Building in the East, so I was back to square one.
But I didn't have to get used to the new structure for very long. I left Henry Boot on 31st October 1984 to join Mike at Farrans. These seven and a half years had been possibly the most exciting of my career. I worked with some great people, and some not so great. But that goes for any industry. In the end I am so glad I was there at the start of a new venture for the company in the south, and to see it grow. It was just on the wane as I left. I was very lucky.
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