Colin Wynn Good afternoon, Robert, how are you today? Robert Bartup I'm fine. Thank you, Colin, Robert Bartup Welcome to Moving Matters. Colin Wynn Can you tell everyone a little about yourself and the length of time in this industry? Robert Bartup I can. Robert Bartup This is year 46, in this industry full time work, which some people would be able to work out how old I am from that. I started having done a Business Studies degree at Leicester in 1975. So, this is now year 46 I'm in now, and I've only ever worked for the illustrious GB Liners, so that's where I am. Colin Wynn How did you get started in the industry? Robert Bartup I am the progeny of another man who was in the removal industry, who's father was also in the removal industry. So my grandfather started the business in Brighton in 1923. So in three years time there's gonna be one hell of a party. And that's how I came to be in the job, I followed my dad and I followed my granddad. Colin Wynn So you are third generation removal man. Robert Bartup I am a third generation removal Director, Yes, not a man. Colin Wynn Ah Director Sorry, I stand corrected. Robert Bartup I'm management please, not a removal man. I failed to get into the local private school because I told the headmaster in my interview age 11 that my dad was removal man, I think he looked down his nose and thought I wasn't the sort of man for his school. Colin Wynn But isn't that such a shame for this industry? Robert Bartup What, that I didn't get into the private school? Colin Wynn No, both. Colin Wynn So can you tell everyone about your company? When it was formed, who formed the company, how many branches, trucks, staff, services that it offers? Robert Bartup Well, as I say, My grandfather started in Brighton 1923, my father, like all of his generation, fought in the Second World War. By the time he came out of the Second World War, my grandfather had died, he died in 1944 and my dad was sent to a place called Hereford by my grandfather's partners to run a one van business in Hereford, which they bought to get him out the way, he was age 26 and he was a nuisance I can tell. And they sent him up there, no money, wartime rationing still on and as soon as he got to Hereford in 1946, this week in fact, it started to snow. And he had to get through the winter of 1947, where for eight weeks, he couldn't get his only van and his only man out of the yard. So my father grew the business a bit, when he died in 1995, we'd got Hereford and Brighton and we acquired a business in London, we acquired businesses in Bristol and Cheltenham. And then we gradually grew other branches for all sorts of reasons in all sorts of places, to the point where today we have 11 branches, using the GB Liners brand, we have two standalone self stores, and the group also owns the Clark and Rose business with three branches in Aberdeen, Sterling and Biggleswade. And we also own through the same business, a Unique Van Bodies up in Warrington, which is everybody will know builds trucks for the removal industry. So that's the sort of spread we've got, between us I suppose we have about 100 vehicles these days, we've probably got if we take the whole group 250 to 300 people, something like that working for us, our bread and butter business is household Moving and Storage, we do very little office and commercial. As I've said, you know, storage is quite a big important part of our business, the self stores are quite a big important part of our business, we put self storage into half a dozen of the other branches as well, but we do have some standalone ones, so we run that alongside the moving business in some places. European business until the 31st of December is quite a big part of our business goodness knows what it'll be like from the first of January, I have no idea. And I think our sort of concentration is on doing the job right, and being the most expensive mover in town, rather than doing it wrong and being the cheapest mover in town. Colin Wynn I need to come back on one thing. Unique Van Bodies, I didn't know that. Robert Bartup Well there you are you see, you need to listen to these podcasts a bit more often really. Colin Wynn How did you get involved with Unique Van Bodies then? Robert Bartup Well, I think really, this was Terry Sinnott's baby, he had been in the industry forever and a day he fancied having a go on his own for various reasons. He was looking around for sort of financial backers, helpers, minders, investors, we decided we'd have a bit of fun with it and we have a bit of fun with it, it's been a roller coaster journey, like a lot of things in this business. But it's been an interesting diversion. And it's, I think it's preserved a skill that, you know, otherwise might have gone to waste. So yeah, we've enjoyed it, hasn't, you know, we weren't have made a fortune out of it, but we've enjoyed it and we like the product as well that's the other thing about it. So there we are. Colin Wynn Excellent. Colin Wynn What challenges have you had to overcome in the industry? Robert Bartup No money. Colin Wynn Hold on you just said you're the most expensive! Robert Bartup Yes, there you are. Robert Bartup Challenges. Well I just talked about my dad, right. My dad never had any money, all of his business life. So when I took over from him, I inherited a business that had no money and fortunately, over the 25 years that I've been running the business since he departed this earth, we've managed to get a bit of cash around us. And we've managed to buy a lot of freeholds for our premises. So I mean, we were a business that rented a lot of premises back in the 1990s. And we're now a business that owns a lot of premises. And, you know, we've overcome that, no cash, no money issue, but that's really the big thing that we've had to deal with, I suppose. I mean, all sorts of other challenges. I wouldn't say staff has been a challenge in itself, staff have always been quite wonderful in many ways, but they've been like everybody has black days, I'm sure. We've had the odd fire, try to destroy our business, along the way, you know, the odd disaster here and there that you know, you look back on and you think just scraped by that one. Colin Wynn How do you get over something like a fire? Robert Bartup You have a really good loss assessor work for you. I never knew such people existed before we had our fire. But when we had our fire in 1990, I was in Frankfurt at the time, so I wasn't the man with a match. Somebody said I thought it was supposed to be Thursday! And, so when I came back from Frankfurt, when my dad got to the office the next morning, there was a list of you know, there was about seven or eight loss assessors there, all pitching for the work, all wanted to be appointed, you know, to assess our loss and deal with the insurance companies for us, you know, so rather than rely on their loss adjuster tell you how much you're going to get. you employ a loss assessor to tell you how much you've lost and represent that to the insurance company. I have to say the company we appointed which has Thompson and Bryan did us proud, really, they got money for things that we would never have dreamt of asking for. But it was not easy. No it was came at a point where the industry you know, the whole of the UK economy was pretty depressed in that depression of the early 90s Mrs. Thatcher was not very popular. And trying to find money to rebuild a building at more money than, you know, than we had was not easy. In those days Lloyds Bank weren't our friends, they're our friends today, but they weren't then I can tell you that. Yeah, so no money is my is my issue that I've had to overcome and I think we've overcome it. But you know, you're always on a sort of a roller coaster and you know, just you've got money in the bank today. I've just been saying a lot of my people this week, you know what comes after a boom you know, so don't get too carried away with it. You know, there's a bust coming to worry here. 31st of March it'll all be boom I can remember. I remember 31st of August 1988 when Nigel Lawson removed mortgage interest relief at source and we had every van and every rental van in Hereford on hire and in the yard and full and so on. And on the fifth of September, I looked around and there wasn't a single job in the diary. So I've been from boom to bust in five days once before and I suspect we're heading for it again on the 31st of March unless dishy Rishi comes up with an extension of the stamp duty holiday. Colin Wynn And if you could change anything from the past, what would it be? Robert Bartup If I could change anything from the past? Well, I've often said that I always regret not working outside the family business for a period. I think that's a weakness that I have, because I have always been an employer, or on the employers side, I've never been an employee and sometimes it's difficult to put yourself in the shoes of an employee. So I think that's probably something I would like to change. And the only thing I'd like to change in my life is I would like to have spoken French more fluently than I do which is not very fluently at all and I'd like to have spoken French to a good standard, I think. I think that's one of my other regrets in life. But they're sort of personal regrets rather than business regrets if you know what I mean. Colin Wynn Having not worked outside of the business, would you have liked to work for somebody else in the removal business or just work for somebody else doing something completely different? Robert Bartup Yes, is the answer to both questions I think really. I would like to get some different experience from a different point of view. But I don't say I've never got that experience, but probably got the experience in a different way. And I would like to have done something different. I mean, at one stage, I did get quite a lot of offers when I was finishing my degree to go and be trained to be an accountant. I turned them all down in the end, blood became thicker than water, and I came home to work. But looking back, I wish I'd done that, probably, and I actually wished I hadn't done accountancy, I wish I'd done law. So I, but you know, when you're 22 you don't think of everything. Colin Wynn No, absolutely. And people when they go to university, generally learn one subject and come out and do something completely different and never use it. Robert Bartup Yeah, well, no, I did business studies. And I did the business studies courses in those days consisted of economics, accounting, law, and quite a lot of employment law and quite a lot contract law, so it was good business law that we did. We did some sort of, what they call, social studies we did. And we did computing, Colin, you'll be pleased to know and I can write in COBOL, right. Colin Wynn Oh I remember those days! Robert Bartup I can sort punched cards in a machine. Right. You know, we had a big computer suite, the whole of the first floor at Leicester was given over to the computer suite, all air conditioned and so on, huge you know, very different to today's computing power, of course, but we did that. Colin Wynn Punch cards and floppy disks eh? Robert Bartup Punch cards, yeah. punch cards. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it was. No, it was it was a very useful degree. I mean, I look back on that and I interview young people these days have done Business Studies degree and I'm surprised at how narrow their degree has been. I think I was very lucky to do a very wide degree and I've used a lot of it. So yeah, but yeah, I should have done other things. There we are. Colin Wynn What is your high point of being in the industry? Robert Bartup I think, well, if at the high point in the business, I've enjoyed some of the successes we've had some of the buildings that we built and opened and some of the trucks we've built, and some of the work we've done, and some of the jobs we've done, and so on. Some of the staff I've worked with have been really talented, dedicated people. So I've enjoyed, I've enjoyed all that, I've enjoyed some of the planning and development that goes with that. Some of the challenges that have gone with that. If I look at my career in the wider industry, I think that moving up project we did in the late 1990s, where we got the government funding for video training and workbooks and so on to try and improve manual skills was quite a quite a high point, I think, really. Colin Wynn Was that the one with the white truck? Robert Bartup That's the one with the white truck, Yeah. Colin Wynn I remember that. Robert Bartup So the OMO van, yep. So I, no I was impressed by that. And I was impressed by the people I worked with on that as well, a lot of the people, you know, one of the great joys of founder committee work is that, you know, lots of people have lots of very good ideas. And people work really, really quite hard on some of the committee's over the years as well. So I enjoyed that. I enjoyed my time as BAR president. I was very touched by my life membership of BAR that they gave me in Stratford, 2 years ago, 18 months 2 years ago, so no, I was. So I've had some some high points. I guess everybody's had low points, but those are the things that stuck in my mind anyway. Colin Wynn So as you said, you are a past president of the BAR. Did you enjoy your time in your presidential role? And how is it different than to the presidential role of today? Robert Bartup I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the the years before it, and the years after it as well. I didn't just do the presidency and then drop off the end of the table. I mean, that was 2002 that I did the presidency. And I'm still involved on the overseas group council today, I'm still involved in the advanced payment guarantee scheme today, so I maintain that interest. I'm still involved in the training course when we can get it to run we haven't managed to run the removal master class this year. But training has always been one of my interests in the industry. So I enjoyed that presidential role. I enjoyed the ability to make change or to, you know, push change through, I enjoyed the people again, I worked with john Luxford, Paul Fox, Annie Neave, people, you know, in my generation there, and some one or two other people before me, people like David Pearson and so on Phil Pertoldi, who helped me with Tony Richmond, there's another name as well, people who have helped me with what I was doing, guided me, pushed me in the right direction suggested this suggested that. Yeah, so I enjoyed that ability to make a difference of Rob Syers, of course, was integral to, to doing all of that. So I did enjoy it, it was, it was different, you know, you have to realise you're like the Prime Minister, you are the first amongst equals, you know, everybody has a view, you're not the dictator in that situation, like you own your own business. So it is a different, different set of challenges. But the ability to, you know, to do something for the industry, because we were just going through or just coming up to code a practice time, which Rob Syers and I worked on with a meeting with the Office of Fair Trading about contract conditions, all that sort of stuff was really interesting and really worthwhile, I think, and something I'm very glad I did. Robert Bartup How is the job different today? Well, the governance of BAR is different. I think I don't, I think it could and should be better than the way that we that we ran it in our sort of Cavalier style and moving from disaster to disaster. But I do think that one of the problems these days is that the board is supposed to be strategic, and therefore the strategy is supposed to be the board's. And I don't think the board do enough to promote their vision and their strategy. They leave it all the director general, that's perhaps an exaggeration, but I think it's the board's strategy and not the director, general strategy, the board are there to represent the members and come up with a strategy for the industry and get the director general to implement it. And I think it's the board's job to promote that strategy, to discuss it, to help them to get the members to help them formulate it right and carry the board, the members with them rather than hand it down as tablets of stone to the members. And I think that's one of the areas at the moment where we're not as good as we could be in the association. Colin Wynn Interesting. Colin Wynn So you mentioned then the APG scheme. What was your involvement in the APG scheme? Robert Bartup Well, my involvement has been quite interesting really. First of all, just as I was coming out the BAR presidency, the international moving company went bust. An international Moving Company, which was the old Loveday & Loveday business, the Bewley & Schepens business, the Heatons business, the Removal Company that had a number of names and so on, the T&S business up in Scotland, right. They went bust and of course, they were our neighbours in Cirencester. They were our neighbours in St. Helens and Manchester. And they were an attractive business for us to pick up even though you know, it was bust. So my first involvement was on the side of the fence where I am actually dealing with the customers whose goods are marooned all over the world shipped by a business I've just bought, lots of angry customers, and me trying to liaise with IMMI, which in those days was the prepayment guarantee scheme run by BAR, to try and get these customers goods moved to destination, and then to reclaim the costs that we incur the customer incurred through the IMMI system and I worked quite closely with Ted Philp, who was the IMMI director at that time along with Michael Gerson, to achieve that, and then when Ted came to retire from IMMI, I was asked if I would then go alongside Michael Gerson to the IMMI board in Guernsey and I probably spent the best part of 10 years I would think, going to IMMI board meetings in Guernsey and I was effectively the apprentice to Michael Gerson, and that's quite an achievement I think, because there aren't many sharper people than Michael Gerson, in the world of finance, I can tell you, well not in this removal industry anyway. So I learned a lot there about the way that IMMI manage the risk and how they manage the claims and so on. But over time, I think it became clear that it was a very expensive way of dealing with the risk. And because BAR was under pressure to find another way of dealing with the risk that it was effectively carrying on its balance sheet through the code of practice guarantee to customers. So I was instrumental in helping to setup the advance payment guarantee trust, and Ian Studd, bless his cotton socks suggested that I should be the chairman of it on two grounds. First of all, that I knew more about the issue than anybody else in the industry at this time. And secondly, if they made me the chairman the membership wouldn't think it was a stitch up because I'm known as a rebel, so I didn't know whether to take that as a compliment or as an insult. But I took it as a compliment in the end. So I became the chairman of the advanced payment guarantee trust, a job that I hold today. And we of course, have had some fairly big collapses since then, I've already worked through European Vanlines when I was IMMI, we worked through Chapman's, we worked through Wentworth when it was IMMI. And obviously since then we've had to work through Movecorp and Pearson's and Neaves. And there have been one or two others, but they haven't cost any money. Colin Wynn Some big names there, though, Robert. Robert Bartup Some big names and some big, big activities. Yes, you know, the sort of activities that 20 years ago, we wouldn't have seen, you know, lots of leads generated or bought over the web, sold over the web, you know, more of a production line, often not much resource, all subbed out or contracted. Almost a bedroom type broker, although both Movecorp and Pearson's did have some operation of their own as of course did Neaves, Neaves wasn't a bedroom broker at all it was just an ordinary sort of business. But yeah, that's a difficult, I think, difficult and interesting, I think. And you you read, you know, when you see the files, you can see the some of the reasons why some of these people didn't survive until the end. Colin Wynn What one thing would you change within the moving industry? Robert Bartup If I had a magic wand, I would make the industry proud of the service it provides and prouder of the price it charges for it. I think we have a great tendency to underestimate our own value, the skill, the effort, that our staff and we put into it, the risks we take. And I think we do ourselves a disservice by underpricing and underselling what we have to offer, which I think, by and large, is a pretty good service at a very stressful time for the public. Colin Wynn That answer's come up several times now in my podcast, how can we go about resolving this? Robert Bartup How do we do it? I can only think it's education. It's all I can think it is. It's, you know, trying to mould attitudes. It's trying to promote success stories rather than disasters. You know, I mean, we've seen some people in this industry who've done really, really well out of it haven't we? Colin Wynn Absolutely. Robert Bartup But those stories have never been sort of presented on how it's been how it's been done. So it looks it looks like magic, but it's not magic. They've just got a formula, right, they've got good people, they've decided, you know, that's the sector they're gonna go after they've chosen their market carefully. They presented themselves well to that market. And they've succeeded. And I think everybody sometimes have their noses so close to the grindstone, they don't look up and see what others are doing and what the opportunities are, and what the possibilities are. So I can only think its education, we need to probably celebrate our successes a bit more and publicise our successes, and probably educate the industry a bit more in how to get it right. Rather than spend all our time trying to fit them into a straitjacket of compliance. Colin Wynn But how can we educate the customer? Educating the industry is one thing, what about educating the customer because at the end of the day, you could go over there and say all your services are gold plated, the customer still looks at that bloody bottom line. Robert Bartup The customer has no idea of a price of removal until they ask the price. If we told them it was £2,000, £2,500 and £3,000 they would think the price is around £2,500. If we tell them it's £1,000, £1,500 and £2,000 they think the price is around £1,500. They have no idea until we tell them the price. So it's about getting our expectations right. Before, before we go to the customer, we have to be proud of our price, we have to understand that what we're providing costs money done properly. We, I mean, we can hardly be proud of what we pay our staff, can we? Colin Wynn No, absolutely not. Robert Bartup I mean, we expect miracles from these guys, frankly. And how far above minimum wage are some of them? Not far are they? So, all right, maybe they are minimum wage type people, some of them and there are some of those about I know, but if people want good service, that generally means you're gonna have good people and good people, old story, pay peanuts, get monkeys. So I think, I do think so much in our in our own hands really, it's something that BAR has to lead on, I think really, rather than I say, just trying to straitjacket us all into compliance these days, but in fairness to Ian Studd and to some of the current board as well, they do, I think they do understand that issue. And I think Ian Studd's been proactive in looking at financial metrics for businesses and generally tightening up the financial criteria, and FIDI's the same, you know, to be fair to FIDI, FIDI's trying to move in that area as well. So that we don't have in the, what I call the established industry, really people whose balance sheets don't reflect the success that the business ought to be having. Colin Wynn Our guys are so skilled out there to pack those trucks. Robert Bartup They are. Colin Wynn They're just they're amazing. They are absolutely amazing. They deserve to be paid a lot more than what they currently are. Let's hope moving forward, we can, we can get them more money. Robert Bartup And they are told, you know, to come in at whatever hour, we need them in the morning, to get to the job, and we tell them, they can come back when they're finished. And we all know that the reason they don't finish sometimes is completely out of their control and our control. Colin Wynn Absolutely it's not a 9:00 to 5:30 job is it? Robert Bartup So, oh, and by the way, this job comes with a night out, go and sleep with that bloke, you know, you may not like him, but go sleep in the pod with him. You know, it's oh, and by the way, the job work runs into Saturday. Sorry. So we see, and we want great flexibility from the staff. But, I mean, maybe this is the modern world. I mean, you look at some of these other industries, you know, who seemed to pay fairly cheap people, want them to work seven days a week when it suits them, I don't know maybe is, but it doesn't fit right with me, I can tell you. Colin Wynn No, no, no, not at all. Robert Bartup No. Colin Wynn So what advice would you give to a young Robert, just starting out in the industry? Robert Bartup I would tell him or her, it could be a Roberta, I would tell him or her to find themselves a mentor, or a series of mentors, and there have been people in this industry who have been mentors to me, either knowingly or unknowingly. So find yourself people who can look up to who's in your business in the wider industry, whose knowledge and experience you can tap into. There's wisdom you can tap into. And never be afraid to ask questions. If you don't understand. Don't be afraid to ask because if you don't ask, you'll never know. So that would be my advice to any young person. Michael Gerson said to me once upon a time, you know what your problem is, don't you? And I said, No, he said, you ask too many questions. And I think I asked questions, because I wanted to know, so that would be my advice. Nobody will take it, but that's what I would tell them to do. Colin Wynn No, I think people will take that because it was interesting recording an episode with the young movers group and young Alexandra Lane said exactly that. Robert Bartup Right. Colin Wynn She has now learnt to ask questions, get past the fear factor, ask questions, because she wants to know everything. She knows she's not gonna be able to learn everything overnight. Robert Bartup No. Colin Wynn But the more questions you ask, the more you will get to know. Robert Bartup Yeah, yeah, true. Colin Wynn Where do you see yourself and the industry in the next five years? Is there anyone ready to step into your business shoes and take over the reins at GB Liners? Robert Bartup That's a leading question isn't it? I am immortal. Colin Wynn I've been told that! Robert Bartup I don't suppose they said that, immoral they said! Robert Bartup Well, I don't think in five years time, I shall want to be doing what I'm doing now, that's a fairly simple and straightforward answer. I work, I really do enjoy what I do, I've been very lucky in the jobs we, my, my job and my hobbies. So it's always kept my interest. And I don't suppose that'll change. Particularly, I should always probably want to be involved at some stage, whether I want to be involved in all the nitty gritty, day to day, stuff that comes along. I probably don't, I think they'll probably maybe I will want to nudge other people in the right direction and say, Well, have you thought of doing this? Or have you thought about doing that, but I don't think I'll want a full time executive role in in five years time, in fact I'm pretty sure I wont want that. Robert Bartup Is there anybody ready to step into the shoes? Well, of course, I am, Jeff, Jeff Watson said it to me in a slightly different context. He said, You know, a lot of what we do is not to do with running the moving business these days. And a lot of what I do is, you know, not to do with the day to day operation of the business. So, are there people who could look after the day to day operation of business? Yes, there are quite a number of them in the business who could do that. Are there people who can do things like dealing with the bank and dealing with solicitors and dealing with property issues, probably a bit more complicated to find those I suspect, and that probably the challenge for the next five years, or maybe less than five years to find people to take over those sort of roles, more than the operational type of issues really. Colin Wynn Where do you see the industry in five years? Do you see any changes to the industry at all? Robert Bartup I think the process of consolidation will go on, you know, you are seeing multi site businesses for various reasons. Sure, that will continue. But you're probably continue to see specialisation in the way that we have. I think you'll probably continue to see our customers being stolen and sold back to us by the lead generator, type people. I'm sure you're can, you know. So trying to find a way to make your own brand stand out, bit like the challenge that the insurance companies have had, you know, with GoCompare or whatever they called, you know, try and sell everybody's, and it's all driven down on price, I'm sure that'll be a challenge, we need to think about how we're going to deal with it. You know, somebody said in the Self Storage business, nothing much changes very quickly in the Self Storage business, in terms of customers moving in and out was what they meant, you know, I think we seen as in that in the recession, or the downturn for COVID removal income dropped to zero storage income didn't change. And I think that's clearly an advantage that the storage side of the business has, it doesn't change overnight, like the moving side income stream changes. But, you know, the pace of change is exponential isn't it, just watching Arcadia today sort of die, you know, it's customer base has gone online and just want it now and they want it different and they want it cheap, and I suspect we won't be immune from that type of process I'm afraid, and I'm conscious that I might be an analogue man in the digital age so maybe I need to move off the stage pretty fast and leave ir for some other people to make a mess of it. Colin Wynn What do you do outside of the industry to switch off then Robert? Robert Bartup I don't, I don't switch off. Colin Wynn I was going to say I can't see you ever switching off. Robert Bartup I do enjoy my my Hereford Football Club when I can get to watch them, I have a season ticket there. Hopefully a week on Saturday, I'll be able to go to a home game because I have a season ticket, I'll be one that favoured 1,400 that will be allowed into the Edgar Street mega stadium. Colin Wynn I take it you sponsor down there? Robert Bartup We got a board, doesn't cost a lot of money. We sponsor the local Cricket League as well, because that's another interest of quite a lot of the staff. A lot of staff are quite interested in cricket. And these days, I do like my holidays too, which are very much holidays being spells between periods of work. So when I go on holiday, that means no email from my point of view, I despair of those people who go on holiday and spend all their time on their email, so I go on holiday, and I've been lucky enough in the last few years to go some really interesting places. So we went to Cuba, we went to Jordan, we went back to South Africa, it's our third trip to South Africa in the early part of this year before COVID. And going to those sort of more interesting places in the world is what I want do a bit more of, but I also like the south of France, and I want to spend a bit more time there as well. All I need to do that is to have some money, I'm waiting for the cartel money from DAF and MAN to drop into my lap and then I can afford a second home abroad, that's what I need. Colin Wynn Is that gonna happen? Robert Bartup You're guess is as good as mine isn't it you know, I've signed the forms and I've joined up on the basis of you know, nothing ventured, nothing gained, So. Colin Wynn Exactly, what do you have to lose? Robert Bartup Well, I mean, if the figures are to be believed, we think we're in for three quarters of a million, so that'll be worth having. Colin Wynn Absolutely. Robert Bartup But, it's a bit of a rainbow that we're chasing, so we'll see. Colin Wynn Well, fingers crossed that comes off. Robert Bartup Yeah. Colin Wynn And finally, I like to end my podcasts with a funny moving story. Do you have one or more to tell? Robert Bartup I don't know if it's funny. But I think it's, I'm a very fair minded and generous sort of guy, as everybody knows. Never opinionated, never, just Colin Wynn Hardly, hardly ever. Robert Bartup But occasionally, we fall out with a customer who we think is trying to take advantage of us. Over my years in this industry, I have made a few visits to court as a result of disputes with customers. And this is probably 20 years ago now. We move to chap to, by Loch Ness, it came into store for 10 days, went out of store to Loch Ness, and in fairness it wasn't the best job we'd ever done. And there was some damage, I'm not, you know, no dispute about that. And we put young Stuart Ash on a plane to Glasgow, this was just after the Wright brothers invented flying, and he drove in a rental car up to Loch Ness, by appointment, to see the damage, and to suggest how we might deal with it. And the customer refused to let him in the door and turned him around and sent him away. And then proceeded to claim of us and we said, sorry mate, not until we've sort of seen it, and no, no, our obligation is to repair all the sort of things normally we say to customers, and he in the end went off and claimed off his household insurance, which of course was new for old, they didn't ask too many questions and they paid him out £19,000 for his claim. And then they of course, they subrogated against us. And we told them to go forth and multiply as you do to subrogation claims, and I think we settled it for like £1,000 in the end, and off they went. And we then got a claim in the county court from him for a legal principle, which I hadn't come across before, but I've come across since, called total failure of consideration. And the allegation was that the £5,000 that he paid us for the move, he got no consideration for it, he got no value from it, it was so bad that he was entitled all his money back. And so I said well, sorry, mate you know, this isn't on. So we all pitched up at Hereford County Court one Thursday or Friday afternoon. On his side was a barrister, there was a solicitor, the solicitors Clark, him and his wife who driven down from Scotland a night in each direction, night in a hotel in Hereford, and then a day and a bit back up there as well. And on my side, there's me and three removal men, right, who delivered the stuff up in Scotland and the estimator in Cheltenham who'd seen it, seen the job originally and was able to give witnesses to what the customer and he had agreed. So to cut a very long story short, the judge listened to it all and said yes, okay, you didn't get you know, the world's greatest job, I award you £500 thank you very much for coming, all of you. And I said Thank you, very much Sir, that's fine. Because of course he wanted £5,000. And as we passed the room where the other party was, we heard raised voices, the barrister being abused by the client, the solicitor being abused by the client, the solicitors clark being abused by the clerk, because £500 didn't really pay his expenses, and certainly didn't go any further coming down from Scotland, and certainly didn't go anywhere towards his legal cost whatsoever. I said, thank you very much Cheerio. Because when the claim had come in, I'd gone to our insurers, and they'd said, give him the £5,000, and I said, not on your life, and they said, well, there's the £5,000, you're on your own. And so I was now £4,500 up. Colin Wynn Nice one, a happy ending. Robert Bartup And I do have another one for you, Colin, if you want, these court appearances have been memorable, and I never really lost in court. Robert Bartup So we moved a chap, and he worked for BP and our customer effectively was BP. And we dropped his refectory dining table, 12 foot long, great big solid piece of oak, and we took a great chunk, we took a chunk at the side of it, and we had it repaired and took it back to him, and he refused it. Meanwhile, BP hadn't paid my bill for £3,000, when I approached them about it they said, we've given him the £3,000 if you want the money, go and get it off him. So I said, I want £3,000, and he said, go away I want a new dining table, and I said, sorry Sir it doesn't work like that, I've repaired it, that's it. And he said, well see you in court then. So we did. So we trailed to Brentford County Court one day me and my polisher. Me suing for £3,000 a counterclaim from the customer for a new dining table for £3,600. And I said to the judge, I'm so sorry, Sir, we're here this morning, I said, I did offer the customer binding arbitration, but he turned it down. Oh, did you, he said and I thought, ooh that's one for me. And so I said, we've got here some quotes for putting the dining table right. And the judge said, oh yes, okay, can I see those and these have been obtained by the customer. The one said to repair dining table £150, and the other one said to repair dining table £600 and the judge said to the customer, well whats the difference between these two quotes, and the customer said, one's for a good job and one's for a bad job. And the judge said, yeah but they don't say that they say to repair dining table, and so he said, its £150, I award you £150 and I award Mr. Bartup £3,000, and I say thank you very much, Sir. And I said, of course, I did claim interest on the summons as well at the 8% statutory rate, and I said been 18 months now, so I said, could I have 12% on it? And he said, yes, yes, that's fine, so that's another £600 for you Mr. Bartup. No, £360, 12% of £3,000. And I said, well of course, I've had to come from Hereford today for this court hearing here, and I said, can I have my travelling expenses Sir, please, and he said, well, he said, couldn't you get a local manager to represent you? And I said, I think when we're in court, I said, it's only right that the Director represents the company, and he said, yes, yes, of course. Yes, that's fine. So he gave me my travel expenses. And I said, of course, I've got my polisher here, as well who's given up a day's work, I wonder if he could be compensated for that as well. And I came out with £3,600 from the court which was another good day I thought. Colin Wynn If anybody needs to go to court, give Robert Bartup a ring, he'll represent you. Robert Bartup I'm sure I'll come unstuck one day but so far, so good, anyway, so there we are. Colin Wynn Robert, many, many thanks for giving up your time this afternoon to record Moving Matters with me, I truly appreciate it, thank you very much. Robert Bartup Okay, thank you Colin, good luck. Colin Wynn Thank you Robert. Transcribed by https://otter.ai