Colin Wynn Anthony, Karen, Good afternoon, how are you? Welcome to Moving Matters Episode 3! Karen Groves Hi, Colin. Anthony Groves Good afternoon Colin, how are you? Colin Wynn I'm very well thank you very well. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your length of time in this industry? Anthony Groves Well, I'm Anthony Groves. Karen Groves I'm Karen Groves. Anthony Groves And we are both partners of DC Groves & Son, I suppose you could call it a second generation removals and storage business, although it's barely second generation. And I'll explain my father was 53 when he started the removal business. Sadly, 11 years later passed away so I took the reins over when I was 24. So quite young really didn't get much of a chance to get my teeth into it. But I was 13 when I started and obviously worked during the summer holidays and then joined him as soon as I left school when I was just about to become 16. Karen has been with me pretty much all the way along. But after my mother passed away, you took a very active role, so about 1993 so we've been running it together for some twenty seven years or whatever, and lots of ups and downs and we now run it with our business partner, Ian. Colin Wynn So DC Groves & Son is named after your father? Anthony Groves Yes. Yes, Donald Clarence. Colin Wynn So can you tell our listeners about the company and the services it offers? Anthony Groves Yeah, I mean, it's evolved like a lot of companies over its years trading, it has evolved. We started out doing domestic removals and storage starting out in a very small way. My father was an impulsive person thought he might like to try his hand at removals went and bought removal lorry but didn't have an HGV licence. So he then had to go and try and pass his test which he did. And I suppose his whole ethos really, which is what I've tried to carry on is providing a very professional service to our clients. One that where people would wholeheartedly recommend you to all their friends. And so right from then, to this day, that is still what we're doing, although there's been some changes along the way. We've done some corporate work, some contract delivery work, but when all said and done anything now that doesn't make us a profit we're not interested in I know that might seem really strange saying that. There's probably so many companies out there that do chase the work, because they all they got to do is keep the wheels turning because it's the amount money that they perhaps owe, you know, with new vehicles and the size that they are, they just have to keep chasing it. Whereas we've got probably to a stage where we don't quite so much. We've been there. Don't get me wrong, we have been in that position where we've had to chase it. And there's that old saying isn't there it's, you know, about turnover and profit, vanity and sanity. And I'd much prefer the sanity part. So yeah, domestic removals and storage is what we do, we do a little bit of European work, but we subcontract that out to some trusted colleagues, BAR colleagues, bit of archive storage our storage warehouses is quite sizable, 18,000 square feet, holding 800 containers, and we've got a very good trade customer with us as well. And that really is is what we're doing today, and we, as I say, the ethos is not changed. It's providing a quality service for a quality price. Colin Wynn You touched on size of company earlier, you say 800 containers, how many trucks do and what's your crew size? Anthony Groves It probably for a lot of people listening it probably wouldn't add up really for the amount of containers but we're running seven vehicles ranging from 18 tonner's down to panel van, and we have six full time members of staff. So sort of quite small, really. Colin Wynn Hence why you can pick and choose the jobs that you want and only take the profitable ones? Anthony Groves Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I wouldn't like to say that we would, you know, if when jobs are booked, we take the jobs it's not a case of, you know, we look at two jobs alongside and say this is more profitable so we take that we very rarely get that sort of chance, but we do know that the jobs that we do quote are profitable because of the way that Ian structures the quotes. And, you know, the way he sells our company to potential clients that we know if we get a job it is going to be barring a catastrophe on the move, it's going to be profitable. Colin Wynn So, you took over when you were 24 years old, have you had any challenges that you've had to overcome? Anthony Groves Well, I'll tell you that. I'll tell you right from the beginning when I took over the biggest challenge was and i think i think before I do, it's probably fair to say that without this lovely lady to my right, Karen, if it wasn't for her, I think that things would be very different. She's managed to keep both me and Ian on the straight and narrow mainly because she holds the purse strings to the company she is the lady in charge of the finances, but You know, I joke, but that is absolutely true. And I think probably if we'd have listened to her a little bit more over the years, we might be even in a better position. But the biggest challenge right from when I took over, and probably not a lot of people would know, this, certainly in the Kent area they do, but not nationally, is that my father actually passed away on a removal. I was 24, as I've said, and we were out on a move for a fairly regular client, me and another chap and my father, and in sort of the in manoeuvring the vehicle into the driveway he had a massive heart attack, and pretty much passed away there and then, so that's the first challenge. How do I get over that? How do I keep the business running with my mother? And Karen? You know, what do you do in that sort of situation, shocks the first thing, but you've got a book of removals that you've got to try and carry on doing So that's what I tried to do. So we sort of restructured the company Karen Groves And not forgetting, that I was expecting our first daughter. Anthony Groves Yep. Karen was expecting our first child, and I didn't have an operator's licence. So the first thing to do was if I was going to carry the business on, which was always the intention, because that's why pretty much why my father started in the first place at a late age was how do I get an O'licence? So I spoke to the traffic Commissioner or their office, and they said, Well, we do sympathise with you, but you can't get it on grandfather rights. So you're going to have to go and take your CPC, and we will give you six months in which to do that. In the meantime, you can carry on trading, but of course, if you don't pass your CPC, after that six months, you will either have to cease the business or employ a transport manager so with Karen heavily pregnant, and actually in hospital at the time, when my course and exam were being run, I managed somehow Don't ask me how it's always been an absolute fluke, perhaps I don't know that I passed the CPC, and with a pass rate in them days of just over sort of 90% you have to get as i say God knows how I did it, but I did it. I went to the hospital in the mornings, then, you know, early, went up to do my CPC classes for the four or five days, and then come back to Karen in the hospital, make sure everything's right, and then go home to my mother, that that happened for five days, and then had to take the exam on the sixth. So that's the first challenge. I managed to pass it and we managed to carry on the business. We had to restructure it. Because I think I said earlier that my father was compulsive. He was a compulsive buyer if he saw something he liked it and so So therefore I had to look at the finances. We managed to get a bit of a loan from a family member, which again, if it wasn't for my auntie, we probably again would have had a very different outcome. She managed to lend us some money, restructure sell some vehicles, etc and carry on. So there was challenges right from the start. I'm glad to say we got through that. So then, probably without really much of a period of me being able to grieve. I just went as most removal company owners do, head just absolutely went head first into everything, hundred mile an hour. You know, doing removals during the day quotes of an evening working them out at the home office when I got back, and that carried on Karen for probably getting close for about 18 months. And then I was hit with what I think at the time was Scarlet Fever, am I right, something like that, after my mother had passed away as well, so there was another challenge. 18 months later, I'd lost both of them. And basically, I was suffering from exhaustion. I've just done too much and had to been advised to slow down, which of course, probably didn't, actually. And once my mother passed away, we decided to really in the beginning on accountants and lawyers to bring Karen into the business because I was a sole trader, apparently earning too much on the books, I certainly wasn't earning it apparently, for tax purposes I was, and to bring Karen into the business to reduce the tax liability and that's how Karen came in really, and then she started doing the secretarial work taking the inquiries and all that kind of thing with your mum Karen, looking after the children at the time. And that was all from the office at home Colin. So lots of challenges over 37 years that I've been doing it, lots and lots of challenges, but that was the major one to try and get over. Get over that, and to keep the business running. Colin Wynn Which you've done successfully, ever since. Anthony Groves Yeah, I mean, you know, there's lots of, there's been lots of ups and downs along the way, you know, various sort of various recessions that we've hit, and, you know, having to try and scale things back and rebuild and do all of that. But yeah, we are still here today. Of course, we were just coming through something unprecedented as well another unforeseen sort of circumstance, like a sort of recession that we're all removal companies going through and we're all trying to work out the best way to get through it. Colin Wynn And how has the pandemic affected your business? Anthony Groves Well, I think the biggest challenge is all the all the sort of guidance to try and implement within the company. But we've done that. And it's trying also to give the guidance to the customers, because they, some of them are fairly blase about it, about you know, you could wear a mask if you want to this kind of thing. So, that's been quite a big challenge with the pandemic. workwise not too bad, to be honest. Could be a lot worse. I think the government have done their absolute very best and i think that you know, although we could all criticise and we all probably do criticise and some of the things that they've done and are doing, the furlough scheme, for example, God, half the removal companies in the country probably wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for that and they certainly couldn't have packed up for two months, and and all the other help that they've given has been a great benefit. As I say, work wise, okay, we hit a bit of a lull during July, we haven't had a very good July Colin, if I'm absolutely honest. And I always like to be really honest with these things, and when I'm chatting with people, BAR meetings or wherever I am, we've had a terrible July. We are we are, you know, literally sort of about £50k down on last year. But that was bound to happen. bound to hit a lull bound to hit that lull because there wasn't any house viewings and sales going through in that sort of 8 to 10 weeks. So we knew that was coming. But gladly we seem to be out of it and August looks much, much better. Colin Wynn How have you found it Karen? Karen Groves Yeah, very much like Anthony says, I mean, from when we got back within a short time the quotes Yeah, they seem to be coming in, and we have the leaflets with all the labels going out. So it seemed really busy, but it's taken it's time to sort of work its way down to now, the work actually coming in. I've been quite busy actually. And we've been very lucky our customers carried on paying our storage customers that is carried on paying right the way through, we had no problems. And in fact, even some of the ones that had over higher balance on their accounts and things we got it in. So we were very, very lucky and like Anthony said with the furlough. It's kept us going. So yeah, I've been really busy. Actually. It's surprising. We were still coming down a couple of hours every day and just keeping on top of it. But it's nice to be a little bit back to normal, isn't it? Anthony Groves Yeah, yeah. August looks like August looks like he should be where a normal would be. Although having said that, because of our our sort of policy that we put in place. Not not bringing in any part time staff, sort of regular agencies that we use, we have a very good sort of network of a very good agency who supply a lot of removal companies in Kent, and trusted trade sort of partners that will supply us with porters and drivers. For when the work picks up, we've not used to date since the 18th of May, we've not used any outside staff. And really, that was just something we put in place to protect our workforce. Now, that means that we're probably two thirds, sort of a third down, if not a half, where we're only taking on two to three jobs a day instead of four and five, so it has affected things. Of course, if you're not taking on the work, you're not generating a cost. So it's not you know, it's not it's not all bad. As I say it was really done to protect our staff. Having said that, it looks like work is coming in for August and it looks like as long as our trade partners sort of implement the guidance that we're doing with our staff, then we would, as of sort of mid August probably be happy to have some of them back. But but that will be on the proviso that those those staff are regular they sort of they don't, because agency, probably agencies are or other removal companies are probably notorious for sort of saying to you well, you haven't got that same chap tomorrow that you had today because he's doing something else. What I want is if I've got a member of staff, one extra or two extra in for five days during that week. I want the same two in so that they don't cross over staff and whatever and so forth so I just still try and keep the risk down as much as possible. Colin Wynn If you could change anything from your past, what would it be? Anthony Groves From my past, from actually how we've done things? Colin Wynn Yeah, from a DC Groves point of view. Anthony Groves Okay, so think me and Karen have both agreed on this one. In 2008, we decided that we would only because we was approached and I suppose that tells everything really we were approached by a very good friend of ours, Andrew, who owned a removal company in Lydd called Turks, Turks of Lydd in Kent. And he was looking to sell and my first thing I want to point out is and I've learnt the lesson is don't ever buy a removal company or anything like that from a friend because it doesn't work. So we After going through all the due duediligence that you will do, we decided to buy it and invested quite a lot of money into the company. That was in March 2008. So September 2008, saw the biggest collapse of worldwide banks. So we bought the company in the March and in September the market just went it just went and the kind of clientele that Turks had was not what Groves had. And the storage started coming out, the removals dried up. And the problem we had, was that as a say buying something from a friend? Well, if we'd had done things, actually how Karen wanted to do them And let's not forget that our business is a partnership. So there's a voting system. It's quite straightforward. It's 2 to 1 either way and me and Ian wanted to go for it. So we decided to purchase it along with the storage, the five removal trucks and the brought over the eight members of staff. What Karen didn't want to do was to employ the staff or to bring the trucks over she wanted to let Groves staff do that and if we needed any other staff to then employ them as we wanted them and also to obviously carry out the removals with the Groves vehicles. And again, if we needed any extras, sort of look to purchase them. But we didn't and in September 2008 things started going downhill a little bit. And we came to the decision in February of 2009 that we had to after less than a year put that company into liquidation with huge debts to the three Partners, which To this day, we do carry those debts on the mortgages of our houses, because that was the only way that we could sort of borrow the money long term. So if I could change anything from the DC Groves & son past it was that we hadn't purchased that company because along with some bad advice from a very disreputable what would you call them, liquidator that we were recommended to who actually I might want to add was at the centre of the Portsmouth football scandal when it happened, if, you know, we had some dodgy advice, we were told that we could probably liquidate the company and sort of buy it back for what would amount to their fees which seemed dodgy at the time. We were advised against a pre pack liquidation which would have meant we could shut the company down one day open it up the next probably not morally right, but you can do it. And lots of companies do it, a lot of companies, well known companies in the past have done it. So if we'd have been, you know, if we, and I think a lot of it Colin comes down from the fact that I'm a second generation removal man Ian's a removal man. Karen was brought into it. We are now but we were not businessmen. And to run a successful removal company these days, you have to be a good businessman. Look at your figures, see where your perhaps going wrong. We didn't do that back then. And by my own admission, we you know, we really shouldn't have gone down that route. Because we would probably just setting ourselves up for a fail even if that hadn't. That crash hadn't have happened. We should have been a lot more business savvy about it. But as I say we didn't get the best advice from accountants and liquidators and of course you know, the debt is still being repaid with actually a you know, well known local company having now taken that over because they once you liquidate a company and you have to publicise that liquidation and the assets are for sale. all and sundry can see, because it has to be published. So it got quite a lot of attention because there was a removal business and 500 container business to sell. So yeah, if I could change anything Colin it would be that. Colin Wynn Did you manage to come out of that at all with the storage or did you have to sell the storage and the trucks and everything? Karen Groves The whole lot. Anthony Groves Yeah, the whole lot when apart from 100 containers that we managed to convince the liquidator to hold over because we Had some of the ex Turks clients that didn't want to go with that company that bought it and wanted to stay with us. We had negotiated to buy some of the containers about 100 of them to boost the DC Groves & Son storage capacity. So no we pretty much apart from that lost everything. Colin Wynn What is your high points of being in this industry? Anthony Groves As I said earlier, she is the one that held me together in all over these years, I suppose high point is quite simply being more involved in BAR. Serving as I've served as chairman of the Kent Area. I'm now the National Councillor for Kent, which I immensely enjoy meeting the other national councillors, some really influential people on that Council. And, you know, I sort of soak up everything that they say, because they have vast experience in building some pretty large companies. QSS, I was very honoured to be voted in, what is it now, four years ago, I think four or five years ago for first stint as director of QSS, and again, working more closely with QSS and BAR, you know, getting to know people like Chris Weymouth and Ian Studd, Paul Swindon, the, you know, the ex General Secretary of BAR who was absolutely outstanding guy and great to chat to So pretty much all meeting all of those people at conferences as well chatting to just people that have got immense knowledge like you know people like Robert Bartup of GB Liners just the I have complete admiration for somebody like him building that business up and keeping such a tight hold on it as he does. And other people Paul Fox, Tony Ticknor that sort of people are really really really enjoy talking to those people. And so for me that pretty much is is my high point. It's been more involved in things BAR and QSS absolutely love it. Karen Groves As far as my high point is the fact that after all these years, how much me and Anthony have learned and now with Ian and we're still going and we are probably good business people now. And just that we are still here. Anthony Groves Yeah, I suppose that ultimately is a high point because you are still in business after all these years. Yeah. And I think for you also Karen the conferences are, it's something years ago my father didn't believe in BAR. And I think at the time he was probably right saying it was an old boys club. But I gave it a few years and then looked into after he passed away and then looked into it and joined in 98. And I wouldn't go back. Getting to know the people at conference and chatting to them. I mean, one of your previous your first guest on on the podcast, Gary, or as he likes to be called Bert, yeah, great chatting to him and his wife, to Ian Studd, you know, to those sort of people Mark Chudley you know all of those people and you as well Colin when you're at the conferences great to have a chat with you and have a beer so all of those things really. Yeah, just like that is, you know is our sort of real high point it's something me and Karen enjoy the networking part, getting to know people. Ian on the other hand who I haven't really mentioned that much. He's our sort of partner that's in charge of sales and marketing. So he sees all our clients, Ian doesn't. He goes to area meetings, but Ian is not one for getting involved in BAR he supports it. He promotes it. He loves everything about it. But as far as he doesn't want to get involved in the sort of the area chairman's or Secretary positions. QSS he's happy for me to do all of that but he he likes to stay in the background. Colin Wynn So QSS, you've mentioned it a couple of times Quality Service Standards. Could you tell our listeners what QSS is about and what your role involves? Anthony Groves Okay, so QSS, is a company that install if you want them to and audit quality standards, and they have a range of standards from, ISO's to BSEN's and we currently hold 2 BSEN standards, one for removals, one for storage. Obviously, there's other companies out there that audit but QSS are one of the leading auditors and they are obviously they're UKAS registered as well. So they are audited themselves very strictly and rightly so. And that has a board of directors, which I'm one of. I think currently we've got six I think, I think we're flushed, I think with directors at the moment because last, I think we had a vote or last last year or this year and we had two members come on to the board. And basically we oversee the running of QSS, which is headed up by David Woodhouse. He's the general manager. And he looks after the day to day running of QSS at Watford. Alongside Ian Studd but QSS, although part of BAR has to be seen to be completely separate from BAR. Therefore, it has a impartiality committee that oversee everything to make sure that we're separate. And Bob Tree one of the impartiality committee actually sits on the QSS board as a guest to make sure that that happens. If anybody knows Bob. He will know that He takes his work very seriously. And he does make sure that happens. So it is completely separate. I'm a great believer in standards. And QSS does some great work. It doesn't only focus on BAR members, it has non BAR members with standards and it has non removal companies having standards as well. Because, you know, a lot of companies want health and safety standards or ISO's, that kind of thing. So really the business of the board is to try with David is to expand where our work comes from. Yes, from BAR companies, and we do promote it at conferences, and at the Removers and Storers Show, but also to promote QSS outside of removal companies and BAR to get lots of different companies so we can make more money because it's non profit making. And so it all goes back into QSS. Colin Wynn What one thing would you change in the moving industry as a whole? Not for just DC Groves, as a whole? Karen Groves Solicitors? Anthony Groves Oh what you shoot them? no no we better not say that. Yeah, you might we might feel like that sometimes. Karen Groves Just the way it's it's done a bit more like Scotland would be good where people can't just pull out. With the solicitors with this virus that was a hard thing as well wasn't it. Anthony Groves It was it was a hard thing because the solicitors were still telling their clients they could move when most removal companies were closed. So they are solicitors are generally the bane of any removal company's life. To be fair, that is one thing. I think I would change I agree with you. I think the other thing I would change is regulation Colin. I think there needs to be tighter regulation in the removal industry at the moment we choose as an industry to be self regulated, either through being a member of BAR or any other trade association, having standards. But I would like to see regulation it should be recognised as a professional industry, like an electrician or a gas fitter, who are Corgi registered, you know, it should be regulated more. I think that the so called three and a half tonne brigade, although have their place I think they should be VAT registered and that they should have CPCs as well. Proper, you know, tacho you know, Digi cards in them so that their journeys can be registered and I think they should be subject to the same rules. And one of the reasons I say that is because right from the very start when my father started He bought a lorry, he got a CPC, VAT registered, he done everything in the right way. And I think if you are running any business like this, that's what you should do. So that's what I would change. Colin Wynn I just want to touch on one thing. You have a very nice charitable option on your removal acceptance forms. Could you elaborate on this for our listeners, because I think it's fantastic? Anthony Groves Okay. Personally, I'm not going to take all the credit. I'm actually going to say that the idea and we thought it was a fantastic idea, like you do came from Chris Smallwood, who owns Anchor Removals in Manchester. And it was a conference in London, where he handed over a cheque to the RBA for doing exactly the same thing. So what we do is we send out our quotations. And on the acceptance form. It has three boxes where our customers need to tick the chosen charity. And currently those charities are the RBA, which were great supporters of having incidentally bid and won one of their shiny removal trucks for vast sum, the Hospice in the Weald, which is a local hospice giving cancer patients end of life care. And that is in their hospices and at the patient's homes. And also a charity that were heavily involved with me and Karen, which is the Tenterden Lions Club, and Lions Clubs are throughout the world, and are the biggest service organisation in the world. And we belong to that now for a couple of years. So the clients tick one of those boxes of who they wish to support. And for every tick we get, we give two pounds out of our money, not the client's, our money to that charity. And then once a year, we tott that all up because we put it on all on the spreadsheet. And we then hand that money over to the RBA, which we do that our January AGM of the Kent area to Mr. Paul Bullock. We also hand over a cheque to the Hospice in the Weald, and we also hand over cheque to the Lions Club. So those three things are actually marketed as well. So, the RBA cheque usually gets mentioned in the R&S as our annual charity support. And the Hospice in the Weald get mentioned in a local paper. Usually I go and do a cheque hand over the Hospice of Pembrey and Kent you know, usual theme, standing there with a cheque shaking hands or now bumping elbows and we actually get Good promotion out of that Colin, we actually promote that in the local paper. We get a lot of people like what we do with that, to be honest and we get jobs through that. So it's a great it's a great thing. And as I say, I don't take credit for thinking of the idea because I didn't, but it was such a wonderful idea that we decided to do it here. Colin Wynn A great way of free publicity locally, in R&S magazine, for example, just a great great way. Great, well done for doing it, and well done to Chris for doing it in the beginning. Anthony Groves Absolutely it is. It is wonderful, and although we only help in a small way, to those charities, every little helps, doesn't it at the end of the day. Colin Wynn Absolutely - What advice would you give to a young Anthony and a young Karen, just starting out in the industry? Karen Groves Go somewhere else. Anthony Groves Do something else, no. No What what I would say, stay small and profitable. And if not, don't run before you can walk. Build a trusted team around you. Staff that you can trust and you don't get that trust by shouting and bawling and every time something goes wrong, so really build a good team around you. Network. You know, join the BAR Karen Groves Learn as much as you can. Anthony Groves Yeah, learn what you can soak up that knowledge if you're going to a conference. Networking. Yeah, absolutely. is absolutely invaluable. I can tell you now that if I had that opportunity, again, you know, what we were missing over the years not going to conferences really, and just trying to really get involved in the BAR a little bit more. We Probably the lost so many years of that, but that's what I would say to anybody new starting up. Do that. Because you know that that is that will be invaluable to you. Colin Wynn Networking seems to be a very popular bit of advice. Anthony Groves Yeah, obviously Colin there's this stigma isn't there networking is all about a glorified whatever, and having a beer, which is part of it but then the things that you can learn from from talking to people, it really is invaluable. Colin Wynn Absolutely - So where do you see yourselves in five years? Anthony Groves Ohhhh, well, I'll be honest with you in five years, I don't really see ourselves anywhere any different to where we are now. running our company as we are, not getting any bigger. carring out profitable moves and storage and really Just trying to look at the next 5 to 10 years as the time when we need to make sure the business is in as good a shape as possible. And I say that because Ian is seven years older than me. And the way that we've worked everything is that if one of the three partners wishes to retire, and God willing, and, you know, unless there's any other unforeseen circumstances, and Ian being seven years older, he will probably and it's been spoke about want to probably retire first. And so, he has already said to me and Karen, as a I say bar, anything happening he would give it 10 years, which will take him to 70. And then I think he would turn around to both of us and say, I think I've had enough now. let's see You know, we've got nobody to hand it over to any of us. Our two daughters are both school teachers, one teaching year six at primary and one teaching English and drama at secondary. I think, you know, we'd look to to try and see if all our efforts over the past sort of 40 odd years would have been all worth it. And so we would probably all look to sort of Ian retire perhaps Karen retire and me, probably semi retire at that age, I probably wouldn't quite be old enough to fully retire. But I do have a bit of a plan Colin after that. Colin Wynn Oh we are all ears. You must tell our listeners, you can't leave us hanging. It's not you know, it's not like Ozark series three with Episode Four and we now have to wait for Episode Five. Come on Anthony! Anthony Groves Yeah. Well, I think you know, and I've been thinking about this over the last year or so. I'm heavily involved with QSS I think you know, if I was to come out of our own business, that I would quite like to have a go at auditing for QSS, I think standards, I love standards, I think that I would be a nightmare on an audit. But no, I think I'd enjoy. I think that I would also be somebody that would be if I was to, you know, audit standards is to help companies to achieve perhaphs a standard, to give them help and advice like people have done to us. I mean, for example, we mentioned Chris Waymouth, he installed our standard back in 2006. I mean, what a brilliant guy to have. And then George Sutherland who, who then came and audited our systems for a number of years as our regular auditor, you know, I'd like to do something like that Colin. Colin Wynn I'll have a word with David for you. Anthony Groves By the way, if he does listen to this, it'll be the first he's heard of it. Colin Wynn So what do you two like to do outside of the industry? This is my last question by the way, before we get to your funny story, and I hope you've got one as well, Karen. Anthony Groves You'll be lucky. Karen's funny story, would probably be just working with me I would have thought. So, I enjoy fishing and take myself off usually for the weekend. I'm a member of a local syndicate lake, and I like to go off there and just chill. You know, after a hard week. I like a bit of gardening. And we both like, as I've just said, enjoy sort of working alongside the Lions Club and helping to raise money locally within our area for local people. That's what we do it for. Although that's not technically relaxing, because Karen, the Lions Club is hard work at times, you know, what we let ourselves in for. And I happen to be the current president of the lions and Karen is the current secretary of the Lions. So when we get any free time Colin both of us, we're doing a bit of that, really. Although things on that side have slightly stuttered for the last sort of four months. We can't really meet up we can't raise any money because of the COVID situation. That's how I like to relax. Karen Groves Other than that I spend time with our children. Anthony Groves We go on the odd cruise as well for a holiday. So we we enjoy that. Just enjoy our own company. Because as you can imagine, you know, working together for as many years as we have There are a lot of husband and wife setups in our industry. Is you know, you we work all day long together and then we come home and Oh, it's you again. We live together so but we do enjoy the company of each other and we can do quite a lot together. Colin Wynn I'm sure it's both challenging and rewarding. Anthony Groves Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Colin Wynn So finally, I like to end my podcast with a funny moving story. Do you have one to tell? Anthony Groves Well, I do yeah. Some years ago, when my father was alive, and I was in my late teens, and we were moving a couple from a local address to a property in Tunbridge Wells and all was going okay It was a standard size move probably 15 or 1600 cube maybe. And we got to the unloading address and the house they were moving into was needed quite a lot of doing up and was a house on four storeys you had sort of split level garden so i.e. the basement was actually at garden level and then where we went in in the front was technically ground but actually then was probably first floor and all was going alright. There was me my father and one of my father's friends because in those days you know if you wanted someone extra will be a friend usually they'll come and help. And he was a gentleman in his latter years he already retired. So he was 65 plus and anyway we would unloading everything. And our client had said to my father well look I haven't got a shed or a garage or anything and I know I've got quite a lot of outside stuff. But I own that piece of ground opposite this house. That layby there where a car is supposed to park, he said so could you make sure that it's all stacked there very tidily and I've got a tarpaulin sheet, we can put everything on and then bring it over the top and tie it down. So it looks okay. No problem. My father said that's absolutely fine. And my father was very meticulous, very precise, and love to sort of have things neat and tidy. So we would bring it out to him and he was stacking it all up outside on this tarpaulin. And then all of a sudden, next door neighbour came out. And I mean for the I'm not going to repeat the language that was used. But in essence, he told the guy that he couldn't put his stuff there. He didn't call it stuff and he didn't. He didn't. He wasn't so polite as that But he told him he couldn't put his stuff there. And our client just looked at him and just told him to 'P' off. The first word he said to his neighbour, and I've looked at my father and we've looked at each other and gone Oh my god was what is going on here. The next door neighbour and our client suddenly come up face to face and started having fisticuffs and Colin, they were in their late 70s. They weren't young men, and they started, and I couldn't believe my eyes. But what was even worse is that my dad's friend who was helping us out who was roughly of a similar age as these two gentlemen was egging them on. Was actually telling our client to put one on him! It actually got to the point where it was so funny if you'd have seen it these two guys with their fists up, not really landing a punch at all, but blowing heavily because one had a heart condition and the other one had asthma. Oh my god in the end, I had to get in between them both. Say I was probably bairly 18 get in the middle of both of them to separate them and give them both a good telling off and tell them to go away. It was the funniest thing to this day that I well as soon as you said if you've got a funny story, I thought I've got to tell that one because all that yes with these things, you have to be there but oh my god, to see these two guys fighting was just or pretend fighting was just hilarious. I mean, there's been lots of other sort of instances over the years. Colin Wynn Oh, if you've got another one, go for it. Anthony Groves Have you got anything Karen? Karen Groves Well the only one that sticks in my mind is the one you told me about the other day which was on the rare occasion that I was able to go out on a move to help to do some packing in this cupboard under the stairs was this safe, it was rather a large safe but they put it in such a way that actually there was no room around it to move it out. But he wanted to take it with him. I left for the day after I've done my packing but after that you and Alan one of our guys had to get into the cupboard, you had to climb over the back and get behind the safe to help try and push it out, in amongst pushing it out and trying to move it and do whatever else you suddenly went, ouch, ouch, I'm getting burnt I got to move and the light bulb that was in, above the safe was burning his bottom while trying to push it out! Anthony Groves Yeah, it was. It was a huge safe, the gap above the safe and the stairs wasn't very big and I literally got myself with this light bulb stuck on my trousers. And it was literally burning a hole through them. So yeah, that was that was not too pleasant an experience. But yeah, it wasn't funny for me, the time! Colin Wynn Fireproof trousers on order. Anthony Groves So yeah, as you say, yeah, as I said that. There's lots of, you know, funny moving stories. There was one where we went to move this. We were moving the client and we went to sort of move the double bed in what we thought was the spare room, which was loaded full of like linen and coats and stuff. So we went to get out of them all, and the son was still in bed. He was still in it. Which I'm sure has happened to lots of other companies. But God the surprise when he suddenly leapt up because we'd sort of semi grabbed him as well. Was Yeah, quite funny as well. But yeah, there's lots of Colin Wynn I do like these funny stories. Anthony, Karen, I appreciate your time today. Thank you very much, both of you. Anthony Groves Thank you, Colin. Karen Groves Thank you Colin. Anthony Groves It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai