Gary Townsend, Contract Sales Manager in the Non Residential Team, retires at the end of this month after 42 years with the company. Here, Gary reminisces about his time with the Armitage Shanks and Ideal Standard.
“I started with the business as an Apprentice Toolmaker in August 1977 at the Armitage Shanks Tubal Works in Barrhead, just south west of Glasgow. Once qualified I got the opportunity to move to the Drawing Office which involved the design of various types of machine tooling for use in the brassware manufacturing process.
During my time in the Drawing Office, Beverley, a very pretty young lady, joined the team as trainee tracer and five years later in 1987 I was very fortunate when she became my wife.
When the factory closed in 1990 I transferred over to our Customer Service Team and had a very interesting couple of years calling on our wonderful end customers trying to resolve their many issues! One of these visits was to the very posh pad of Gary Stevens, the ex-England, Glasgow Rangers and Everton footballer.
This role led to an opportunity to join the Specification Sales Team in October 1992 and I have been in various roles within this team over the years, dealing with everyone along the supply chain from specifiers to our merchant friends.
It has certainly been a bit of a rollercoaster ride with plenty of highs and lows and you always know that the next crisis will be just round the corner.
I can now look back and warmly recall my week spent on the Felixstowe to Zeebrugge ferries fixing a design fault when we changed the Solway flush valves to plastic internals. This had the added perk of crew duty free prices!
There was also a week’s trip to the Ramada Hotel in Reading in 1984 for the entire Barrhead Drawing Office team to resolve issues with noisy bath fillers. This required sleeves to be inserted into the bodies to reduce the flow, you had a set time to do the work before the water was switched back on, and a few poor souls ended up more than a bit wet.
When I started out in the Sales Team the must-haves for our Specifier clients were architect’s stencils and scale rules. I still have a few left in the garage just in case… There were no mobile phones or laptops and Glenigan sales leads were supplied in hard copy.
It has certainly been an interesting career and the 42 years have flown by. Moving around various parts of the business from manufacturing to an office role then to external sales have all added new fresh challenges and helped to keep me focused on the job in hand.
We all have a moan when things go wrong and some of these things do take a bit of believing, but despite this I firmly believe that we are still streets ahead of our competitors.
I have worked with a lot of great people over the years and fallen out with a few of them along the way (only briefly) but I hope to keep in touch as these friendships go beyond your working life.
Keep up the good work and we will stay out in front.”
The top picture is Gary at the drawing board at the Armitage Shanks Tubal Works in Barrhead in 1992. Below are some more photos taken during Gary’s career with the company.
Gary on joining the sales team in 1992.
An Armitage Shanks Excel Training Programme in February 1998. Also pictured and still with us are Linda Bentley, David Pratt, Mark Wingfield and Derrick Roddie.
The retirement of Bert Taylor, Regional Sales Manager North, in 1998. From left to right, John Watt, Alan Talbot, Bert Taylor, Lee Anderson, Gary Townsend, Chris Venables and Jeremy Watts, the Managing Director of Armitage Shanks at the time.
Gary at the 2018 Commercial Conference.
And finally, receiving a T-shirt featuring some of his well-known sayings at a recent retirement do.