The longest serving member of the tyre business?
Ralph Sutton could be the longest serving member of the tyre business in the UK, perhaps even the world. Having just completed 54 years associated with the round black things we all know and love, he is still going strong and rapidly approaching six decades in the business. Sutton’s career started at the beginning of April 1958 and those 54 years certainly represent uncommon loyalty to tyres, but how many more can claim to have been serving the industry almost as long as Queen Elizabeth II has been sat on the throne? And has anyone been serving longer?
Ralph Sutton started off at Hill & Jayne in Pottery Rd Wigan in April 1958. This company was bought by Borough Tyre Co. which then sold it to Goodyear in the early 1960s. The business then became part of the FJWilson Group from Doncaster. In 1969 Sutton was approached by ATS to join the company’s Industrial Tyre Market team in the North West Area. He left ATS in about 1983 to join Malcolm McKay and form McKay Industrial Tyres in St. Helens, but not before taking turnover to over £1 million both in solid and industrial pneumatic products.
During the tough times of the 1980s economy Sutton was made redundant in 1985 and joined Avon working for Motorway Tyres covering the North West as area sales manager. Here he looked after Warrington and Radcliffe depots, moving to Scotland to oversee the firm’s Carlisle and Dumfries depots.
“After the Lockerbie plane crash I left Scotland to join Dunlop GRG division Manchester taking on the area sales manager role covering the East and West Midlands and the South West and Wales area; later taking over Basildon Depot for South East area,” Sutton recalls.
At that time (1994/95) Dunlop made a series of redundancies and Sutton reports that he took over as sales manager UK with responsibilities for some various overseas areas. A year later he notified all Dunlop customers that Dunlop was to cease manufacturing solid tyres and was closing the operation down after 100 years in this field. As a result Sutton then joined Omega Industrial Tyres which later became Solideal covering the UK as sales manager independent tyre dealers. Due to changes within Solideal he was made redundant but carried on undeterred and started to work for Trelleborg as UK and Ireland sales manager. Sutton finally retired from Trelleborg after doing an extra 18 months past retirement age, working three days a week. However, his tyre career wasn’t – and indeed isn’t – over yet.
“On the day I was to retire I was approached by a company in India and went to Chennai for an interview with MRF Ltd (previously known as Madras Rubber Factories) and joined them as consultant and UK sales manager,” Sutton explains.
All of which means that if he isn’t the longest serving current member of the tyre industry, there is still time for him to attain this crown.
129 years of experience between just three Bush Tyres people
When Tyres & Accessories threw this question open to our nearly 3000 social network followers on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn we also learnt that well known tyre retail and wholesale business Bush Tyres has an enviable loyalty record. According to the company’s Twitter response to our question, the firm has an agricultural tyre representative on 39 years under their belt, at least one manager with 43 years experience and a fleet inspector that has been with company 47 years!
County Tyres’ long service trend
County Tyres/BITS also has something of a reputation for long service and loyalty. Just a couple of years ago two members of the BITS team celebrated 25 years of service. You may be thinking that staying in a single business this long is not unheard of in and of itself. However, these were simply the latest in a continuing stream of long-serving employees.
In 2007 BITS expressed its sadness at the death of Ron Costella, who the company claimed was Britain’s oldest tyre salesmen. Tyres & Accessories certainly hasn’t heard of any older working tyre people before or since. When he passed away Costella was 86 having spent the majority of his life working with tyres.
And this followed an earlier long service awards ceremony on 24 October 2006 at the County Show Ground in Bristol. This event demonstrated that the others weren’t just a one off and showed recognition the loyalty and experience of its personnel. During the 2006 awards no fewer than nine people reached the milestone of 25 years service, whilst one truly dedicated employee, Alan Clark, is celebrated his 40th year of service.
Related news:
Comments