Stephen Gray, Managing Director, Anglo Pacific.

I wanted to join the royal marines.  My father said that I could only go in if I went as an officer and that didn’t really interest me. So I decided to take whatever job I could find for a few months.  I had no inclination at all to go into this business and, if anything, I should have been driven away from it as part of an army family as we mover house every two years. So when I found myself moving people’s homes for a living I wondered what I had done.

I was under pressure from my father to get a proper job after he’d paid out for my education and I was still running around like a loon at 19.  So I answered an advert in the paper as a Management Trainee with Pickfords. For the first six months I thought, this is not for me.  But then I got a new manager, he took more of an interest in me. His attitude was to give people a job to do and give them the responsibility too. Suddenly I realised I could do it and I was enjoying it.  It was a revolution for me.  The first six months I was bored stiff.  The minute he arrived I’d never had so much work to do and it was all easy.

Now I genuinely enjoy the industry because it’s a people business. When I was dealing with customers on a daily basis that was quite rewarding. Now with a team of 120 to look after I get involved with their problems and that’s interesting too.

Photo: Managing Director of Anglo Pacific, Stephen Gray, at Glencoe.