Fighting the hippies
Page 40
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The British Association of Removers makes no bones about the skeletons in the industry's cupboard (if you see what I mean). Some of them it describes in refreshingly robust language as "little more than hippies with beat-up old Dormobiles."
One removal firm was run by a moonlighter from the night shift at a steel works. Any company calling itself QRS might be suspected of having queer connections and this one was no exception. When it went broke it left 300 emigrants in the lurch.
A wine waiter from the Queen Mary was another dead loss as a furniture remover and his company went into liquidation owing nearly £500,000 and leaving 400 customers stranded. Both had been, refused membership of the BAR.
Disasters such as these prompted the Association's Overseas Group to start its guarantee scheme to protect customers against the consequences of a member's bankruptcy before a removal was completed (Commercial Motor, February 16).
The first customer to receive a guarantee certificate — presented at a London reception and framed to mark the importance of the occasion — was Mrs James Murray, an RAF officer's widow who is emigrating from Wiltshire to South Africa to join her new peachfarmer husband.
Giltspur International Removals, who arranged the move, are, of course, giltedged, as are other BAR Overseas Group members, but it must be comforting to the customer to know that there is no chance that the contractor may welsh and, in extreme cases, sell the furniture as well.