AT ONE REMOVE
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Chance is a fine thing. "We didn't choose removals," says Tony Abel, "it chose us." In any case, the combination has worked. Youthful rebelliousness turned him from a career in auctioneering to transport. His father, Noel Abel, runs the local auction rooms and Tony was destined to follow in dad's footsteps.
"I was put on the rostrum at 16. and trained up," he says. "1 had always been pushed towards auctioneering. But I'm afraid I'm the sort of person who, when pushed, will go in the opposite direction.
At 18 he decided to strike out on his own with three old Commer vans the auction used to transport lots. Abel found them much more attractive than a life under the gavel. not least because more and more people were asking to use the trucks at weekends to help move house.
He saw an opening and took it. The three old grey and maroon Commers he took on in 1972 have grown into a fleet of 84 trucks and vans. He uses mainly Leyland Daf because the price is right. because Dal has always had good back-up on the Continent where Abel works a lot with the armed forces, and because Daf has offered air suspension as a factory option for many years.
Germany is Abel's biggest foreign market ahead of France, Belgium and Holland. Its connections with Europe are excellent.
though that was not so at first. "Oh God, 1 remember the first European move I ever did. It was to RAF Laahruch. and it was horrific. 1 shudder to think, looking back. 1 actually set out with a passport and an inventory of the goods on board — nothing else. I had my younger sister Sue with me to help, and we ended up spending 24 hours at the Wx.)It of Holland trying to get guarantees to cross the European borders."
The 18-year-old learned fast, and Abels is now one of the UK's leading international removers. It is branching out into furniture distribution, with contracts with blue-chip names like Marks and Spencer on the books. Turnover will top a million this year with 300 employees.
The biggest blue-chip name of them all is the Royal Family. Abels moved Charles and Diana into their new home when they married and the company has been back to Buckingham Palace since to do other jobs. Abel proudly displays his thank-you letter from the Princess of Wales in reception. "The inside of Buckingham Palace quad must be one of the cheapest and most secure truck parks in Europe," he jokes.
Good staff have been the key to the firm's rapid growth, and in clinching major jobs like moving the Royals. They are essential, he says, especially when you work every day in people's homes. Moving house, apparently, is the third most stressful experience in life after bereavement and redundancy, and just ahead of divorce.
Many of the men at AbeIs stay for years. The boss is proud of that. Good humour and enjoyment arc vital, he says: "We often get letters from customers saying our men's sense of humour helped the move go more smoothly."
It has not all been roses though. In December 1982, when Abel was at home recuperating from a near-fatal car smash "I was a prat, overtaking too fast in fog" he got a call about the sinking of the European Gateway North Sea ferry.
"It was one of the worst moments of my life," says Abel. "It was 2am in the morning when I Rot the call and 1 wanted desperately to go down to Felixstowe that night." Three AbeIs trucks and six of its men were on the ferry. No-one was killed and the trucks were eventually salvaged, but it is the sort of experience people do not forget.
One of the staff men involved has since left, to become a driving instructor, and one now works solely on UK removals, refusing to travel overseas.
Abets prides itself on an "Elite" removals service. The company has carpet fitters on its books, along with a remarkable service in which Abets will photograph a customers' drinks cabinet, his display cupboards or his bookshelves on polaroid before packing and reassembling them in exactly the same way at his new home.
Maids will hoover, clean and dust too in the Elite package. just the way Japanese removers are supposed to do for Japanese executives in the country that is always one step ahead of the rest. "Yeah." says Abel. "that's right, they copied it from us."
Turn over any removals man, and a flood of stories come pouring out. Like the time Tony Abel took an elderly widowed lady from Norfolk to London, so that she could share a flat with a friend. Before the packing cases had even moved inside the women were beginning to row. For a small fee, he turned round and took her straight back to Norfolk.
Like the time a stray cat got inside the truck on the way back from the Continent, and a full, quarantine, cat proof-cage had to be built around the van before it could be opened up. Like the time hordes of local TV crews turned up to see whether Abels could get across mudflats to Hi!bre Island near Liverpool, without sinking. "We had to follow someone across saying: "Drive to that rock, then bear slightly left." like the time a woman they took to North London popped out to get fish and chips, got lost on the way back. forgot her new address and ended up in the local police station phoning Abel's head office in Norfolk. "All the lads could say when she got back was, "the chips arc cold..." Like the time....