John Alf
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dor. REFLECTIONS calculated to uplift morale strengthen purpose are appropriate to this tirn( year. I therefore intend to dwell briefly upon a p, cularly enlivening one which occurred to me while in cheerful, optimistic presence of Jack Taylor, sales dire of Carrimore Six Wheelers, Ltd.
All of us seem to be capable of original ideas and som us possess the rather rarer gift of implementing them. what is an original idea? If might be argued that thi no such thing, that there's nothing new under the Certainly it's true enough that precisely similar ideas, in tions, or discoveries often appear simultaneously in wi separated parts of the world, conceived after cr.& independent observation and research. There seems t4 an inevitability about these matters; " It had to happ we say. So it comes about that two different people i perhaps, do not even know of each other's existence, upon the same bright thought at the same time.
And what, may you ask, has this got to do with . Taylor? Assuredly the same question is passing thrc his mind as he reads this. Well, it's all a preamble to Who invented the trailer? In the absence of any autho tive information about it I will hazard that it was another inevitability. What seems certain is that . Taylor originally thought of it, whoever else did. that was way back in the first world war.
What actually happened was that when he saw, pt by chance, lorries being towed somewhere near the We: Front, it occurred to him that there were comme implications in this improvization. What was econon and practical in those circumstances must surely be s peacetime. So was born the Carrimore Trailer in 19P Ideas are net born in infertile, unprepared minds, I
Taylor was already an engineer, and a transport man hat. After leaving Peterborough .Lodge and Gresham ool, Holt, he served his apprenticeship with Clement bot and, having thus learnt the elements of the industry he earlier days of road transport, he. was called up elthe Reserve of Officers in 1914. He served throughthe war in France, returning home in 1918.
ioverriber 11, 1918, was, of course, the day when we brated the end of the War to end all wars; and it was ly six months later that Jack Taylor. from the wars irned, hit upon what was to be his lifelong career. He ght a half-share in Carrosserie Latyrner, Ltd., who were imencing to build the Carrimore Trailer.
asked him why the French title? Why carrosserie? It is lark of the infancy of the motor industry in Britain at . time that France•was popularly believed to be its true le. Many British youngsters received their early training c and I once knew an Albion Motors executive who, ing learnt his trade in France, did not even know the :fish names of the tools he had to use at Albion. So there a snob appeal about " carrosserie," Jack Taylor
rom this company was developed Carrimore Six eelers, Ltd. And in 1936 the public company known as Steel Barrel Scarnmells and Associated Engineers, Ltd., ch embraces. the Steel Barrel Co.,Ltd, 'Abridge,. G. rntnell and Nephew, Ltd., London, El, Anthony Hoists, „Ruislip, and Carrimore Six Wheelers, Ltd., North Ailey, was formed. It was at North FinchIey that 1 Jack Taylor for the first time.
o the uninitiated, and no doubt to the initiated too, it is urce of profound interest to observe how much research ingenuity go into the design and production of car
carriers and trailer bodies. It is almost true to say that every user has his own ideas about design. He knows what he heeds, and his needs may well be idiosyncratic: So mass prdduction. is a virtual impossibility in this field. A wide gap yawns, for instance, between the special Scammell bodywork incorporated in the striking vehicles operated by the Cement Marketing Co., Ltd., and C. and A's fleet which Carrimore has supplied over a period of 12 years, and the car transporters, also supplied by Carrimore, which one encounters in such large numbers on the Ml.
Clearly, the specialized work of Jack Taylor's organization calls for the closest co-operation with users and in this, one feels, he scores heavily. He is the kind of man who though not suffering fools gladly is delighted to lend a listening ear to his customers and to go to extreme lengths to give them what they want.
His mark is evident, 1 think, in the pleasant atmosphere so 'obvious to a stranger visiting the works for the first time. To him an indispensable condition of keeping the customer happy is to cultivate a contented staff. Significantly, he insisted on my seeing the works canteen and examining the contents of the ovens.
His somewhat severely furnished office at Finchley is remarkable for its pictures. One above all catches the visitor's eye. It is a hunting scene in which the soldierly figure of Jack Taylor is included—a copy of the original, specially commissioned and presented to him by his hunting friends. He warned me to say little about this great delight of his—hunting. "People will think I do nothing else if you harp on it," he said. There's no danger, let, him be assured, that anybody will believe that his mind is not strictly on business: it is doubtless the more efficient because of his ability to relax and look out on life with humour and philosophy.
People who know him well will understand that some of his forthright, ebullient, full-blooded comments on life cannot (unfortunately) be reported verbatim here. But I can say what 1 infer from them. And it is that he has learnt how to live, how to extract fun from life, how to get on with people—customers and non-customers alike—how to escape from worries for a sufficiently long time to refresh his mind for sustained work. H.C.