Harold Nancollis
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When he left VVinsford Gramma School in 1 937 to start work at Fodens Harold Nancollis wanted, to be draughtsman -an ambition he ful filled after working in various depart ments and which was to Occupy hin for the next 30 years, mostly oi chassis design.
When, as a young man, he proud!, told his parents of the wonderful wort the design office had been doing, hi;
father replied: "Ali, but can you sel this wonderful thing you have de signed? If not then all you have beer doing is exercising your brain at th( company's expense."
Since that day Harold has had at ambition and a reputation for seein the job through from design concept tc customer.
To bring our story up to date, in Apri 1972 he accepted the position technical and administrative. sales manager at Fodens, which is a job he always wanted to do and which helpec to fulfil the ambition generated by his father's philosophy. His total involvement with the job in hand is probably one of the reasons he has chosen tc remain at Fodens.
It is a company at which, he says, the individual is allowed a good deal el expression and control. He believes that the ability of individuals' to make on-the-spot decisions is undoubtedly one of the things which helped Fodens recently gain a contract for the supply of 1,000 low-mobility vehicles for the British Army.
He also thinks that this same freedom of expression led Foden engineers to produce at various times concrete mixer chassis (the company was one of the first in the field in this market), dump trucks, rear-engined buses and, of course, the low-line crane carrier.
Harold's interests in the company extend beyond his brief as T and A sales manager, and he is chairman of the general committee of the recreation club, which embraces 18 individual associations.
Married, with four children, two of whom now work at Fodens, he lives at Northwich, only about nine miles from
the works. G.M.