Personality of the Week
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Denni obert Pearce
‘‘ S ERMONS in stones, and good in everything "—the quotation leapt to my mind during my talk with Dennis Pearce. Not that he sermonized—and certainly I did not—but the profoundly human aspects of furniture removals and storage were illustrated in almost every sentence; and what hitherto had always seemed to me an intensely dull activity became invested with something approaching romance.
Few people in Britain today know as much about the finesse of *furniture removing and storage as the senior vice-president of the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers. After all, he's been in the field for every day of his working life that counts. Winning his first job in the piano department of a great store, he came right away into contact with the removals people, for they were on the same floor.
From 1925 to 1936 he was with Harrods. Bentalls of Kingston used his services from 1936 to 1951. In that year he joined the Army and Navy Stores as manager of the removals and warehousing department. And how is business today? Take a look at the new premises in course of erection and the answer is plain. .
Yet the industry is not without its problems, says Dennis Pearce. Chiefly they revolve around the question of staff. Humping heavy furniture around is not the average youngster's idea of a good job in these days of pretty nearly full employment. The old stagers, the faithful, skilled, loyal men are a declining race. As the years roll on they move into less strenuous spheres or retire altogether. These are men who really loved good furniture, would handle it caressingly and acquired expertness in assessing merit and values. Young men fight shy of jobs that involve very hard physical exertion and which at the same time are not very well paid. Ambitious ones avoid the removal industry because it seems to hold out very little opportunity for promotion to administrative posts, which are very few and seldom fall vacant.
The Institute of the Furniture Warehousing and Removals Industry is trying to alleviate the trouble by running training schemes. One delightful sight is a miniature pantechni con constructed strictly to scale into which students pack furniture, also made to scale.
Estimating is a skilled occupation. Around the estimator the whole industry is built. One serious mistake can make all the difference to the margin of profit and loss. And,, since the business is highly competitive, the estimator must become a master of psychology. Maybe the lowest estimate he can make will inspire no confidence in the prospective customer. If he judges the householder to be temperamental, one who is likely to make unsolicited and probably unhelpful suggestions to the removal staff in the course of loading, then he must take, account of this in his final estimate of costs.
It is likely that, as one who is deeply interested in his fellow men, Dennis Pearce would have found little satisfaction in his chosen career had he not early discovered its human aspects. He soon realized that the older his clients the more reluctant they were to change their dwelling. The old, and still more the old and solitary, inevitably look upon their home as a fortress against the unsympathetic and unrelenting world. How harsh it seems to them when a stranger arrives to estimate the cost of taking their furniture from one place to another and then more strangers lay alien fingers on the treasured chairs, tables, bookcase. The move may be seen as necessary, its means as a shabby intrusion into the one remaining secure and intimate side of life. All this must be considered by the remover.
To the young and thrusting no such heartburnings are conceivable. Their employers invite them to move to a distant city. Well, if it means progress, why not? Let's get an estimate. Let's get on with the job of settling down.
The operative word in the previous paragraph is "thrusting." One hears of well-employed workfoik who would no more dream of moving than missing the week's football pools. These, however, are not " thrusters " in the context of my phrase. There's something to be said in the slogan long ago adopted by a Cardiff remover: "Keep Moving!"
One must not forget another category—the well-to-do retired. They don't mind changing their geographical environment, though they resent bitterly any economic necessity that forces their way of life to diminish.
Your skilled remover takes account of all these varying points of view and as gently handles human beings as he does their, cherished possessions. And if you picture to yourself the kind of person who not only follows this policy himself—a humanist if you like—but at the same time trains others and is close in the councils of the whole industry, well then you have a true portrait of Dennis Robert Pearce.
He lives modestly in a quiet suburban house adjoining the warehouse of the Army and Navy Stores at Turnham Green. He speaks quietly in a considered fashion, almost as a schoolmaster getting across a subject he loves and knows to students already interested and whose mental capacity he respects. He is no enthusiast in a hair shirt, however. He believes in the amenities of life, and, as I can testify, believes in the efficacy and desirability of assisting the flow of thought and conversation with the kind of refreshment frowned on by the Band of Hope.
Now he is senior vice-president of his national association. If, as I suspect, he is next in succession to the presidential chair, then I believe that the National Association of Furniture Warehousemen and Removers will not lack wise leadership in the highest place. He won't put all his goods in his shop window. Rather, I think, his policy will lead him to do much the same thing as his staff who arrange warehouse storage. The more valuable stuff will not be on the perimeter, but will be revealed
from inside as occasion demands. H.C.