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Men Who Make Transport
Page 38
Page 39
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.;ottorn
AYOUNG man who is climbing the trailer trail so fast that he can talk calmly about a doubled turnover as though it were the accepted thing, is Guy Scottorn, 34-year-old head of Scottorn, Ltd.; Kingston Road, New Malden, Surrey_
His Victor Works, in the now busy London suburb, are as deceptive as the man who heads the enthusiastic team that sends trailers to all parts of the world. For, just as a modest office building hides extensive workshops with 20,000 sq. ft. of floor space, so Guy Scottorres modesty and deference conceal an agile mind and a driving force that are apparent only when he gets down to talking business—preferably trailers.
He took over control of the business last year on the death of his father, Mr. J. V. Scottorn, who founded it in the early '30s. But Guy was no newcomer. He'd had his feet under the table--or should I say work bench?—for many years before that. In fact it was he who started the business of trailer production, now totalling at least half of the Scottorn output. But I must go back a few years to explain how that came about.
He was born in another London suburb, in Ealing, in 1926—on November 5! Father's business of vehicle overhauling and general engineering hadn't started then but by 1940, when Hitler's armies were rampaging the Continent, Scottorns were moving out of their old works in Chelsea and taking over bigger premises in New Malden. Not, of course, the modern, brick building that stands there today --that didn't arrive until 1956.
Young Guy, f4 at the time, was sent off to school in Wales. In 1944 he went on to Manchester University, but like so many other young men,of his era his studies were interrupted. After only six months he changed his student's clothes for battledress and it wasn't long before he was off to India to become a subaltern in the Royal Engineers. He saw service on the North-West Frontier, got mixed up irt the partition troubles when India was granted independence, and learnt to command men. Happy days, comparatively carefree days, but a training that was vital for the years that were ahead. When he returned to England—and his 21st birthday—he was given the opportunity of choosing his own career. Guy chose Scottorns—and got the treatment that those men in the transport industry who knew his father might expect He found himself on the workshop floor, scraping wheels, greasing, and doing all those other tasks that set the new boy. on the right road.
And how well that grounding in the business has served him. For when, last year, he was left to carry on, he dropped into his new role as quickly and easily as he had parachuted from planes so many times during the 10 years he spent as a captain in a Territorial unit of an Airborne Division.
Why the parachuting hobby? "I liked it," he says, "and I got around." And, like many other young men who are today hitting the high (business) spots, he's still getting around—only now it is to the world markets where he is finding new outlets for his trailers.
There are family responsibilities now—he •and his wife, former Festival Ballet dancer Eugenie Sivyer, have a sixyear-old daughter—so these days on his world travel he waits for the plane to land before stepping out. But I'd never be surprised to hear that one day this athletic young go-getter lands in darkest Africa, by parachute, and with a Scottorn trailer dangling at his side.
The trailer side of the business is Guy's particular baby. For it was he who pressed on with its development after his father had seen the potentialities. Now he travels abroad for three months of every year. In Africa alone, over the past three years, he has secured orders worth £100,000 to £150,000. Since Scottorns started trailer production the turnover has increased fourfold. "So far it has doubled each year," he told me confidently.
Next year he is to make his first sales-promotion trip to the Far East. And hell arrive in Burma, Malaya, Indonesia and other far away places as he arrived on his first trip to Africa alone and with few, if any, introductions. He likes to do his own pioneering—it makes the fruits of his labours so much sweeter.
Of the current production of Scottorn two-wheeled trailers, 95 per cent. goes for export—that's the measure of the success of Guy Scottorn's policy of personal contact with operators in ail parts of the world.
But, as I have said, trailer production is only half the Scottorn business. "Don't think I'm always on the trailer trail," Guy told me. Forty per cent, of the business is in the Austin commercial vehicle dealership and the remainder in genera! engineering and fleet repairs, and a walk round the modern, well-equipped workshops is sufficient testimony to the success of this activity.
The construction and assembly of special units has long been one of Guy Scottorn's interests, and much thought has been given and work put in on vehicles for activities like geophysical exploration.
As head of a business at 34, Guy Scottorn has many burdens to carry. How does he "get away from it all "? By relaxing, usually with a book, in his flat in Kensington. He and his wife like the atmosphere of the "villages around the centre of London. Occasionally they "make the journey" to places like Hampstead, but more often than not there is quite enough going on in the village of Kensington. In any case, it's so near the Lyaes Francais where their daughter is at school. . . and so near, too, to his other "home" at the Scottorn works in New Malden, especially when you are motoring the "other way" in the rush-hour.
A man with an eye for detail. that's Guy Scottorn. C.M.H. B5