37) A New Career for Jonny
While Jonny was doing army reserve service he met Mike Harris who owned a second hand car sales business in Salisbury. They became good friends and Mike offered Jonny a job as a car salesman. Used car salesmen have a universal reputation of being shady characters and I was not sure that I wanted him to take the job. Jonny assured me that Mike was an honest and reputable businessman not a fly by night and so started a new career that he really enjoyed. Of course he had a lot to learn but he worked hard at it and was soon doing well at it. At that time, as there were still sanctions on Rhodesia new cars were pretty hard to get so second hand cars really held their value. Cars were worth almost what anyone was prepared to pay for them and finding good stock was usually as hard as selling it. Competition amongst the salesmen was fierce though and as Jonny was the most junior of the salesmen there he was given the office at the end from where it was hard to see if a customer walked into the yard but he managed to arrange his office window to reflect what was going on in the yard and was usually able to beat the other men to the customers.
He kept the names and telephone numbers of all the people he met and if he came across a car that he thought would suit one of the people that he had met he would ring them and tell them about it. People appreciated the service. Once he rang a client about a car that had just come in but the gentleman was not in but his house servant answered the phone in broken English. “I am sorry sir but the master is not in at the moment, can I take a message for you?” Jonny asked if he would tell his boss that Mr. Crowther had rung and could he ring him back. The servant said “Certainly sir, could you please spell your name” So Jonny spelt out Crowther, C and the servant repeated C, then R and the servant repeated R, O and he repeated O. All the way through the name W, W, T, T, H, H, E, E, R, R. When they got to the end the servant said “Could you just hold the line a minute sir, while I go and get a pencil.
Mike wanted his salesmen to know the cars that he had for sale and so encouraged them to drive a different car home each evening to get to know it and to be aware if it needed any work done on it before it could be sold. The boys loved to see what car he would bring home each evening. There were all sorts, little Minis or VW Beetles, Pick-ups or Land Rovers even classy Bentleys and Jaguars. After he had been with Mike for a few weeks he was telling a neighbour from across the road about his new job. The neighbour said “So that’s why there is a different car outside your house every evening, I was wondering if you were in the army and Marina had a different visitor each evening” Once he brought home a very smart Rover and for some reason that I have forgotten he decided to park it around the back of the house. We had had a lot of rain and the water table was very high. During the night it rained heavily again and when Jonny went to go to work in the morning the car just sank into mud and he could not get it out. He had to get planks and wood and force them under the wheels so that the tyres could get a grip and he could move the car. By the time he got going he and the car were full of mud.
One of the other salesmen that Jonny worked with was Ian Robertson. Ian was a first class rugby player who represented Rhodesia. We used to go and watch the rugby and cheer him on. One of the cars that he had bought in was a red Mustang and for some strange reason he decided to get resprayed white. But the respray was not a success and they ended up with a pink Mustang. No one could imagine who on earth would want a pink Mustang and all the other salesmen dared Ian and Jonny to take it for a ride around Salisbury during lunchtime. After the ride Ian was the same colour as the Mustang.
Sometimes Jonny would dress up as a chauffeur, with a jacket and a peaked cap and he would drive a Rolls Royce or a Bentley with one of the African salesmen sitting in the back seat. In those days it would have been a very unusual site to see an African being chauffeured around by a European and people were amazed by what they saw.
Once I went into the yard to speak to Jonny about something and he was talking to a customer, a young lad with a Vauxhall Victor for sale. We got talking and I told him that I had learnt to drive on a car of that model. He was amazed “I didn’t think it was that old”. Then he realised what he had said and the more he tried to put the blunder right the worst things got.
Jonny was a smoker in those days and once while he was on the phone to a client he tossed his cigarette stub into the waste paper basket thinking that it was empty. But there was some paper in the bottom of the basket and it started to smoulder. Quickly, to avoid a fire Jonny put his foot into the waste paper basket to stop the burning but then found that he could not get his foot out. I can just imagine him hopping around with a smouldering waste paper basket attached to his foot while he continued to talk to the customer. I am sure that he would not have wanted to loose the possibility of a sale so he would not have been able to tell the person on the other end of the line what was going on.
After Jonny had been in the car trade for about 18 months another firm called Puzey and Payne offered him a job to manage their used car section. It was a good offer so he took it. There he was working with a woman called Veronica Campbell-Howard. She did all the clerical work and also sold cars. She was a young widow, her husband who had been a farmer had died while doing his army service and she was left with four young children. They all attended boarding schools but she really had a bit of a problem during the school holidays as the four of them together could get up to a whole pile of mischief so they needed to be supervised. Jonny suggested that I could look after them now and again and so it was arranged that they would come. Jonathan and Dominic were not pleased when they heard about that. “What are we going to do with four strangers here all day”? I told them that they had to be nice to them as they had not long ago lost their father and they must be very sad. I don’t think that helped much as I think that they were expecting to spend the day with four weeping children. At the other end of town Veronica had to give her four a similar sort of pep talk. They did not want to spend the day with people they did not know. They were sure that they would not like them but Veronica said that we had been kind enough to invite them so they must be on their best behaviour.
When they arrived they all just jumped into the pool and started playing. They all just seemed to be on the same wavelength, they had a wonderful time. Once when I went out with cool drinks and cookies I heard one of the Campbell-Howards asking one of the Crowthers “What is your name?’ they had all been having so much fun they had not bothered to introduce themselves. The oldest girl was Melinda, and then came a boy called Clyde next was a girl called Luanne and last another boy called Brett. Clyde was a redhead with freckles, dark rimmed glasses and a wicked grin that must have got him into a lot of trouble at school, one only had to look at him and see that he was probably the one to blame. He was really was a super lad. Brett was blonde with blue eyes and the face of an angel. I am sure that he got away with murder at school, one just could not imagine that he would do anything wrong but one could be pretty sure that any of the mischief that Clyde was involved in Brett was there too. The six of them became good friends and stayed friends into adulthood.
Jonny did well at Puzey and Payne’s used car business, he increased the turn over and gave the business a jolly good reputation but there was a reshuffle within the company and he was moved to the new car section. A factory had just opened assembling VW Golfs and Puzey and Payne had an agency to sell them.
One of the pranks that the salesmen got up to in this department was to phone the public phone booth across the road from their office. They knew the number of the phone and would wait until an attractive young lady was standing somewhere nearby. Mostly the girls would pick up the phone but of course they did not know who was on the other end of the line or that the men were watching them from across the street. They got a great deal of fun out of the reactions.
It was while Jonny was working with Puzey and Payne that he met Craig MacGiles who was to be the cause of yet another move in our life but that is a story that I will tell you later.
He kept the names and telephone numbers of all the people he met and if he came across a car that he thought would suit one of the people that he had met he would ring them and tell them about it. People appreciated the service. Once he rang a client about a car that had just come in but the gentleman was not in but his house servant answered the phone in broken English. “I am sorry sir but the master is not in at the moment, can I take a message for you?” Jonny asked if he would tell his boss that Mr. Crowther had rung and could he ring him back. The servant said “Certainly sir, could you please spell your name” So Jonny spelt out Crowther, C and the servant repeated C, then R and the servant repeated R, O and he repeated O. All the way through the name W, W, T, T, H, H, E, E, R, R. When they got to the end the servant said “Could you just hold the line a minute sir, while I go and get a pencil.
Mike wanted his salesmen to know the cars that he had for sale and so encouraged them to drive a different car home each evening to get to know it and to be aware if it needed any work done on it before it could be sold. The boys loved to see what car he would bring home each evening. There were all sorts, little Minis or VW Beetles, Pick-ups or Land Rovers even classy Bentleys and Jaguars. After he had been with Mike for a few weeks he was telling a neighbour from across the road about his new job. The neighbour said “So that’s why there is a different car outside your house every evening, I was wondering if you were in the army and Marina had a different visitor each evening” Once he brought home a very smart Rover and for some reason that I have forgotten he decided to park it around the back of the house. We had had a lot of rain and the water table was very high. During the night it rained heavily again and when Jonny went to go to work in the morning the car just sank into mud and he could not get it out. He had to get planks and wood and force them under the wheels so that the tyres could get a grip and he could move the car. By the time he got going he and the car were full of mud.
One of the other salesmen that Jonny worked with was Ian Robertson. Ian was a first class rugby player who represented Rhodesia. We used to go and watch the rugby and cheer him on. One of the cars that he had bought in was a red Mustang and for some strange reason he decided to get resprayed white. But the respray was not a success and they ended up with a pink Mustang. No one could imagine who on earth would want a pink Mustang and all the other salesmen dared Ian and Jonny to take it for a ride around Salisbury during lunchtime. After the ride Ian was the same colour as the Mustang.
Sometimes Jonny would dress up as a chauffeur, with a jacket and a peaked cap and he would drive a Rolls Royce or a Bentley with one of the African salesmen sitting in the back seat. In those days it would have been a very unusual site to see an African being chauffeured around by a European and people were amazed by what they saw.
Once I went into the yard to speak to Jonny about something and he was talking to a customer, a young lad with a Vauxhall Victor for sale. We got talking and I told him that I had learnt to drive on a car of that model. He was amazed “I didn’t think it was that old”. Then he realised what he had said and the more he tried to put the blunder right the worst things got.
Jonny was a smoker in those days and once while he was on the phone to a client he tossed his cigarette stub into the waste paper basket thinking that it was empty. But there was some paper in the bottom of the basket and it started to smoulder. Quickly, to avoid a fire Jonny put his foot into the waste paper basket to stop the burning but then found that he could not get his foot out. I can just imagine him hopping around with a smouldering waste paper basket attached to his foot while he continued to talk to the customer. I am sure that he would not have wanted to loose the possibility of a sale so he would not have been able to tell the person on the other end of the line what was going on.
After Jonny had been in the car trade for about 18 months another firm called Puzey and Payne offered him a job to manage their used car section. It was a good offer so he took it. There he was working with a woman called Veronica Campbell-Howard. She did all the clerical work and also sold cars. She was a young widow, her husband who had been a farmer had died while doing his army service and she was left with four young children. They all attended boarding schools but she really had a bit of a problem during the school holidays as the four of them together could get up to a whole pile of mischief so they needed to be supervised. Jonny suggested that I could look after them now and again and so it was arranged that they would come. Jonathan and Dominic were not pleased when they heard about that. “What are we going to do with four strangers here all day”? I told them that they had to be nice to them as they had not long ago lost their father and they must be very sad. I don’t think that helped much as I think that they were expecting to spend the day with four weeping children. At the other end of town Veronica had to give her four a similar sort of pep talk. They did not want to spend the day with people they did not know. They were sure that they would not like them but Veronica said that we had been kind enough to invite them so they must be on their best behaviour.
When they arrived they all just jumped into the pool and started playing. They all just seemed to be on the same wavelength, they had a wonderful time. Once when I went out with cool drinks and cookies I heard one of the Campbell-Howards asking one of the Crowthers “What is your name?’ they had all been having so much fun they had not bothered to introduce themselves. The oldest girl was Melinda, and then came a boy called Clyde next was a girl called Luanne and last another boy called Brett. Clyde was a redhead with freckles, dark rimmed glasses and a wicked grin that must have got him into a lot of trouble at school, one only had to look at him and see that he was probably the one to blame. He was really was a super lad. Brett was blonde with blue eyes and the face of an angel. I am sure that he got away with murder at school, one just could not imagine that he would do anything wrong but one could be pretty sure that any of the mischief that Clyde was involved in Brett was there too. The six of them became good friends and stayed friends into adulthood.
Jonny did well at Puzey and Payne’s used car business, he increased the turn over and gave the business a jolly good reputation but there was a reshuffle within the company and he was moved to the new car section. A factory had just opened assembling VW Golfs and Puzey and Payne had an agency to sell them.
One of the pranks that the salesmen got up to in this department was to phone the public phone booth across the road from their office. They knew the number of the phone and would wait until an attractive young lady was standing somewhere nearby. Mostly the girls would pick up the phone but of course they did not know who was on the other end of the line or that the men were watching them from across the street. They got a great deal of fun out of the reactions.
It was while Jonny was working with Puzey and Payne that he met Craig MacGiles who was to be the cause of yet another move in our life but that is a story that I will tell you later.
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