Whilst working for a, lets call it a ‘big city firm’ a few years ago, I was approached by the boss to carry out a simple debt recovery on behalf of his son Liam.
It turned out that Liam, who ‘wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box,’ was in fact a top notch craftsman on the carpentry front.
The Chippendale of his generation, the lad had set up a little ‘specialist furniture’ business, ‘hand making’ chairs, tables even whole kitchens to such a standard that in a hundred years or so, antique shops the length of Britain would be clambering over each other to get their hands on them.
Liam, a very private man who did not ever want to be connected to his fathers business, had spent the best part of six months making and delivering over £40,000 ($70,000) of kitchen and bedroom furniture to a rich farmer in Kent.
The farmer, who had only paid an initial ten percent deposit for the work, refused to pay the balance and when our boy went round to reclaim his goods, he was told quite bluntly to ‘Get off his land or he would be sorry.’
Liam, upset with the man’s attitude and naive to the ways of the world, approached his farther for advice…And this is why I found myself sat at the end of a muddy track with a psychotic sidekick and a baseball bat.
After negotiating potholes and cow dung, we went a knocking on the farmer’s front door. No answer.
We checked in all the down stairs windows and came to the conclusion that there was no one at home. My partner in this caper, ‘Jimmy the Hand’s,’ wasn’t known for his patience, so one swift kick later, we were in.
I decided to wait in the Kitchen, just in case the farmer returned, whilst Jimmy searched around for valuables or a safe of some kind upstairs.
I could hear Jimmy clanking around above, when I noticed the rumble of a tractor, entering the muddy farmyard next to the house.
“Jimmy!” I shouted to no avail.
The engine rumbled to a halt and I heard the clump of muddy boots approaching.
The farmer stopped at the door, obviously wondering why it was slightly ajar, he pushed gently and walked in, only to see me standing there bat in hand.
The farmer was obviously shit scared but he still demanded to know who I was.
I made him sit down and began to spell out to him about the debt owed and, that the man that it was owed to, was the son of my boss.
When I mentioned the boss’s name, the farmer turned white and within minutes was writing me a cheque for the full amount plus ten percent. The power of reputation strikes again.
I had completely forgotten about Jimmy until he burst into the room, his face contorted with anger, walked up to the farmer and hit him with the most powerful punch I had ever seen. The farmer hit the ground unconscious, his jaw busted in several places. I looked at the rage filled Jimmy and noticed the crumpled photographs that he had thrown down on the table…all naked children. I cannot tell you what happened next but it did eventually involve the police, after we got rid of the claw hammer and the blow torch.
