By Gerry Stevens
I worked at Tottenham with the export office (it was separately called Lebus of London Ltd), from 1964 until 1966, it was headed up by the manager – Leo A Martin. Leo very kindly included me on trips to Brussels, Cologne and Amsterdam for various furniture shows and exhibitions. I was not very ‘worldly’ at that time and had been abroad only once on a school trip to Hamburg. He thus did his best to encourage me. My original intention had been to join the RAF as a pilot, but, alas, I had (and still have) defective colour vision, hence aircrew was out of the question.
There were few of us there including Gill (manager’s secretary), Anne-Marie (typist, Swedish), Robert (clerk) and Janine (junior, French). We processed all the export orders worldwide and liaised with the factories at Tottenham, Woodley and Eventide Bedding in the City accordingly. I occasionally went down to Woodley, but generally our contact was by ‘phone.
At Tottenham I also knew Neil Wilkins of Purchasing and we (and others) often used to go to the Ferry Boat Inn for lunch as it was a change from the Lebus canteen.
I knew Anthony and Oliver Lebus quite well as they often came into our office. I also knew John Lebus at Eventide Bedding in the City, in fact I once went with the export manager, Leo A. Martin to visit Eventide Bedding which was run by John Lebus, John suggested that we all go to his ‘club’ for lunch. It turned out to be the Headquarters of the HAC – Honourable Artillery Company on City Road, (the oldest regiment in the British Army by Henry VIII’s charter of 1537, and the senior regiment of the Territorial Army). The coincidence is that at the time I was also a serving member of the HAC! – I was in the Infantry Battalion and John had served in the Artillery Division.
When I was around the chaps at Woodley were Ken Nash (the MD), Alan Crawshaw, Major Tim Cree (ex-Major of the British Army) and Jim Trevaskis (Transport Manager), Jim subsequently became a pub landlord and I met up with him many years later, when he was travelling with a group of fellow landlords on my airline down to Bangkok for a ‘cultural’ visit.
Being in Export I had numerous contacts abroad and also with all the freight agents and transport operators in the UK – not too many airlines as furniture is generally heavy and more suited to sea shipping. I had close contact with the Falkland Islands Trading Company which bought a lot from us and also the USSR Trade Delegation. Their people visited me in person at Tottenham to buy beds, suites, tables etc presumably for themselves which I arranged to be shipped from Tilbury. They were invariably very pleasant and brought me bottles of Stolichnaya vodka! I remember them all – Mr. Manakhov, Mr.Kariavin, Mr.Zotov and Mr Saprykin. They also sent me Christmas cards!
I’m afraid I tended to be somewhat late for work as I needed to take two buses to get to Tottenham. The vestibule at the Lebus works was a huge space and contained all the clocking-in machines, I used to creep in and clock my card as quickly as possible. One day, late in my time with Lebus, and late for work as usual, I clocked in just as the personnel manager walked across the hall, his name was Fred Moon, on reaching my office I had a ‘phone call from him asking me to go to his office at 1000 hrs, my heart sank. Either a reprimand or at worst, the sack! However, he asked me to sit down and then said, ‘How would you like to work at London Airport?’ it turned out that his son-in-law worked for Austrian Airlines and they were looking for someone to become their Cargo Officer (a junior post), I was lost for words, thought about it and said ‘yes, I would!’ The next week I took a day off and went for an interview with the Austrian Airlines Station Manager and go the job. I remained there for 5 years and then joined Singapore Airlines where I served for 33 years. Leo Martin was quite upset that I was leaving and I must confess I felt that I had let him down, but opportunities don’t come along all that often and I didn’t look back!
The first photo is of me at the age of 17 when I had just joined Lebus. The photo of the girls was taken at Windsor Castle on a day out or similar – I can’t recall the reason we were all there – it may have been some sort of exhibition, anyway the guardsman appears to be very happy! On the left is Leo Martin’s secretary Gill and on the right in Anne-Marie, our Swedish typist. The one of me in Austrian Airlines uniform was taken soon after I joined them after leaving Lebus.
Gerry Stevens
Gill and Anne-Marie
Gerry Stevens