During the economic crisis of the late 1970s, redundancies were high among all sectors, but especially in engineering, in which my father, Malcolm, worked as a Senior Draughtsman and my mother, Sheila, in the computer department at the same firm.
In the summer of 1980, just as my mother went on maternity leave with me, it was announced that the factory where they worked would be closing and all staff would be made redundant. One of my dad’s colleagues said that carpet cleaning franchisor, ServiceMaster, was recruiting franchisees in the Midlands area.