Chapter 8

Frank and I insisted that the girls slow down, their pregnancy's had stunned us both, him especially, he was forty six while Nancy was thirty five, Annie suggested that we ask Julie to join the team, she was working as a hair dressing apprentice for about four pounds a week and she wasn't enjoying it in the slightest.

So when we got home that night Annie rang her and asked her to come round, she was overjoyed and jumped at the chance to double her wages and when Annie told her she was expecting a baby the silly bitch burst into tears,

Frank and Nancy had already met her and they got on well with each other, one of her duties at the hairdressers had been answering the phone so she was used to that and she had a nice phone manner.

I was becoming more and more involved in the day to day running of the boat hire company and the crane hire side of it was booming too.

"We need a base young David" he said one morning, "A yard where we can keep the crane and service it"

"Well if you recall Frank, we do own a little bit of land opposite me"

"Yes but "Four Square" own that, not the boat company and I thought about that for a moment,

"Why don't we sell the crane to "Four square" and form another company, call it "Four Square" plant hire division?"

"How much money have you got?" he asked me,

"I'm not sure, but Annie will know, why?"

"We should buy another crane, a fork lit truck or two"

"Drivers too?" I asked but he shook his head,

"No just the machines"

Annie informed us we had about eight thousand pounds, so I gave Frank a cheque for three to buy half of our existing crane and set about looking for another one at the right price.

Nancy walked into the office with a letter and showed it to Frank, who passed it to me without comment, it was from a multi national house building contractor with an opening offer of one million pounds for the cottage and land!

"A million pounds" Annie yelled as she read it, "We're rich"

"We can get two if we hold out" Frank said, so he tasked Nancy with replying,

"Not a refusal darling, more of a deferment, they'll come back in if they're really interested"

They were interested, in fact they were very interested, two days later two of their top executives arrived to see the directors of "Four Square" as it happened we were all there and it's fair to say that they were a bit surprised that Annie and I were so young,

"I think you'll find that one million pounds is a very fair price for the land" was their opening gambit, "Yes it seems fair enough" Frank admitted, "But David here has something else in mind"

"We've done a little search" I said, "And we've discovered that the only access to that plot of land is the entrance by the cottage, the only reason the land hasn't already been snapped up is that to open any more access roads onto the land would be too dangerous, given that any future access to it would have to be within just a few feet of a corner, a corner gentlemen which happens to be on a main trunk road, two applications have already been turned down for that reason, so we will sell the land for a million" I hesitated to let it sink in,

"But for the cottage and it's access we will only sell for another million, if you choose to just buy the land without the cottage and access, we will of course build a toll gate and charge for any access, including pedestrians"