"One thing about Jimmy is that he was a natural businessman, he had a nose for a good opportunity," the retired writer for the East London Pioneer, who still treasures the notebook from his early 1960s interview with Jimmy Sowerbutt, said. "Once the big freeze started in January 1947, there was a shortage of shovels and brooms. Most families in the East End were alright, but the la-di-dahs in the West End had never bothered with such menial matters and couldn't get out of their houses.
"Jimmy supplied scrap iron to the CW Gill foundry in Millwall, so he got them to make the blades and he persuaded his NUR mates in Norwich to transport a wagon-load of ash from one of the timber plantations down to Polly's joinery in Dunstable where they made the handles. He was selling them for a fiver apiece in the West End; normally they'd go for 4/- in those days.
"He also bought up the whole stock of a broom-maker in Catford. Paid the bloke there 2/6 each which was more than generous and sold them for £2 to the silly sods up west. He always said his job was the redistribution of wealth."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Lemon-Surrender-1940-ebook/dp/B008USR7FA
"Jimmy supplied scrap iron to the CW Gill foundry in Millwall, so he got them to make the blades and he persuaded his NUR mates in Norwich to transport a wagon-load of ash from one of the timber plantations down to Polly's joinery in Dunstable where they made the handles. He was selling them for a fiver apiece in the West End; normally they'd go for 4/- in those days.
"He also bought up the whole stock of a broom-maker in Catford. Paid the bloke there 2/6 each which was more than generous and sold them for £2 to the silly sods up west. He always said his job was the redistribution of wealth."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Colour-Lemon-Surrender-1940-ebook/dp/B008USR7FA
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