MOVING DEFENCES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31307, 1 March 1967, Page 1

MOVING DEFENCES

Mr G. C. (“Shotgun Charlie”) Mclver at 8 o’clock last night closed the petrol station he has owned at the corner of Cranford street and the Main North road for 32 years.

At 7 o'clock this morning, Mr Mclver will open a new petrol station, half a mile north and on the opposite side of the Main North road from the old one. “In 1935 I bought the petrol station and six acres for £2OOO. In the first week, our best daily sale of petrol was 137 gallons. Our highest daily sale, one Anzac Day recently, was 2900 gallons,” Mr Mclver recalled yesterday. 1000 Trips to Moon “We have sold more than 7,500,000 gallons of petrol in 32 years from the Cranford street-Main North road site — enough juice to take an average car 21 times to the sun and back, or 1000 return trips to the moon, or 8000 trips round the equator.” Mr Mclver won considerable local fame with his ingenious burglar alarms and his 12gauge shotgun between 1954 and 1959. The combination got him five burglars. “The petrol station was so wired that when anyone attempted to enter it an alarm sounded in my house nearby in Cranford street. It would awaken me, and I would get my shotgun and my son, Murray, and descend on the unsuspecting burglars. “1 remember the last one we caught; it was on the eve of Murray’s twenty-first birthday—and what an evening. Shot In Rear “The young fellow jumped a hedge and made a dash for it, in spite of my shouted warnings. He got a charge of i shot in his rear. “The police used to tell me that 1 had to be careful about i using the gun, and that I 1 should not use it I always i listened politely—and used i the gun, carefully. All the burglars we caught had pre- 1

vious criminal records. “And we haven’t had a burglary, or attempted breaking and entering since 1959. The crooks got the message, and I’ve got a shotgun with five nicks on the butt to prove I mean business,” Mr Mclver said. Mr Mclver’s new petrol station is Ingeniously wired with burglar alarms. “When I first started the petrol station, there was no Cranford street extension It was a narrow shingle tracK, called Tuttons road. Of course, more traffic has brought better roads and more business. “But the volume of traffic and widening of the intersection of Cranford street, Winters road and the Main North road means that the Ministry of Works will be installing traffic lights there soon. “The traffic lights mean that we have to go. When we

first started on the site, you could see for miles; ho Ovaltine factory, very few houses. We sold petrol to Belfast and Marshland farmers—and we are now selling to the third generation of many of the same local families.” Mr Mclver said that his first petrol station had to go to make room for the Cranford street extension. It went right through the office. He built the station which closed last night just north of the original one. in the Second World War, Mr Mclver closed his service station for three years while he was serving as a gunner with the 38th Field Regiment in the Pacific Islands. “You have to make way for progress, and the new site is a much better one from a business point of view,” Mr Mclver said. His son, who runs the business now that Mr Mclver is practically retired, agreed.