“THE SUNSHINE KING”

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 290, 2 September 1933, Page 18

“THE SUNSHINE KING”

Romance of Window-Cleaning

About 40 years ago a young man from Lincoln was visiting a cotton mill in Lancashire as a procession was passing outside, and nearly everyone ran to the windows to see it. But they saw very little, for the windows were caked with grime.

The young man from Lincoln dirtied his fingers in trying to clear a place on the glass, but, with him, it was a case of “dirt for luck.” ... .

Although the grimy windows, hindered him from seeing the procession, they helped him to see the opening <or a vast new industry, and since then he has been responsible for the cleaning of millions of windows in all parts of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands, and even as far south as London. . ~ This is the brief but romantic history of Mr. John Wood, managing director of . h Manchester windowcleaning firm which is the second largest of its kind in England to-day. Ever since Mr, Wood dirtied his fingers on those Lancashire, mill windows 40 years ago he has concentrated on the subject of “sunshine for thp workers, and he himself is now known among them all as "Jovial j'ohn; the King of Sunshine.” It is an appropriate title, for it fits his per sonality as well as his business. But let Mr. Wood continue the story of how he began with an ordinary pair of house-steps and a duster or two, and now controls thousands of pounds worth of plant, including ladders that can be telescoped to a height of 65ft., and has yearly four-figure contracts from the Government, the railways, mills, factories, banks and public institutions for cleaning windows and renovating premises generally. “Until th£ morning I entered that mill 40 years ago,” Mr. Wood ' explained, “the idea of taking up window cleaning as aij occupation was the last thing in my mind. But when they told me the windows were never cleaned, as it was ‘too big a job,’ I begjtn to think. ■’Then J walked round the outside

of other mills and looked at the windows. It. was the same story—you couldn’t see a shadow behind them, far less a face. It was, in fact, the finest example of where people in glasshouses ought to throw stones, In order to lef some daylight in. ... “From then on I became a victim of what yon might term ‘glassitis.’ I found myself scrutinising all forms of windows I came across, and finally I decided to start on my own as a window cleaner in Manchester. “I got a few cards printed and sent them out as" ‘feelers.’ Two mornings later I received my first contract—to clean three windows inside and cutside for 6d. That same morning I had almost said good-bye to the windowcleaning business for ever! “The windows were on the fourth floor of a dilapidated building in x Strangeways, and my ‘plant’—a tiny pair of steps—was as useless as a hotwater bottle on an iceberg. I had to get outside on the ledge. “It was my first experience of working at a height, and I can assure vou it was touch and go whether I threw the job up or the job threw me up! However. I got through it somehow, and the two old Victorian partners of the firm that had engaged me were most generous in their praise.” Mr. Wood laughed heartily as h 6 recalled this incident, and compared it with the, windows of many of the “skyscrapers” which his own army of workmen now have to tackle-all the year round. “Nowadays,” he added, “large employers of labour regard clean windows and bright interiors as absolutely essential to production. They are compelled bv Act of Parliament to have the walls of their premises limewashed every 14 months, but practically all of them have it done every 12 months. “Lots of them favour green as being the colour most psychologically helpful to the workers. Its effect, they say, especially when mixed with sunshine, is the best industrial ‘eocktaii’ ever prescribed.” ?/