WINDOW CONSCIOUS
Fortune and a Fog
Fog has brought a fortune to Mr. Alfred Smith, a Huddersfield man, who arrived in London penniless 39 years ago.
Now Mr. Smith is worth thousands a year and is direclot of an insurance company he formed himself to insure window cleaners. When Mr. Smith first came to Loudon it was shrouded in one of its own particular “pea soup” fogs. ‘‘lt. made me miserable and depressed to look at the dirty exteriors of the houses,” Mr. Smith told the ‘‘Sunday Chronicle.” “I wandered around aimlessly in the fog. and slowly an idea was born. I would make London win-dow-conscious. and after the fog would be. the time to do it.
“I got a pail, ladder and chamois leather and tackled the housewives of Mayfair. “I put a real Yorkshire polish on the windows. I cleaned knockers and doorknobs and my customers soon became so numerous that I had to have assistants.”
To-day Mr. Smith is proprietor of one of Loudon’s largest window cleaning companies.
"A few days after 1 started my work 1 wondered what would happen if I fell. I tried to insure myself, but. the premium was prohibitive. "A few of us got together.” continued Mr.. Smith, “and with a capital of £l9O a company was floated.”
By now the company has a paid-up capital of 500 times that amount.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19350413.2.125.7
Bibliographic details
Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 169, 13 April 1935, Page 18
Word Count
229WINDOW CONSCIOUS Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 169, 13 April 1935, Page 18
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 New Zealand licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in