One of the timber trade’s most experienced servants is bowing out after more than 50 years.

It’s been a real labour of love for Clifford Champion, the chairman of AW Champion Ltd – and it’s nice to know he will still be handling wood at his personal workshop at home in Surrey.

Mr Champion, now 73, has a reassuring presence. His watchwords are quality and service and he walks around his yard with a certain pride, inviting you to feel the smooth finish of planed timber sections.

He has a paternal view of running a company and believes in looking after staff – as testified by the long service of many employees (only one person has ever been made redundant). ‘The chiefs do not matter as much as the indians,’ he said.

In an age characterised by company mergers and their inevitable redundancies, Mr Champion has remained steadfastly committed to the principle of running a private family-owned company. On more than one occasion over the years his telephone has rung with offers to buy him out, but independence has always won the day.

Timber by default

His entry into the trade following the second world war was by default. His brother was earmarked to go into timber, while his father intended him for ironmongery. But his brother was killed flying bombers during the war.

So, he joined Rounson Drew & Clydesdale in 1946 to learn about ironmongery and subsequently joined his father’s timber business in the New Malden yard, which was bombed in the war.

It was a time of timber rationing (until 1955) and the cheapest transportation was by barge to Putney.

‘The experience of loading timber onto your leather shoulder pad at the bottom of the hull of the barge, coming up on “roadways” (made from timber in the barge) to daylight, then across some 50ft to a waiting lorry, is an experience never to be forgotten,’ said Mr Champion.

His determination to close a deal was demonstrated in 1956 when he did a bit of what he jokingly called ‘industrial espionage’.

‘Billy Smart had a new tent made at the end of the war and needed seating which could be assembled and dismantled quickly. A German circus had such seating and Billy asked if I would go to Germany and they would show me what we needed to know.

‘The Germans had other ideas and would not show me anything! I could not afford the air fare or the time for a wasted journey so I walked into town, bought a flashlight and a ticket for the evening performance. After the show I crawled under the seating, took all the dimensions and notes of the construction and bought it all back to England. We got the contract.’

He still remembers Billy Smart handing over a case stuffed full of cash as payment. The circus master did not deal with banks in those days.

Partitioning venture

In 1956 he started a separate company, called Clifford Partitioning, which grew in size, using considerable amounts of timber and plywood in construction. When it was later sold, the firm was selling more than £1m of partitioning a year.

Mr Champion took over from his father on his retirement in 1962. With finances tight, banks unco-operative and timber being sold very cheap, he decided to look for ‘unusual jobs’ which others were unwilling to try and came up with the motto ‘Intelligence in Timber’.

‘It was not to be long-term but I realised there was a big niche in the market,’ he added.

This focus was to give AW Champion a role to play in arguably England’s greatest sporting triumph. Remember Bobby Moore lifting the 1966 World Cup trophy at Wembley Stadium after England beat West Germany 4-2? Well, it was Champion timber benches that the fans sat on during the historic game.

During the nation’s celebrations, workers at the New Malden depot hung out a banner marking the firm’s role in the triumph.

Other sporting moments include making the world’s first prefabricated cycle track – erected in a mere 36 hours in Rotterdam.

Further tracks were built at Wembley and Earl’s Court before the one for the 1970 Commonwealth Games at Edinburgh – widely praised by riders.

Other unusual items included selling 300,000 wooden backs for industrial scrubbing machine brushes in the 1960s and the sub-contract of some five million milled timber pieces to make television tube pallets.

In 1978 Champion acquired a site in Edenbridge, Kent, where timber sheds were built. The next step was to gain direct access to a Swedish sawmill and, after a few false starts, an agreement was struck with Siljan, resulting in fortnightly timber deliveries.

Then, in 1980, with bank-backing, a £250,000 automatic sawmill with mechanised handling, hailed as the first of its kind in the UK, was constructed at Edenbridge. It is still performing well to this day.

The firm really took off. Six more yards were bought, giving Champion eight in all and increasing sales in an eight-year period by 243%.

The Champion dream of breaking away from an old-fashioned industry into a modern outfit with dry, well-machined timber sold at good prices was coming true.

Today the firm is a merchant, importer, sawmiller and mouldings manufacturer, with a vast range of products catering for building trade customers, other businesses and DIYers.

Mr Champion pays tribute to his employees, saying he was ‘lucky’ to have the assistance of hard-working people with imagination who had the capacity to be part of a team.

He became president of the Timber Trade Federation in 1994 – the first time a small family firm had been so honoured.

Patriotism

He is a patriotic man and not an EU enthusiast. Joining the single currency is tantamount to handing power over to Frankfurt, he believes. He drives a British-built Bentley Turbo, which sports its Union Jack on the side.

As for politics, he votes Conservative.

‘New Labour has not helped at all.

There is so much legislation coming through that we can’t keep track of it.

‘A country cannot need so much new legislation coming through all the time. A government surely should be there to protect the nation. But they are trying to control our lives in every department. And we no longer have freedom of speech.’

Retirement plans

And how does he plan to use his time in retirement? Boating, horses (dressage), history, livery (he is a member of the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths in London) and making items in his workshop at home at Box Hill (he made the gates for the village) all figure in his plans for the future.

He is the joint owner of two horses, Charlie and Binkie (competition names – Prince of Confidence and King of Confidence), which compete in dressage competitions. His boat is moored in Hampshire and earlier this year he was down in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, taking part in the Lord Mayor’s Cup.

And now he is leaving the timber industry, what shape does he think it is in?

‘I think the timber industry now is far better organised than it has been for many years. But I think the companies involved are far too large to take the parental view that the older and smaller companies take.

‘I think the trade generally, through the offices of Forests Forever, is very responsible environmentally. So the future is good, as long as the trade remembers that there have to be operatives handling timber, not just people pushing buttons.

‘There is a huge amount of cladding and decking being sold. There are new avenues for timber – prefabricated housing is increasing and so are timber window frames. We are obviously in fashion. The timber that is available is good, it’s being handled and sold properly, and with the backing of the Nordic people and Wood for Good it has a great future.’

Mr Champion will remain a board member. His son Philip has been managing director of AW Champion since 1990.