There was never any doubt that Keith Fryer was going into the timber business.
His grandfather had started a chair frame manufacturing and upholstery business RG & J Scrivener based in Clapton, which his father duly took over following World War II.
Keith remembers when he was just five years old going with his dad to work on Saturday mornings.
“My father used to creep around hoping he wouldn’t wake me up,” he remembers.
“But I wanted to go. In those days there was no health and safety and during the school holidays I was covered head to foot in sawdust.”
There was always an unspoken agreement that he would follow his father into the business.
As a result, he never really worked at school. It was years later that he realised he needed qualifications and did night school courses at the local college.
His father bought another similar business in West Norfolk, where Keith moved in 1975. From the age of 16 until 21 he worked at the firm and he remembers it was a time of inflation and strikes. With his father’s ill-health he took on more and more responsibilities.
“At the age of 21 I was doing all the accounts and all the wages for 30-40 staff. I was running the business on a day-to-day basis. But I was extremely stressed at the time and I was relieved when the family decided to shut the business down.
“I had to make everyone redundant and we all went to the dole office in King’s Lynn.”
After a brief spell at an engineering company where he looked after payroll and accounts, he received two job offers – one was with a refrigeration business and the other was as a sheet material salesman for J T Stanton & Co in King’s Lynn, which was part of Mallinson-Denny.
“I took the easiest option [JT Stanton] and I felt very comfortable with it.”
The company predominantly supplied softwoods to packing case manufacturers, merchants and large builders.
In 1984, at the age of 24 and just married, his wife Jenny won £2,000 in the Times Portfolio competition.
But he didn’t want to buy a car if the boss was going to give him one.
“So I went to see the boss to ask to do a field sales job and get a company car.” Probably because he was ambitious and pushy (in his own words), his wish was granted.
It wasn’t long after when Keith was given the challenge of setting up a new hardwood division for JT Stanton, alongside the day job. He was given a week-long crash course in hardwoods at sister company Parker Kislingbury.
In its first year the hardwood business attracted £400,000 worth of hardwood orders. Keith was later involved in setting up a new glulam and timber engineering section of the company.
His reputation for getting a job done went before him and he was offered a job at the Inverness OSB mill as head of sales aged just 25. But he decided to stay instead and in 1986 Stantons offered him the challenge of turning around the Malden Timber branch in Clapham, at what had been T Brewer & Co.
“Sales had collapsed. It was horrendous. The workforce were extremely militant, they had gone feral. It never got physically violent but it got close at times. We went toe-to-toe. “Often the phone would just ring and I would have to say ‘are you going to answer the phone?’”
“It took a year to turn it around and it established sales of £200,000 a month.”
Wickes bought the business and made Malden a stand-alone business.
“It was an exciting time and I continued to climb the corporate ladder, meaning another move, to Cambridge in 1990, from where our second daughter was born. By that stage I was responsible for 32 branches, from Rotherham to Brighton. Being quite honest about it, the job was almost impossible and was more of an endurance test than a career.” However, with another recession blowing in, Keith decided to move on and worked briefly at a factory finished window section technology firm, before joining door manufacturer Crosby Sarek in 1992.
“So many things were going wrong in so many places at the company, but it was a hoot and we had so much fun,” recalls Keith.
“It was two years of travelling across the UK developing sales to national house builders and it allowed my woodworking experience to blend with sales.” He has a vivid memory of meeting Barratt Homes’ formidable founder Lawrie Barratt at a suppliers event.
“He was unmissable,” Keith recalls. “Are you that Crosby bloke?” asked a very large Site Manager, as Sir Lawrie looked on. Keith suspected what was coming as the burly manager proceeded to rip Keith and the company to pieces in front of everyone, telling him how Barratt’s had been let down by his company. “He was very unhappy about it, but to Sir Lawrie it was probably just an interesting interlude!’
“Afterwards, I went into my boss’s office and said we needed to sort out the problems and how I’d felt humiliated. But he just laughed, delighting in the face that someone else had been the object of wrath for a change. That was the way we rolled”.
T Brewer resurrection But ultimately the temptation to strike out was irresistible.
Two of Keith’s former colleagues at Malden Timber Nick Brewer and Rodney Scoles – had bought the Clapham and Hither Green branches of Malden Timber and invited Keith to join them.
“When I handed in my notice at Crosby they offered me a good deal to stay on. It was very difficult but my mind was made up. If I did not take this position now [at the age of 32] then I never would.”
Keith admits it was risky and things were tight during their second year of business. He invested some money into the business and by the third year it was working very well. “You work day and night when you run a small business.
“By the time we got to the year 2000 we had two branches but then decided to grow, acquiring Amersham in 2005.
“Then we got the bug to get bigger and bought a business in Bishop’s Stortford.” Brewers bought Enfield Timber, taking its branch numbers up to six.
“Business was going well, but then we could see an express train coming as a result of the financial crisis.
“Business dropped by over 30% in one year.”
They took quick action, shutting the Southend and Bishop’s Stortford branches and sold the Hither Green site in a property deal, leaving the business with Clapham, Enfield and Amersham.
The company rode the recession and by 2012/13 the three branches were doing more business than the original six.
“Some good fortune, such as our involvement in the supply line for the Olympic Park, helped get us through and then we rebuilt the business year on year.”
He said the Olympic Delivery Authority understood the timber certification message but with Locog (The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) it was more difficult because of the latter’s initial FSC-only approach.
“The Olympic construction project accepted FSC and PEFC certification as equals, then we were thrown back to the old ways of factionalism”. He thinks the legacy of FSC preference continues and that ultimately the entire supply chain is poorer for it.
He says the inability of the two schemes to come together creates inefficiency and cost for merchants requiring different stock locations for the various certified timber and different codes.
In 2006 Keith’s family had a shock when his wife Jenny contracted breast cancer. “I realised work was not the most important thing in life,” he said.
“It helped me to see that I shouldn’t be so ‘driven’ on the work front.”
Keith said he had also undergone cancer treatment Many years before, though his was relatively small scale.
“You need strength to get through difficult times and our family has been a large part of what has got us through.”
A new chapter beckoned when on January 4 this year, Grafton Group plc bought the T Brewer business.
“We always built the business to sell it, so we always made sure everything was done to high standards,” Keith said.
Looking back at his time at T Brewer, he said it was the complexity on prestigious private works where he gained the most satisfaction.
“I can remember one project where we had to replace all the spar components for the oldest wooden spired church in London. It took a great deal of work, for relatively little return, but it was fascinating.”
He now works within Grafton’s Buildbase division, helping their teams to sell more timber products.
“So far it has been extremely enjoyable and like my time with Crosby Sarek, great fun as well.
TTF Involvement Something which has been of great importance to Keith is his involvement with the Timber Trade Federation (TTF).
He has been a TTF governing board member for many years and a director for about seven years, first as treasurer and now as president.
“I have derived my income from the timber industry and I want to put something back.
“The TTF was a major element of our success at Brewer’s. We gained enormous amounts of information from membership and, along with my writing career with the TTJ, which I combined for around 8 years with the day job, Brewer’s built a profile within the industry that was probably greater than reality.
“I do get a little bit vexed when people raise the ‘what did the TTF ever do for us?’ question. Quite simply, membership should be seen as a badge of honour, because the standards that the TTF sets are way beyond any basic legal requirements and for the supply chain it’s a method of ensuring supply security.”
Away from work, he enjoys clay pigeon and game shooting and is a track day car-driving enthusiast. He enjoys writing and takes a week out every year for writing.
He also makes time for something unusual. This has included learning about Neolithic history and learning to play the ukulele.
He and his wife also support and visit a school in Uganda.
“Some may be surprised to hear that I do have a strong faith and have no embarrassment in saying that. It’s hugely important to me and whilst I see myself as a very tattered Christian, with far more failings than I’d like, it provides the bedrock that has helped to keep me going.”
Both of his two daughters work within the health service; one is an army doctor; the other has an ambition to compete in Paralympic dressage.
Personal Data
Favourite Book: Biographies and historical accounts
Car: Porsche Cayenne. Would like to own a Jensen Interceptor
Music: Diverse – but particularly likes opera and soul
Food: Paella
Film: The Go-Between
Last Holiday: Graceland, Memphis
Sport: Rugby Union
