The Kitchen Designer

The phone rang out just as I was dozing in front of the open fire. The boys were getting ready to watch The A Team and we had just finished an early supper in anticipation of a quiet night in and receiving a few ‘trick or treaters’ from the estate.

I picked up the receiver, “Hi, John here”

“Hi, John it’s Sonny,” my Manager at work, “I’ve got an appointment for you tonight”

“I said I wanted to spend this evening at home, it’s Halloween and the boys have been looking forward to it”

“Sorry, mate, there’s no-one else, we’re really pulled out, It’s at eight tonight. Young couple, certain sale, I wouldn’t waste your time if I thought it wasn’t”

The problem with selling on commission only, is that you have to take the jobs that are offered, otherwise they dry up. Sonny makes his money on his team’s sales and so he prefers someone who is hungry and willing to work hard. Turn down too many jobs and the phone will stop ringing altogether.

“OK” I said reluctantly, “Where is it?”

“Clenchwarton”

“Where in God’s name is Clenchwarton”

“It’s about three miles outside of Kings Lynn in Norfolk”

“That’s over two hours away, Sonny. Is there no-one closer that could do it?”

“Look, John, I told them I was sending my best designer and said you would do a good job for them, that’s it mate”. He put the phone down and I guessed that must be the end of the discussion.

It was five-thirty at night. Looking out of the window, I saw it was pitch black dark and a sluggish Lincolnshire fog hung in the air. I went upstairs and splashed cold water on my face, a quick squirt of Eau Sauvage, my one indulgence ever since my seventeenth birthday, and changed into my ‘work clothes’. The last thing I wanted to do was to look like a salesman, so I took my wrinkled and well worn suit and shirt out of the wardrobe and donned a tie loosely. The perfect ‘office worker, stressed kitchen designer’, look.

Setting off on a two hour journey, in the days before sat nav, meant planning using the old fashioned method of opening a map book, often several adjoining pages, and looking for the best route. Fortunately I had driven most of that route several times before so, a quick glance was all it took.

I said goodnight to the boys and my wife and set off.

Like all good ‘kitchen designers’ I drove a Citroen GS, a nice family car. I had a BMW in the garage, but that was for pleasure and my wife drove an MGB GT. However, someone once told me that driving a family car, rather than being a ‘flash git’ in a merc, will bring you more sales when dealing with the public. How right they were.

The fog continued to thicken as I drove through the flatness of Lincolnshire and into Norfolk. On a warm sunny day there is little beats the scenery of the fields of yellow wheat swaying in the breeze, or the massive glass houses of Holbeach growing the nations salad.

But in the fog there is a monotonousness that is impenetrable. Mile after mile of dreary roads, blinded by oncoming cars and splashed by overtaking idiots who obviously have better eyesight than I.

Parking outside the little semi in the village of Clenchwarton, I tousled my hair and pulled my tie a little to the side, grabbed my planner and briefcase and rang the bell. I was greeted by a young couple in their early twenties. They looked very apprehensive but excited.

“Hi, I’m John … I’m one of the kitchen Designers. I believe you’re looking for some advice on fitting a new kitchen?”

As the evening progressed, I learned that they had been married for 6 months and that she was expecting their first child. They had decided to take the plunge and have a new kitchen before the birth, so they were looking for something modern, child friendly and CHEAP!!

The key to all kitchen design is the budget.

“Do you have any budget in mind?”

The standard answer came: “Well, we haven’t really thought about it …”

“Let me help you. I can design a kitchen for a thousand pounds or so, or we could go up to the most expensive kitchen I designed at thirty thousand. Which end of the scale would you like to be?”

“We’ve got £950, we were hoping that we could get a good one for that, We’ve looked in B&Q and that’s about the price but my husband’s not very good at DIY”, she looked at me with a wry smile …

I knew, in my heart of hearts , that I could not design anything that would cost less than £1200 … What the hell, young couple, Halloween, I’ve got a long way back and it’s a rubbish night, let’s do something good.

I set to work -measuring, planning, working out the ‘sacred triangle’ of kitchens and came up with a design to beat all designs for the size of the room. They loved it, until I told them the price - £1250 fitted.

I watched them melt, their dreams shattered.

“However,” I said, “Tonight is your lucky night and as a designer I don’t get sales commission as I would if I were a salesman, so I can take that off the price, and we do have a special offer that means the dishwasher and extractor are free, so that brings the cost down to … £950”

I got into my car with a huge grin on my face. Someone was happy, I had done my bit. I often wonder if they remember the eccentric ‘designer’ who ‘gave’ them their first kitchen all those years ago.

The journey home was through dense fog and open countryside, I had missed halloween, the trick or treaters, the ghosts of yesterday.

I was driving a little too fast in my haste to get home and out of this weather. Suddenly, as I approached a corner, on the narrow country lane, I saw it - at five foot tall the figure was a ghostly white, with eyes that glowed in the headlamps and almost scared the life out of me. I hit the brakes and the car slid across the road onto the verge.

I was shaking, as I looked up, the ghostly figure still stared at me, and to say I was frightened was an understatement. Was this the reward I got for helping out a young couple? What was it about to do?

As I sat there, with the engine racing and my foot on the clutch, the Barn Owl, that was sat on the whitewashed gate post, rose majestically and flew away …

At the office on Monday morning, I was informed , by Sonny, that I owed the company £300 for underselling a kitchen and if I ever did that again I would be fired.

The following month, November 1987, I sold £78,000 worth of kitchens, was salesman of the month, won a magnum of champagne, resigned and, with the £7800 commission, took my family for a six week holiday to Florida.

That was thirty five years ago … but I shall never forget Halloween 1987 when a Barn Owl, sat on a gatepost, in a Lincolnshire Fog, made me believe my time on this earth had come to an end.