3 generations of Carrison, Graham, Ian and Adam are interviewed for Humber TV. You can see the video at MagicCote Interview.
Video Transcript
Valerie: Hi everyone, welcome to Humber.tv. Today we've got the MagicCote boys, the Carrison men. So today we start with Graham
Graham: I'm Graham
Ian: I'm Ian
Adam: I'm Adam
Valerie: There are 3 generations and if Graham's dad was still around there would be 4. But youv'e got a little one coming, a girl, due in October. Would you let a girl into the male fold? (laughs)
So tell us what you do. Why MagicCote, what is it all about?
Graham: Well, we're cleaning specialists.
Ian: Yes, MagicCote the name, is actually a product. We were so impressed with the product that we named the company after it.
Valerie: What is the product?
Ian: It is a range of cleaning products. Chewing gum repelents, anti-graffiti coatings, sealers, graffiti removal products
Valerie: So you clean everything from footpaths with mould on it, to graffiti on the walls. Chewing gum's a massive issue isn't it?
Graham: Our best saying is no job too small, no job to large. And the point of that is that we have done the biggest job in Hull and that was Smith and Nephew, all the cladding there. And then we could do a small job like your patio.
Valerie: With Smith and Nephew, it wasn't just the walls, it was the roof as well?
Graham: Yes, it was the whole of the outside cladding, which is a massive area, and of course it was about 150 feet.
Adam: About 80-90 metre
Graham: Wwe were worried we wouldn't even have the pressure at the top. But our equipment is so good we were able to do the job.
Valerie: I like this generation thing, we've got feet and we've got metres! But you also did Westminster.
Ian: This was to get chewing gum off the floor. We fired dry ice at it because no other company could do it.
Valerie: Oh, you did it?
Ian: They had a pressure washing company in there, but it was lifting the 1200 year old floor. They had another company that fired, sprayed it with CO2 to freeze it, but that was scratching it. We said we could do it, we fired dry ice at it at 800 mph at -80 degrees and it just lifted the chewing gum off like a coin and never marked the floor whatsoever.
Graham: And hardly any residue.
Valerie: Oh wow!
Ian: And that was just before the Queen came.
Valerie: Oh really, so you got it all ready?
Ian: Yes, just before she came. She still didn't invite us!
Valerie: Didn't she? That's a bit rude isn't it? (laughs) Is it difficult working as a family? Is it an issue for you?
Adam: It is and it isn't!
Graham: It's not easy for him (Adam). It's more difficult for him than anyone else.
Adam: I know when my dad's stressed out, so..
Graham: He (Adam) is the one who's building up the window cleaning side of the business. And there's a lot of responsibility, and he's doing a real good job of it. He dad works, always, he's been a great worker, ever since he was a kid. And I don't do anything! I get a few leads.
Valerie: But they keep you out of mischief! (laughs)
Ian: He comes to all the company dos, especially if there's alcolhol involved!
Valerie: Well, you've got to get things lubricated to keep things moving! (laughs) But working a family is like a full on thing. Do you do different jobs, or do you constantly work with dad?
Adam: No, we interact on parts.
Ian: Yes, very rarely we're working together. He's in charge of one thing, I'm in charge of another.
Valerie: Do you go holidays all together?
Graham: We have been. Most of us went last time, but you didn't come (Adam) did you?
Ian: It's very difficult. If 3 of you go, there's no-one to run the company. There's got to be at least one of us here.
Valerie: How many employees do you have?
Ian: 7 of us altogether.
Valerie: So you've got quite a few. So with the window cleaning side, who do you look after now?
Adam: We do all the MacDonalds in Hull, Marks and Spencer, basically a lot of shops.
Valerie: And you clean these every day?
Adam: Some every day, some fortnightly, they all vary on the size of the company and the shop.
Graham: If the shop's not doing very well, what they do, say they had their windows cleaned once a week, they will go to once a fortnight, cut their expense down like that.
Ian: The first thing they cut back on is cleaning. It they have to save money, they'll save it that way.
Valerie: But there windows are like a third sales person.
Graham: Well, exactly. Your first salesman is clean windows. If your windows aren't clean, you can't see the products.
Valerie: And people at night looking through the windows, with the oily marks there.
Adam: And the amount of lipstick I have to take off.
Valerie: Oh really? People kissing the window?
Adam: Especially pubs.
Graham: I told him to stop wearing it! (laughs)
Valerie: Is it a special chemical you need to get rid of it?
Adam: No, no.
Valerie: What about everlasting lipstick?
Adam: No, it still comes off.
Valerie: Oh, it still comes off?
Ian: Fairy Liquid, you can't beat it!
Valerie: So you enjoy it, did you want to be part of it?
Ian: No, I was a mechanic. And I left to help my dad.
Graham: People were that pleased with him that he stayed.
Ian: It was about 25 years ago. Adam always wanted to come into it, but we made him get a trade. He actually went to be a mechanic.
Valerie: So you were a mechanic as well?
Graham: You got a degree in it and everything, didn't you?
Ian: And then all he ever wanted to do was come and work for u.
Valerie: Really?
Adam: Yes.
Valerie: Oh wow! It's actually your dad, Graham, who started it all off, wasn't it? How did he start it off?
Graham: Yes, hes actually started it off as a small window cleaner by himself. But he bought some work, I actually saw the receipt for the work. He bought 30 shillings or £1.50 of work and paid £65 for it, 5 shillings a week. And that was his start, and he built it up.
Valerie: Is this in the local area?
Graham: In Hull, yes. He was called up and went to war, and he got wounded in France, and during that time, my mother died. So she was trying to run the business, but she couldn't do it all. But when he got severley wounded, he didn't think he would be able to climb a ladder anymore. He had his phemar shattered, and he was 2 inches shorter in one leg than the other. But he got over it, and he married one of the nurses that looked after him.
Valerie: Sounds like a love story.
Graham: Well it wan't as far as I was concerned, because she didn't like me, and I didn't like her!
Valerie: Oh really, oh no.
Graham: Well, it's just one of those things. I was probably at the wrong age. But he did really well, and he built another business up, and he got about 6 people working for him in the end. Then I took most of it over, but he broke a promise, he promised me the business, but he gave so much to my half brother, who was then born from my step mother. And he's not flavour of the month, is he?
Valerie: Oh is the step father still involved?
Graham: No, the son is.
Valerie: So, dad started it, you took over, and then..
Ian: I got involved and then built it up from, not just doing window cleaning, doing industrial cleaning, high level cleaning, and then we've gone into pressure washing which we actually bought another company out because he's gone to Australia!
Valerie: I don't know why! (laughs)
Graham: But he's got some cleaning in Australia, on a bigger scale, a different type of thing.
Ian: Waste disposal, and he's doing well out there.
Valerie: So each generation has added a new dimension to the whole cleaning business.
Graham: It has. It's a different product altogether to window cleaning and that's why there are 2 separate issues.
Valerie: It started off as solely window cleaning.
Graham: It did, but if you notice just after the war, people used to have individual cleaners to clean premises. And then it got that big companies came in they did all the cleaning; the window cleaning and everything.
Ian: Site security, and all sorts of things like that.
Valerie: Oh really, is that what your dad did?
Graham: No, he just stuck to window cleaning.
Valerie: Right, yeah.
Graham: And we had a lot of work in them days. It was threepence a window. I can't remember how many times you had to go up and down a ladder to win a pound, but it was a lot. It was hard going.
Ian: But a pound went a long way then!
Graham: I can remember earning 5 pound one day, and that was all on these threepenny windows. I started at 7 o'clock and did all the bottom windows first, and then went and did all the top windows.
Valerie: That was your strategy? So has the art of window cleaning changed over the years in three generations?
Ian: Yes, there's health and safety regulations.
Adam: We don't use ladders, it's all poles and we use purified water.
Valerie: Oh, purified water? So do you have a filtration system?
Adam: Yes, there's a filter system.
Valerie: Oh wow. So when did ladders come out of favour?
Ian: It was about 6 years ago in Hull. There was another accident and a lad got killed. They were trying to phase them out anyhow in the town centre. You aren't really supposed to use a ladder at all.
Valerie: Oh, right.
Graham: Still, there's some of them still do though.
Ian: Yeah, but if health and safety catch you, there's a big fine. And also the premises that you're cleaning get fined as well, because with health and safety you have to do a risk assessment. If you're not working to your risk assessment, which obviously you won't be if you're using a ladder, there can be serious consequences.
Valerie: Oh, well, it's very involved, isn't it?
Graham: Yes, we did some work with Al Bennett, didn't we, and the health and safety document was about that thick (shows an inch gap between finger and thumb). There's reams of it. And a lot of it is just common sense. It's things that you would do. But there's some gobble de gook in there.
Ian: I don't think the health and safety man would like to hear you say that! But they've got to cover every aspect, that's the problem.
Valerie: I was on holiday with my mum in Luxembourg and we went down all these windy roads, and there was this ladder, I don't know what degree it was, and to make the ladder flat, they had phone books under the ladder. So I took photographs of it, like I can't believe that this would happen in the UK! It was amazing!
Graham: Actually, anywhere it was hilly, in York or Bridlington, they used to carry wedges with them for that very reason. You used to put the ladder up and knock the wedge in so that it was stable. I can always remember, I was telling our Ian. I was doing this job,
and we didn't do the high bit of this high rise. And one day he said to me, "Graham, will you do me a favour?". I said, "What?". He said, "Will you do them six windows?". So I says, "Yeah, alright". And I realised there was a reasonable ledge under the window, so I got out, cleaned all these windows, climbed back in. And he says, "Cor, I wouldn't have done that for all the tea in china! It's frightening. How much do I owe you?". "Six shillings.", and he said, "Six bloody shillings, you've got to be joking!"
Valerie: So you weren't strapped on with any harness or anything? So I guess you have no fear of heights at all?
Graham: No, not in them days. I've known many old window cleaners. I've known many bold window cleaners. But I don't know many old, bold, window cleaners.
Valerie: I don't know, I guess it was pretty bold to get out on that window ledge and cleaning those windows.
Ian: But those days are gone, unfortunately. That was the challenge of the job. The fear factor was what attracted you to it, the height and all that. But now it's all with big poles.
Graham: But I was really high up on that one.
Valerie: Is that the Smith and Nephew one?
Graham: Yes. Really high.
Ian: But we were on moving platforms, which is a totally different ball game.
Graham: You're chained in as well.
Valerie: Oh, you're chained in as well?
Adam: With a harness, you're clipped in.
Valerie: Oh, ok.
Adam: A little bit of wind and it rocks it a little bit.
Valerie: Oh, really? So was it a windy day? Is there any speed of wind you can't do it any more?
Graham: Well we moved to a corner one day because of that.
Ian: Sometimes, if it gets that bad.. the machines are made for wind, but it does get a bit hair raising.
Valerie: It's right next to the ocean, isn't it?
Graham: Yes. It's alyways colder down there, isn't it.
Valerie: How did you get this job at Westminster Abbey? That's a pretty big thing. How come they chose you, all the way up here?
Ian: Nobody else would do it.
Graham: No-one else could do it.
Valerie: Did you know you could do it?
Ian: Well, it was a bit of a gamble. We went down and started it. They said, that's fine, get on and do it. Because, as I said, the Queen was coming, she was coming on the Wednesday, and we were there on the Monday. And it had to be done. It was 'ok, just get it done'. Otherwise he was going to rent carpet and carpet the whole of the Abbey.
Graham: But can you imagine, there's cloistered areas with gravestones and they spit chewing gum on it, and walked on it. It's digusting.
Valerie: But in Singapore, they banned chewing gum.
Ian: But they've let them chew gum again becuase they're trying to do a cigarette ban. So they thought if they give them Nicorette, they'll stop smoking. But they've actually banned it again. Do you know what chewing gum's made of?
Valerie: I think it's plastic.
Ian: Plastic. It used to be a latex rubber, and we would just add chemicals which would dry it up into a dust which would just blow away. Now, with it being plastic, nothing degrades it.
Graham: It's very hard to get up.
Ian: Even once we've removed it, it's still there. But it's just not sticky because we've removed all the oil, so we can sweep it up. But the plastics are still there.
Valerie: It's incredible when you think if you ingest that., you think that plastic's sitting in your belly.
Ian: Yes, it's there. You can't get rid of it.
Valerie: But it didn't leave any oily residue when you did the job? It was completely clean?
Ian: Yes, unbelievable. I have to admit, I was surprised.
Valerie: Wow, they must have loved you.
Ian: If I'd known it was going to be such a good job, I would have doubled the price! (laughs)
Valerie: To think you had the Queen coming, you had a deadline! Deadline tax! That must have been a great thing for MagicCote.
Graham: Yes, it was.
Valerie: You must have been interational success story.
Graham: They even said at the end of the speech how they were now looking for referrals from the Lord Mayor of London, her majesty the Queen, the Archbishop, etc, etc.
Ian: Well, MagicCote, the product, although we didn't put it on after Westminster job, the outskirts of Westminster, Picadilly and all that, on the actual streets, MagicCote was put on so chewing gum won't adhere to it.
Graham: It degrades in a fortnight.
Ian: It will stick to the floor, so it doesn't actually stick to your shoes. But the oils, as they get squashed out don't go into the brick, the oil is sticking to the brick, so the road sweepers come along and it's just lifted off. So if you can imagine a street, brand new layed street, with 2 weeks worth of chewing gum on it, it will never have any more than that. So in five years time, there still only be 2 weeks worth of chewing gum, if you know what I mean, but it will all be in different places. This is becauase it takes two weeks to get rid of all the oils and lift off.
Valerie: Oh, ok, so how long does the MagicCote stay on the cement for?
Graham: It's guaranteed for five years.
Valerie: Even in this winter when we get all this rain?
Ian: Yes, it's a penetrative coating. It soaks into the brick. Each brick is different. Some of them only take 1mm, some will take 3mm. The only way to get rid of it is to wear that brick down. If it's 3mm thick, it will take 10 years for it to wear down, on pedestrian traffic. If it's 1mm, we only guarantee if for 5 years.
Valerie: Ok, so who is using your products now? Which councils are using it?
Ian: Westminster.
Valerie: Of course, I think they must be your biggest fans!
Ian: Blackpool, Newcastle, St. Helens, we just won a big contract in Durham to clean all the old paving in the market square because they're having it all re-layed. That's working alongside South Corea. But I don't think they're going to have it sealed. It is quite expensive.
Valerie: But wouldn't it offset the costs?
Graham: It will in the end.
Valerie: I guess you are looking really long term investment.
Ian: Well, they did work it out, it's something like; it costs a penny to make a piece of chewing gum, it costs on average 10 pence to remove a piece of chewing gum.
Graham: So, it's an expensive product.
Ian: I don't know anyone who chews chewing gum. Alex Furgeson. Do you know people who chew gum? But yet you look on the streets and it's all over.
Valerie: Yeah, I'm trying to think, too.
Graham: You have a walk down there and see how much chewing gum is there.
Valerie: It's amazing, isn't it, yeah. So what't the future for MagicCote, are you going to take over the world and make the world chewing gum free? Have you gone overseas, over the water?
Graham: We had a letter from the New York cleansing and sanitation department. They heard about the Westminster Abbey.
Ian: Yeah, they are buying the product from MagicCote itself.
Valerie: Do you get a percentage of that?
Ian: No, we don't get a percentage of that because we are applicators, the appliers, and nobody else can apply it. Well, people can apply it, but they don't get the guarantee with it.
Valerie: Obviously it's a skill, knowing how porous that brick is, so it's like anything.
Graham: It's experience.
Valerie: It's experience, obviously, and you have four generations of experience. Do you dream about it? Do you dream about cleaning windows?
Ian: I have nightmares about it! (laughs)
Valerie: Do you dream about Graham?
Graham: No. (laughs)
Valerie: You dream about other things! (laughs) Don't say it camera! (laughs) This is a family show, Graham! (laughs)
Ian: What we're doing now, is just working on our last million, aren't we, then we can retire!
Valerie: You've given up on the first one, just going straight onto the third million! Boys, thank you very much for coming.
All: Thank you.
Valerie: So, everyone, this is the MagicCote, the Carrison boys and maybe next time, we'll have the little one! She'll be coming along with a little squeedgie, won't she, washing windows? So I'm Valerie Prentice, and thanks very much for watching.
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