57 THE ROLLS ROYCE AND THE KETTLE

JCB (or more formally J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited) was founded by Joseph Cyril Bamford in October 1945 in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, England.

After the war, Bamford initially worked for English Electric developing electric welding equipment. A short return stint with the family firm proved unsuccessful, and his Uncle Henry released him, saying he thought Joe had “little future ahead of him”.

So in October 1945 Bamford rented a small lock-up garage for 30 shillings (£1.50) a week. In it, using a welding set which he bought second-hand for £1 from English Electric, he made his first vehicle: a tipping trailer. It was made from war-surplus Jeep axles and steel sheeting that had been part of air-raid shelters, amongst other things.

On the day his son Anthony was born, Joe sold the trailer at a nearby market for £45 (plus a part-exchanged farm cart) and at once made another trailer. It was the beginning of an on-going success.

Part of Bamford’s success was down to the fact that he was different from many engineers; he had an instinct for customer service and innovation. Bamford personally demanded to know daily from his staff how many “JCB Yellow” vehicles were off the road awaiting spares. Bamford created an image that JCBs were there to work, and if an owner-operator’s machine was down, then he wanted to know about it.

He also knew that customers liked the personal touch and so even in his 60s he would often accompany a new vehicle as it was delivered, doing so in his Rolls-Royce with its distinctive JCB1 number plate. “They like to see a British manufacturer in a Rolls-Royce, it gives distributers confidence,” he would say.

One day he accompanied Head Demonstrator, John Wheeldon, a long-term colleague and friend, as he delivered a new machine to a client in Derbyshire. John Wheeldon went through a full display of all the exciting features and the highly impressed client said, “This does everything but make the tea!”

Bamford went straight home and tweaked the cab’s design that very night – so that since then, for nearly 50 years, every JCB has had a kettle and a power socket on board. Some of the latest ones have actually got coffee machines…⁹

Bamford continued to accompany the delivery of new vehicles and would personally carry the kettle separately in his Rolls so he could formally present it to the new owners

And the moral is that even when you think you have thought of everything, there is always room for improvement. What are you doing to make your offer even better?

⁹ JCB has a unique place in popular culture:

• In 1958 the singer Lenny Green had a song called JCB and Me.

• In the UK version of the Teletubbies, one of the live-action visual five-minute segments featured number counting involving vehicles in lines. A row of JCBs are seen in line, their hydraulics operated as if they are “dancing”.

• The Lego Technic range featured a scale-model of the JCB backhoe (Set 8862), complete with working hydraulics systems (simulated using pneumatics) and many other features of the original.

• In series 9 of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson bought a JCB Fastrac 8250 and he, James May and Richard Hammond all had to reverse their vehicles around the Top Gear car park.