Our story as featured in the Sunday Express
It was the Twin Towers disaster in 2001 that set Lisa Symons, 34, on
the path to becoming director and sales manager of her family’s
firm, Abbey Antiques, in Romford, Essex, which makes reproduction
furniture and also restores antique furniture.
“I come from a long line of wood craftsmen -- seven generations of us, all working for the family business. The company’s name may have changed slightly over the years, and also the sort of things we make, but it’s always been the same family involved and we’ve always worked in wood. We’ve probably got sawdust in our veins by this time.
“Three of us in the family are working here now, not just me but also my mother Anne and my brother Lee. Even my daughter Lavinia, who’s two, gets in on the act because I bring her to work with me two days a week, just like Mum did with Lee and me when we were little. Grandad, who worked here then, made a chest-of-drawers and gave it to Mum, saying: ‘That’s for the babies while they’re here with you. You put them in the drawers with a little duvet each and they’ll sleep all right.’ And we did.
“As a teenager I wasn’t remotely interested in the family business. I couldn’t think of anything more boring than having to do the books when Mum retired (not that she HAS retired yet!). So at 16 I got away from it all by taking a secretarial course and finding a really challenging job in London, involving marketing, PR and personnel work. I absolutely loved it, and I loved the social life. If I thought about the family firm at all, I just imagined it would go on for ever without a problem.
“But then 9/11 came along, and our export business to the US was so badly hit that Mum and Lee thought the company might have to fold. I thought: ‘You can’t do that because Dad and Grandad, and all our other ancestors going way back, would turn in their graves.’ Rather than let that happen, I quit the London job and joined the family firm, where my main role was trying to find new work to replace the lost business. That was where my experience in marketing and PR came in. I sent out mail shots that targeted everyone from big hotel chains to removal companies who might want new furniture, or old furniture repaired. Gradually the orders rolled in, and we started doing good repeat business. It’s stood us in good stead for the present recession, too.
“We have 10 craftsmen working here now, and their craftsmanship still amazes me. You wouldn’t imagine anyone could restore a chair that’s been smashed into 20 pieces during a house move, or a grand piano that’s been dropped from a forklift. But they do. Most of them knew my father, some knew my grandad. To us, they’re all family as well, and, whatever their job, everyone helps everyone else. No one says: ‘I’m a cabinetmaker, so I can’t help the stainers and polishers.’ They all just muck in when the pressure is on. And so do Mum, Lee and I. There is no way any of us wants this firm to go under.”