Every time we got a new client at Grant Thornton it was a big deal, mainly because the firm leaked away existing clients so fast. Chartered Accountancy firms were not allowed to advertise so appointments came via recommendations from lawyers, banks or other clients. Ernst Whinney (now Ernst & Young) were the biggest national firmContinue reading “The lot we used to pass everyday”
Tag Archives: Grant Thornton
We got a thousand points of light
Second year accountancy exams, Professional Examination 1 (PE1) were the real thing. The first-year exams just proved you could go on to do these. Revision courses for the five subjects were in Cambridge again, but at least I had a reliable car, even if it was the cheapest Fiesta imaginable (995cc and no heated rearContinue reading “We got a thousand points of light”
Nobody’s Ever Taught Ya To Live Out On the Street
At Grant Thornton our biggest client when I joined was Eastern Counties Farmers. It was a farming collective that existed to serve farmers in the region. It traded in agri-products and equipment as well as providing services to the farming community. It turned over close to £100 million. We all hated it as the staffContinue reading “Nobody’s Ever Taught Ya To Live Out On the Street”
I’m going down the place tonight
At Grant Thornton (GT) we always needed clients – it was meant to be the job of the partners to go out and get them but they always seemed to be in the office – in the summer watching cricket in the boardroom and in the winter listening to it on the radio. We tookContinue reading “I’m going down the place tonight”
This is the coastal town that they forgot to close down
There is something about of season seaside towns – Clacton, Yarmouth, Southend, even Felixstowe. A lot of closed shops and one or two open amusement arcades ringing away to the sound of the hard-core fruity fan or a group of teenagers in the evening. My first proper job at Grant Thornton was the audit ofContinue reading “This is the coastal town that they forgot to close down”
The world turns around
Every year Grant Thornton recruited a group of trainees. You not only had to be good at the job but you also had to pass the tough exams each year – failure more than once would mean you were definitely gone. The trick was to recruit the right number of graduates to balance the lossesContinue reading “The world turns around”
I hear a song blow again and again
When you’re an auditor you can have clients all over the place. Some big clients have audit teams there for months, Grant Thornton had mostly smaller jobs that would take a week or two. Somehow the firm ended up with jobs all over East Anglia, probably to do with low population density. We had aContinue reading “I hear a song blow again and again”
The City was sticky and cruel
I have been on both ends of redundancy. When I made people redundant while I was working in the insolvency team it seemed unreal – I was living a charmed life where my career was just on the rise. This came to a shuddering halt when Grant Thornton made me redundant. This despite a boomingContinue reading “The City was sticky and cruel”
Will someone turn the light on
Insolvency work can have its scary moments. In January 1992 Grant Thornton were appointed as administrators of a group of companies that ran several amusement arcades in Clacton -on-Sea and Walton-on-Sea. The companies were owned by an ex-Traveller family, whose patriarch treated it as an extension of his private bank account. The group comprised sixContinue reading “Will someone turn the light on”
Do You Ever Wonder Why?
This blog is meant to be a positive thing, not harping on about negative things in life. This will be one of the exceptions. I have already done several posts about people who I worked for that were brilliant, it would be very false if I did not talk about the two who were veryContinue reading “Do You Ever Wonder Why?”
Five Miles Out 