Each week, we ask small businesses some key questions. This time we speak to Vernon Kennard, who runs family firm Loch Ness Pianos in Dochgarroch, Inverness-shire
How and why did you start in business?
I didn’t. Great (times four) grandad Isaac did in 1825 or thereabouts in Margate, Kent.
My granddad told me all about him being a captain at Trafalgar, where he was killed.
This story was my main claim to fame at school but I soon discovered it was total nonsense as the old boy was trading up the east coast of England for years after. He made a short excursion to the Australian Ballarat gold rush in the 1860s, returning with a large gold nugget on his watch chain.
How did you get to where you are today?
I dropped out of school as a German, French and history scholar and obliged dad to employ me vacuuming dust out of pianos.
I had two years national service in the artillery in Germany, surveying, doing strange dangerous secret things that were never made clear to us, blowing things up and keeping the red hordes at bay on Luneburg Heath.
After that came an apprenticeship at Monington piano factory (London) and lecturing at the Northern Polytechnic (now London Metropolitan University) teaching pupils in the evening what I had learned during the day – for a salary.
Who helped you?
Serendipitous chums, Lloyds Bank believe it or not and subsequently the Federation of Small Businesses, which gave good advice.
What has been your biggest mistake?
Perhaps my greatest disappointment could substitute for this one.
After tuning (former Prime minister) Edward Heath’s pianos in Broadstairs over many years, I was disappointed when in his memoirs he glowingly mentioned his piano tuner but attributed his praise to someone else. His secretary apologised though.
What is your greatest achievement?
Getting my grade one surveying degree in the artillery. It gave me two stripes, an extra tenner a week, a licence to blow things up and seniority over my three closest chums.
If you were in power in government, what would you change?
I would renationalise the rest of the railways, power, the Post Office, BT and water.
It’s completely ideologically dotty to have these all privatised when they are commonly-used utilities. If electricity costs say 2p an ounce at the generating station, then all companies have to pay the same. They just jumble it all up into various tariffs and hope you choose the wrong one. But this doesn’t make me a raving Marxist.
What do you still hope to achieve?
My immediate achievements have been realised with the rejection of independence for Scotland as a romantic and daft idea.
What do you do to relax?
I mend pianos. It is very satisfying to restore an ancient Joanna, put together in a different age, to near original condition.
I also make violas about one every two years and play with my boat on the Caledonian Canal outside our house, polishing and varnishing it in readiness for the long-distance voyage of a lifetime.
What are you currently reading, listening to or glued to on the TV?
I read lots – Wittgenstein (philosopher) at the moment. I’m on page three and he’s got the whole thing wrong already. I despair.
I am trying to view episode five of King of Thrones but can’t get a spot – everybody else hogs the TV. It seems that I missed episode three, which could explain some of my confusion over the later episodes.
I remember somebody being defenestrated (thrown out a window) and an attack on the wall that left me rather more confused than usual, though that could have been the Johnnie Walker.
What do you waste your money on?
Goldfish.
How would your friends describe you?
I am sure they are playing on my lowered mental resilience after the referendum campaign.
Most of my friends describe me as a very fine chap – honest, dependable and a good egg in all respects.
Two beautiful ladies of my acquaintance describe me as special and “gravy”, I think the term was.
What would your enemies say about you?
How would I have any enemies?
What do you drive and dream of driving?
I drive a green Honda of some kind. I dream of driving a similarly comfortable jam jar that uses far less petrol and has far fewer dents and scratches.