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Ron Levett, born in Alfriston, East Sussex, enlisted in 1943, and whilst posted to the British Liberation Army, took part in the liberation of Germany. He then returned to England, setting up his own electronics business and developing an interest in the new entertainment of the time - television.
I left Goodsells and we started working full time on our new business. I met John Wilson (the local builder) down by Wingrove one morning and he said to me 'Do you think that there will be enough work to keep two of you going round here?' I replied that we were pretty confident that we could manage to make a living.
At the time, Frank's father Bob was working as electrician for Wilson's. A year later we had enough work for him to leave his job and join Norvett's. We installed a ring main power supply for Mrs Duke-Wooley who lived next-door to Bob, along with some Dimplex storage heaters during our first month.
We had begun to make our first profits. The Drydex battery delivery van started to make a weekly call to our shop, we could then supply torch and radio batteries.
We looked around and found a Ford Popular van at a reasonable price. This was still rather expensive, second-hand vans were still hard to come by. This was rather rusty in places, so we covered up the worst spots with red oxide. As the van was a mid blue in colour it looked like a piebald.
The interior had been upholstered in cream and blue so it looked better inside than out. The front seats had been replaced by a homemade bench seat, which was not fastened to the floor and would not have passed the MOT if it had been in existence. We needed to carry ladders for aerial work, but could not find a commercial ladder rack to fit the van so we decided to make our own.
John Tutt, the local 'Man from the Pru' asked us if we would be interested in carrying out aerial repairs under insurance for the Prudential. We agreed and the following week got our first job.
When we went to Ringmer and took our first look at it, we found that it was a very high, steep roof and our only ladder was no-way long enough. We went straight down to Shoreham and bought a new hook ladder.
It was quite a difficult job and I found it quite difficult to get used to working at height. Frank had been working on very high buildings in London with his old firm and was quite at home.
In September of our first year, we took a day off to go to the Radio Show at Earls Court. We knew that we needed an agency for one of the better makes of radio and TV.
After calling at some of the manufactures we found that most of them didn't want to know a firm the size of ours, but we did manage to get the agency for McMichael Radio and placed our first order.
We had prospective customers for two sets. We ordered one large console TV with a radio built in below the television. When it arrived the dial for the radio was broken. Luckily we had also ordered a table radio, which used the same chassis and dial, so we fitted this in the console and then ordered a replacement dial from McMichael, free of charge of course.
We had also ordered two 14' table models. These had hand made wooden cabinets, 13 Channel, although only the local channels were fitted. If extra channels were needed they had to be ordered from the makers and fitted.
This system applied to most TV's at the time. We had sold all our stock of TV's by Christmas and we even sold a refrigerator during December. The following year McMichael was bought out by Sobell Ltd, so the sets we bought that year were Sobell models with a McMichael badge.
They were quite good sets but the cabinet quality was not as good as the original McMichael. We took an order for a 17' set complete with aerial for a farm labourer called Angel, who lived in Ripe.
He asked to pay for it on Hire Purchase, so we made out the documents and took them along to the house. He then asked, 'Where do I put my cross?'
This was a bit of a set back. We had to drive a Commissioner for Oaths out from Lewes to witness this cross. I don't think we made a lot of profit from that sale!
Ron Levett, 2001
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