THE first time Loyd Hitchmough tried his hand at reconditioning an Aga cooker was nearly his last. He had bought the cooker and it took him eight hours to get it out of its owner’s kitchen, something that should have taken less than an hour.

“If I hadn’t paid the guy in advance I would have just walked away. It was that difficult,” he said. “I thought, bloody hell, what have I done here — but I just persevered with it and at the end of the day the Aga was in the back of my van.”

It was worth the effort. This year his company, Cheshire Cookers, will sell 600 reconditioned Aga cookers and have a turnover of £3m.

Hitchmough was born and brought up in Manchester where his father ran his own used-car business. At first, going into business did not interest Hitchmough.

An only child, he was keen on music and learnt to play the piano and clarinet at a young age. He was good at it and after leaving school went to music college.

His other big interest was canal boats, and while he was at college he lived for two years on an old slipper launch that he had bought and restored.

After three years at college, however, Hitchmough realised he was not interested in becoming a professional musician.

“I wanted to get a job and start earning money. All my friends had jobs and money to spend and I felt as though I was missing out. I wanted to be buying clothes and going to the pub like everybody else.”

So after graduating from music college he had a complete change of lifestyle. He sold the boat and got a job with the gas board as an administrator processing bills.

“I regretted letting the boat go but I have no regrets at all about letting the music go.

It was just a stage in my life,” said Hitchmough.

After 12 months with the gas board he got a job selling cars, like his father, and ended up spending 15 years in the industry, eventually becoming a general manager for Honda.

“Sales was something that came quite naturally to me,” he said.

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