Hitchmough often toyed with the idea of starting his own business but never got very far. “I had been to the bank a few times with a few business plans. They were generally motor-trade-related, like windscreen repairs, bumper repairs, that sort of thing. But I wasn’t able to make them work and I didn’t get the support of the bank.”
Then, in 1996, at the age of 35, he and his wife bought a converted barn in Cheshire and decided that what it really needed in the kitchen was a traditional Aga cooker.
“It was crying out for an Aga but we didn’t have enough money to go out and buy a new one. So we went on the hunt for a second-hand one.”
They found it difficult to track down a reconditioned Aga, but that gave Hitchmough an idea. “It was a very sleepy industry and I thought there could be a niche in the market providing reconditioned Aga cookers.”
This time he was so convinced he was on to a winner he did not even bother drawing up a business plan or talking to his bank manager. “I had £800 in my pocket and so I went out and bought an old Aga,” he said.
After teaching himself how to strip it down and repair it so it looked and performed like a new cooker, Hitchmough sold it and with the money he made bought another old Aga to recondition.
He taught himself everything he knew.
“A lot of it is common sense,” said Hitchmough. “I learnt from my mistakes and made sure that I didn’t make those mistakes again.”
()He put an advertisement in the local paper which brought in both old cookers and people wishing to buy reconditioned ones. “People were phoning me to sell Agas and also to buy Agas. The two formed a magic circle.”
At the time — 1996 — he was buying them for about £1,000 and selling them for just over double that. For his customers, his reconditioned Agas were still a good buy — new Agas sell for more than £10,000.
By this stage he was going all over the country to collect old Agas from people’s houses and then working through the night to repair them.
It was at this point that he decided to give up his car job and concentrate on developing his fledgling business full-time.
“My wife was studying for a degree and we had just had another baby, so it was a bit of a critical time. But I thought I’d grab the bull by the horns and go for it.”
Without any external investment, however, it was hard going. “I had to make sure I sold one Aga to buy the next one and that continued for about two years, living hand to mouth. I would be in Scotland one day and the Isle of Wight the next. It was hard work but it was worth it because I was enjoying it and meeting some incredible people.”
After three years Hitchmough was earning enough money to be able to hire an engineer to help him, training him up himself.
He is now in the process of spending £2m on a new showroom for Cheshire Cookers, which will also enable him to sell kitchens alongside his Agas.
Now 45, Hitchmough thinks the secret of his success has been to keep tight control of the company, which he still owns 100%.
“My philosophy has always been to start low and grow — to expand when we need to, and when we have the money,” he said.
“Our company has benefited from that because I have not got any shareholders breathing down my neck telling me to move in a different direction or to liquidate stock to release capital. We can change direction at any point and, if it doesn’t work, we can just go back to the drawing board. We are masters of our own destiny.”
