Dear sir,

I enjoyed your recent article on Stalbridge Linen (October issue, Focused on quality) and it gives me a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction to see the continual growth of the company within Johnsons under the management team who I drove and encouraged to develop themselves as individuals.

I would like to clarify that I still control the original company that built the Stalbridge business. After twenty years, I persuaded Johnsons to purchase the Shaftesbury operation in 1995, when Stalbridge Linen was formed. It then purchased the second unit at Milborne Port from me.

Like a parent with a child, at some point the entrepreneur who builds the company must let go of the reins and exit.

I have cast away my executive suit and a number of inches off the waist, and with the support of my wife and a number of former colleagues, I am once again facing the highs and lows of running a small laundry. The original company now trades as Coulters.