Nell took over the business the year her father decided he had had enough of paperwork. She spent the first eighteen months doing the unglamorous half: a proper MOT lane, a four-gas analyser, a diagnostic rig that talks to every module on a modern car, and a booking system that means nobody is told "sometime Thursday" any more. What she did not change was the pricing. Labour is still charged in quarter hours rather than rounded up to the hour, the first diagnostic hour still comes off the bill if we do the repair, and nothing goes on an invoice that was not agreed on the phone first.

Ray is semi-retired, which in practice means he is here every Thursday and most Saturday mornings, working on whatever came in that week that nobody under fifty knows how to set up. He can balance a pair of SUs by ear and has been known to diagnose a misfire from the car park. He is also the reason we still take on pre-1990 work when almost every other garage within twenty miles has quietly stopped: the tooling is here, the manuals are here, and so is the person who read them the first time round.

Tannery Lane runs off the Vallis Way end of Frome, which means we are five minutes from the town centre and about fifteen from the A361 in either direction. Most of our customers are in Frome, Beckington, Mells, Nunney and Rode, and a fair number now come from Trowbridge and Warminster because someone at work sent them. We are a Frome business in the ordinary sense too: we bank in the town, we sponsor the Saturday junior football, and if we let you down you will very likely see us in the market on the way home.