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One of a kind

- April 2011

Jimmy Milne - A journey there and back again

Jimmy Milne has, as an old friend recently put it, “been through the mangle a few times.”

However rather than squeeze the life out of him these trips through the mangle have, he believes, helped make him the success he is.

“It is just a pity it took until I was a pensioner before I got my act together,” he quips.

Today Balmoral Group provides employment for more than 360, turnover is growing rapidly and his enthusiasm for success is as strong as it ever was.

To celebrate Balmoral’s 30th anniversary he has published a second limited edition book which charts the history of the Aberdeen energy revolution. “Black and Green Gold” looks back over the past decade and takes a glimpse into the future and is the sequel to “Black Gold and the Silver City” which was published in 2000 and charted the industry through the previous 35 years.

Sitting in his Loirston office Milne points out of the window and says: “I was born just a mile from here. All I have done is come from the bottom of the hill to the top of the hill – not very far.”

The photographs and mementoes which hang on the walls of the office tell a different story. They show him with Kings, Queens and Princes and reveal the many countries he has travelled to during his path to the top of the hill.

Sometimes it has been a hard fought journey but his indomitable spirit and tremendous drive have ensured that nothing - not even the loss of a £60 million legal action against a supplier - would block his path.

He attributes much of it to his tough childhood as the youngest of the nine children his parents brought up at Home Farm of Tullos.

“I was born on Boxing Day and have been fighting for existence ever since,” he says.

Milne celebrated his 70th birthday last year but to suggest that it might be time to ease up risks permanent impairment by the Samurai sword which sits beside his desk.

“I still feel like a 20-year-old most days and I still have a spring in my step and fire in my belly.

“I am driven by throwing back the frontiers of technology and always trying to beat the biggest and the best in the world. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.

“I can’t stand anyone saying ‘Jim I can’t do this.’ I say let’s just start again. Let’s get rid of the ‘t’ because there is always a way of doing it. I really believe in positive thinking and positive action and with that you can literally shift mountains. Another thing I can’t stand is people coming to me and saying ‘I tried the best I could.’

“Winston Churchill said that to try your best is not good enough - you have to go out and achieve what has to be achieved and there is a gulf of a difference between these mindsets.

“I don’t take no for an answer and I will never give up – but it is not just Jimmy Milne. I drive it but I have a terrific team of guys, very loyal and hard working who take pride in Balmoral and what we do but we never get complacent.

“My first employee is still with me and we have 54 long term members of staff and more than 1000 man-years of polymer experience - and that’s not just me!”

He has no doubt that the hard work ethic goes back to his childhood on the farm.

“Since I was a young loon I was made to work, to calve a coo at two o clock in the morning or get out of bed at four because the bailie (the cattleman) hadn’t appeared.

“My dad gave me nothing without working for it or shedding tears. He was a very strong Christian, a very straight man and at that time I thought he was a bittie too hard, now looking back there is nobody I admire more.”

As a youngster he helped his brother Sandy grow mushrooms, cabbages and lettuces on the farm.

“Sandy used to pay me really well and my mother used to haul me into my bed at 11 o’clock at night and I used to get out of my bed at 4.30 in the morning to give Sandy a help to market with all his produce.”

He eventually took over his brother’s little business but also branched out into doing up cars and hiring them out and selling them.

“One thing I made up my mind on very early in life was there was no way was I going to follow the rest of my family working for my father on the farms.”

However he thought being en engineer would be a good base to build from and learned his trade with Barclay Ross and Hutchison where he spent 10 years before parting company because they wouldn’t give him a rise.

By that time he was in the drawing office and had identified glass reinforced plastics as a material with huge potential and, using his mushroom, cabbage and car hire savings, spent almost three years in Europe, unpaid, carrying out research before eventually launching Aberglen. This was at the beginning of the oil boom and when he couldn’t get a contractor to build his new factory he decided to set up his own company, Aberglen Construction, to do it. It became the biggest municipal builder in the city erecting schools, hospitals and housing schemes. Overseas expansion followed before a combination of circumstances conspired to force the company into receivership.

To this day people still cast up Aberglen to him and he is honest enough to admit: “I handled things all wrong in the end but I think it is very sad that in this country you are a marked man if you just have one failure. In America you can fail two, three or four times before they say you are an experienced man and you really know your stuff.”

Balmoral was also taken to the brink in a prolonged battle with a raw material supplier, a battle which only ended four years ago and which Milne admits left even him “punch drunk and battle weary.”

However that is now behind them, Balmoral’s business is increasing rapidly and the company is about to open a new manufacturing plant in Brazil – “I need that like a hole in my head at my age but the troops want it so I have to back them.”

Milne is now back to his undiplomatic best calling a spade a spade and speaking passionately about the issues which concern him.

While he accepts that there are businessmen without his drive who are happy “just to do enough to get by” that is not for him.

“They should go out and do their bit for Scotland plc and UK plc,” he said. “I find it hard to say Europe. I am a proud Scotsman, happy enough to be British, but Europe is too much for me. I think it wastes billions of pounds and is just jobs for the boys. We should get out of Europe.”

He rejects suggestions that Aberdeen could be a ghost town in a decade as “scaremongering” and believes the city has a great future if everyone pulls in the same direction.

“The great secret in life and in business is to use each other’s strengths and make up for each other’s weaknesses and go in the same direction.

“The North Sea is not our future – the world is our future and that is what we have to keep reminding ourselves. Let’s get pride back in Aberdeen, let’s get Aberdeen cleaned up, and that doesn’t include raising Union Terrace Gardens.

“The owners of the buildings on Union Street should be given a choice and a six month time limit – tidy up your buildings, replace your rotten windows, get rid of the weeds growing out of them or we will do it for you and send you the bill.

“If a place looks scruffy it gives the impression the people in it don’t care.

“The business community should take a greater pride in the city and work with local government to make it a better place and not just expect others to do it for them.”

And then he moved on to a tale about his youth, 365 lambs and a potential Guinness world record. . . but perhaps that’s a Jimmy Milne tale too far.