Garage man John calls it a day after 58 years in the trade

John Challis ended 58 years of servicing cars when he and his wife, Sylvia, left Bognor Garage for the final time.

They closed the doors of their Shripney Road business after some 46,800 vehicles had passed through its workshop for servicing.

Six or seven MOTs are completed daily. The 52 charge compares with the 1.70 in Mr Challis's early days in the business.

Mr Challis, 73, said people's attitude to motor mechanics had never changed, however.

"People always think of mechanics as just grease monkeys," he explained.

"That has never been the case.

"You have to have brains to understand what goes on underneath a vehicle's bonnet."

That was even more true today as cars had become more and more advanced.

He said: "The cars today are not working men's cars. A person couldn't just have a tinker with their engine outside their home as they used to. They are too complicated now."

Mr Challis became a mechanic in London when he was 15 when a vacancy became available. He met his future wife when she started work as a secretary in the motor trade.

They married in 1958 and moved to Bognor 36 years ago to take on a petrol station on Shripney Road with a taxi business attached.

They developed the small amount of repair work, with a lot of Lec customers from the other side of the road, and closed the petrol business when Tesco opened in the mid-80s.

Mrs Challis, 69, has been busy with the paperwork all those years.

Many of their customers have stayed loyal through the decades. Tears have flowed from some of them when Mr and Mrs Challis, of Rucrofts Close, Aldwick Felds, have spoken about their retirement.

The couple plan to see their two sons and four grandchildren in Canada and the USA in their new spare time.

Their premises will become a car sales business. Mr Challis was confident of finding new work for all the four employees in his workshop.

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