THE founder of a Clacton firm which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year says he is proud to have helped create a world-leading tool company.

Mick Titman launched Titman Tools in a backstreet shed in Tottenham in 1973.

Mick had spent 20 years working for an engineering company but became frustrated at the lack of promotion there.

He joined another firm for three years which specialised in saws before deciding to quit and set up his own business.

Mick had met future wife Lilian when they were both aged 18.

The couple fell in love while working at Benjamin’s Electrics, and married in 1947 when they were 23.

After Mick decided to set up Titman Tip Tools in 1960, Lilian worked to pay the rent and household bills, while her husband was in the garden shed working on new tool designs.

He later graduated to a lock-up garage in Walthamstow and then a small factory in Willesden.

After moving to Clacton in 1976, the business became the largest manufacturing company of its type in the UK.

Mick, now 93, said: “I worked for an engineering company for 20 years but it had no prospects and a very low wage.

"I got a lucky break at the next company I joined and was promoted to foreman, then manager, and it set me on the path to setting up my own business.

“With the support of my wife Lil, I chose to leave in 1960. I couldn’t think of a product that I could make that was not already on the market so I thought the best thing to do was improve the ones that were there and then mass produce them and that’s what I did."

Mick retired and sold his company in 1986, but it remains a hugely successful business in Valley Road.

He continued to live in Clacton until the death of his wife last April, and now lives at Beaumont Manor care home in Great Holland, where daughter Sue visits him with his grandchildren.

Son John sadly died in 1990, aged 38.

Mick added: “It’s 35 years ago now but I’m proud Titman Tools became the largest manufacturer of router cutter tools in the UK and possibly Europe too.

"We introduced so many new and various shapes of tools and employed over 100 staff during the 1980s.

"It was challenging keeping a happy workforce and staying ahead of all the foreign imports, but we did it.”