Paul Wilkinson – the man with moving experiences

by Dr. Iain Corness

How many men do you know who have had their soccer career cut short by an angry dolphin? Not many, I am sure, but we do have one in Pattaya. He is Paul Wilkinson, the GM of AGS Four Winds international moving company. But more on the dolphin later. He also managed to lose a three hundred thousand pound lorry packed with computers, but more of that later too.
Paul’s first home was an orphanage in Liverpool. The big change came when he was eight months old, when a dairy farmer and his wife from the Cheshire/Lancashire border adopted him. Not only did they adopt Paul, but three years later adopted another baby boy from the same orphanage. “They must have liked me,” said Paul, “because they went back and got another one!” (His younger brother is now a stand-up comedian treading the boards in the UK, so he must have been a happy little fellow too.)
I asked him how old he was when he found out that his parents were not his genetic kin. “I was told of my background when I was about six. But I had fantastic parents; it isn’t something our family really thought about, we were just a normal family.”
At school he showed interest in engineering, and thought he might like to study engineering as a career; however, by the time he was 16 years old it was obvious that he would have to help his father with the dairy business. The business was started by his great grandfather long before automation, and Paul can remember his father putting the tops on milk bottles by hand, and then making deliveries with horse and cart.
Even though he was now in the dairy farm industry, Paul had not turned his back on engineering. He began restoring and rebuilding cars. He has seen dozens of RS Ford Escorts, the cult car of the late 70’s go through his hands, but has also had a 2.7 liter RS Carrera Porsche which took 12 months to rebuild. Other exotics have included a Lotus Esprit, but when Paul looks back on those days, it was hard work. “I worked six and a half days in the dairy business, up at 5 a.m. and then after work I would be lying on my back (under a car) until late at night.” That was the down side. There was an upside. “I had the best cars - and got the best girls!” And incidentally made money as well.
Some of the more performance oriented cars drew him into looking into motor racing, and he attended schools at many of the circuits in the UK, such as Silverstone, where the British GP is held, and has been through world champion Nigel Mansell’s race school, but a lack of time has meant he never raced.
I wondered how easy it was to work with his father, which he did for 15 years, and Paul admitted that there “had been a few cross words,” but that never soured their relationship. “My father also drilled it into me that the customer is always right.” A good principle to adhere to in any business dealing with the general public, as he does today with his company AGS Four Winds.
By the end of his 15 years in the family business, Paul was running it, but he could also see the writing on the wall for small family businesses as the multinational supermarkets began to move in. He sold out just in time.
Paul had another great love in those days, and that was travel. He visited India, Europe, Africa, and even Thailand, so after selling up, he traveled again, including Pattaya. However, on returning to the UK he joined GE Capital where he worked in logistics for two years. “Being stuck behind a desk all day wasn’t really me, so I set my heart on working overseas and went traveling again.” He was also playing football with his friends from the British Club Bangkok and made a network of friends which was to prove very valuable later.
On his return to the UK, he helped a friend in the parcel delivery business, and one day when they were short of a driver, he hopped in the seat and headed out with a load of computers. Stopping at the traffic light he was set upon by gun-toting hijackers, who pistol whipped him, breaking his hand and leaving him with a head injury, while they sped off with the lorry!
It was back to traveling again for Paul, taking his football boots with him, and meeting up with the players in Thailand and spending time with friends in Singapore saw him being offered the position as branch manager for the Four Winds relocation company. He took it, but did not realize that his footy days were over. A year later, Paul went swimming with dolphins at a tourist attraction, when he was attacked by one, over-protective of its mate, which head-butted him so hard his abdomen burst open and he was hospitalized for one week after surgical repair at the Bangkok Pattaya Hospital. This episode saw Paul and his belly splashed all over the world in FHM magazine, under the heading Flipper Attacks ‘Wound of the Month’!
But free time was becoming scarce for Paul anyway. Four Winds was taken over by AGS, one of the largest international movers in the world, and Paul was promoted to general manager for the Eastern Seaboard, where he is today.
Life is also busier now that he is married and has a 15 month old son, and he gets his enjoyment spending time with his family and the odd round of golf and seeing the business succeed. “I meet hundreds of new people every year and helping them through the relocation process is really rewarding.”
I feel that the quietly spoken Paul Wilkinson may have just found his true niche. He’ll be here for quite a while.