Christmas comes early at Springfield!

In little over 40 years Springfield Mobile has become a highly respected manufacturer of pre-fabricated modular buildings, largely because it has remained true to its roots as a family run business focussed on the quality of its products and the people who build them.

When Springfield’s managing director Lyndsey Duggan was given the chance opportunity to revisit the company’s roots as a manufacturer of touring caravans it was too good to turn down.  Back in the 1980s founder and Lyndsey’s father, Ken Britner was better known as the man behind the Springfield range of lightweight touring caravans, a heritage that was fondly remembered but rarely revisited until the firm got a phone call from Ann Wright in Woolton Village, Liverpool last month.  After eight years ownership and many happy family holidays Ann wondered if Springfield would like the chance to buy back their 34 year old Springfield Acapulco four berth caravan as it was shortly to be listed on e-bay.

Ken’s daughter Lyndsey Duggan who is now the managing director of Springfield takes up the story, “The phone call from Ann really was a bolt from the blue, it triggered so many memories and I’d almost taken the decision to try and buy back the caravan before the call finished. With Christmas coming up I knew it’d be the perfect present for my Dad. My only problem was finding someone with an e-bay account to allow us to bid for the caravan. I also thought it would be a nice restoration project to make into a feature in the factory to entertain visitors, but the caravan is in such good condition it’s perfect as it is. “

Whilst the caravan brought childhood memories flooding back for Lyndsey, two other employees also had good reasons to welcome the caravan’s return.  John Gerrard who’s spent all his working life at Springfield was serving his joinery apprenticeship and had helped to build the caravan remembers the time well, “We always said our caravans were built to last and take pride in what we do, but I never expected to see one like this again and in such good condition, it’s clearly been well loved over the years.”

Whilst sales office manager Diane Rajcza remembers her time as a model for the sales brochure for Springfield’s caravans, “Stone washed denim and stilettos might have been the epitome of glamour in the eighties but I’m not sure I could get away with that in the office nowadays.” 

For Ann Wright the sale of their caravan is a happy ending to many years of family holidays, “We’ll be sad to see it go, but with five grandchildren now we have just run out of space.  Over the years we’ve enjoyed countless family weekends away to the Lake District, the North Wales coast and many caravan club meetings around the region and I’m delighted that after such good service the caravan is going home where we know it’ll be loved and looked after. What’s more is we actually got twice as much money than we originally paid for it, which is nice with Christmas just round the corner.”