Paul Aplin

PAUL APLIN explains how tough it is at the top of A C Mole & Sons.

WHEN I BEGAN researching the firm's centenary history - we notched up our first hundred years on 1 October - I steeled myself for tales of arcane and long forgotten battles with the taxman and of appeals lodged as the seconds ticked toward midnight of the thirtieth day. Instead I found more than a little humour. Although the eponymous A C Mole appears to have been a serious-minded man, not everyone who followed was in the same mould.

As the saying goes, if you do not ask, you do not get, and this is true even for obtaining enterprise investment scheme relief, says PAUL APLIN.

CHANCELLORS OF THE Exchequer are, probably by definition, kill joys. Do you remember, for example, how the nursery rhyme