William Drives His Business Forward I joined RGS in Year 7 after obtaining a place from my previous school NPS. I can look back at my time at RGS as being a good stepping stone that allowed me to go on to do what I love doing. I owe a huge thanks to all the teachers who taught me and guided me in the right direction. By William Coates (13-18). Above: Dr Mark Bell, Biology Teacher visiting William
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efore obtaining my GCSE results I knew from the outset that I wasn’t going to be a student with a set of straight A* results but what I did know beforehand is that I tried my best and that’s all anyone can ask of anybody. Without the help and guidance from the RGS staff I can definitely say that I would not have obtained the results I did. Outside of school Ever since my early childhood I have always been fascinated with all things mechanical and from the age of about eight my focus turned to tractors. I bought my first tractor when I was 11 years old from the local auction mart which was a 1947 Ferguson TEA-20. Over that winter I stripped it down including the engine and rebuilt the tractor finishing it off with a fresh coat of battleship grey paint. The restoration all took place in a single stone-built garage just next to our house (which is now our kitchen). After winning 3rd Prize at a local tractor rally with the same tractor, my interest for vintage tractors has grown stronger ever since. The early years of buying From the age of around 12 to 13 I started buying tractors to sell. The problem was I wanted to keep every one I bought. This became quite a problem for my mother, who was forced to negotiate a host of tractors to get to the front door. After a long and hard decision, I decided to sell all the tractors I had collected, which at the time numbered around 13. I successfully sold every one of them and the business began in earnest after I took the decision to buy in tractors to sell.
