Forbes Shand has taken the portable road to fame

small Aberdeenshire town of Huntly.

Construction sites in particular are the lifeblood of that

enterprising company of R.B. Farquhar, which not only builds the

transportable building for sale but has a stock of 5500 units for hire.

Created by local tradesmen, they are transported to the far corners of

the land by a fleet of articulated lorries, in a blossoming business

which chalks up an turnover of #22m and gives work to 540 people.

As a measure of the prosperity, the company has just opened a second

manufacturing base at Polmadie, Glasgow, to help serve the central belt

of Scotland, where a large part of Farquhar's business is to be found.

The managing director, 45-year-old Forbes Shand, conducts the

company's affairs with a good North-east tongue in his head, a task in

which he has the backing of his 70-year-old aunt, Mrs Elsie Farquhar,

who is the chairman, and Mr Eddie Bruce, the financial director.

But they all point you back to the man who started it, one of

Aberdeenshire's most ruggedly natural characters, Bob Farquhar (Elsie's

husband), who began life as a farm servant in that district of Rhynie

made famous by the Scotland The What? team of entertainers.

Bob also sampled life as a woodcutter and builder's labourer before

the war but it was when he returned from the Navy with his gratuity of

#65 that he bought a lorry and a piece of woodland and started selling

sticks around the doors of Rhynie, Lumsden and Huntly before ''expanding

to Aberdeen,'' as he liked to joke.

The turning point in his business fortunes came on 31 January, 1953,

when Scotland was struck by the Great Gale, which devastated the

country's woodlands. It was literally the case of an ill-wind...

Bob Farquhar took the opportunity to open one sawmill after another,

till there were nine between Aberdeenshire and Morayshire. He supplied

pit-props for the coal-mines and sleepers for the railways and gave work

to 80 people.

As those industries declined, there were fresh opportunities in

hen-houses and deep-litter sheds for farmers, the first time he had had

cause to employ joiners.

And then came oil. Bob took along one of his timber-framed creations,

measuring 20ft by 8ft, to an Aberdeen oil show in the early-1970s. The

Shell people spotted it -- and placed an order for sleeping quarters to

accommodate 100 men at each of three platforms in the Brent field.

Today, R.B. Farquhar has built the accommodation at 80% of the

oilfields in the North Sea and that has remained a steady part of the

company's business.

''But there were many other outlets,'' Forbes Shand explains. ''We

went into chalets for the tourist trade and, from the 1970s onward, we

were providing anything from a shed to a classroom, a hospital ward or

an extension to hotels like the Granada group.

''We try to be flexible and to build what people want; but we are

lucky in that our employees have always been able to turn their hand to

anything. We have a research and development department and are always

looking for new products.

''Because the modules are built inside a factory and completely

finished there, we have better quality control.''

One of the reasons why R.B. Farquhar has opened a second production

base in Glasgow has much to do with the upturn in the oil industry. They

have found it difficult to recruit the workers they need at Huntly.

''We are the biggest manufacturer of our kind in Scotland and the only

one in Glasgow,'' adds Mr Shand. ''There are 60 people employed at

Polmadie. We also have an English depot at Warrington, though we don't

manufacture there.''

Forbes Shand, who grew up in the village of Insch, not far from

Huntly, was a joiner in Aberdeen when he was offered the foreman's job

at R.B. Farquhar's. He was Elsie's nephew and, since Bob and Elsie had

no family, he seemed like the natural successor.

Eddie Bruce was the accountant at the Clydesdale Bank in Rhynie,

helping out with the books in his spare time, when he was invited to

move over as the full-time financial director. The firm became a limited

company 16 years ago.

Bob Farquhar continued in his own unspoiled way, indulging himself in

nothing, except one longstanding ambition. Having come from humble

background, he always wanted a Rolls-Royce; and he enjoyed more than

one.

But there was nothing he liked more than to draw up at the local chip

shop, step out of his Rolls -- and go in for a black pudding supper!

One day in 1984, he died suddenly after a massive heart attack, at the

age of 63. But the business went on as before.

Two years ago, the company bought the Moness hotel and timeshare

complex at Aberfeldy, to add to the Gordon Arms Hotel which they already

owned in Huntly. They now have a container company in Aberdeen.

Though the reputation has been built upon the portable module, they

are also building substantial houses of a permanent nature.

So the name of R.B. Farquhar spreads itself around the United Kingdom,

from the BP refinery at Grangemouth and the gas terminal at St Fergus to

the upgraded docklands of London. They supplied all the Bovis offices at

the Glasgow Garden Festival, having been involved in the Liverpool one

before that.

You see the name all around the reconstruction site at Glasgow

Airport, just as it was prominent in the city's George Square at the

ill-fated Hogmanay show.

''About 75% of our work is still in Scotland and our ambition would be

to expand more into England,'' says Forbes Shand, whose elder son,

Kevin, works for the company in Glasgow.

The managing director finds time to be chairman of Huntly Football

Club, which competes in the Highland League and is managed by the former

Aberdeen favourite, Joe Harper.

He likes to think that the founder would approve of how his company is

being run today. He remembers Bob Farquhar with affection and says: ''He

was a plain, honest, hard-working man, who had a great way with

people.''

How splendid that a farm worker, who allied a bit of initiative to his

natural common sense, should have built a nationwide business which

leads the field today -- without ever surrendering its roots in the

homely little town of Huntly.