15918/6SEEDS of success sown by farmer turned inventor Alvan Blanch, reaped a reward this week when the company he founded more than 50 years ago won a Queens Award.

Today the crop processing firm, in Chelworth near Malmesbury, is run by his son Andrew, but he is the first to accept it was his father's determination that led to the company's success.

He said: "My father was not the sort of bloke to have partners. He was not exactly diplomatic and not the kind of chap to sit in a committee meeting. His motto was never take no for an answer. He dragged me around the world with him and I was able to learn a lot from him.

"Being self-taught, he was

all for doing things himself and this gave him an ability to be an inventor

and look at things freshly.

"I am not an inventor, and more of an all-rounder, but I do have ideas, which I chuck in from time to time."

Alvan Blanch Development Company, which employs 60 people, has won The Queen's Award for International Trade, the UK's leading accolade for business success.

The company supplies machine and complete factories to convert the

world's crops into human or animal food, or industrial or bio-fuel material.

It won the award for boosting exports by 156 per cent in the past

three years. Managing director Mr Blanch, 47, said: "We are very pleased with the award and it is nice to have recognition because it will play well with clients.

"We have never had a standard year in this business and it is a bit of a roller coaster. There must be more peaceful ways of making an existence."

His father was born in Alveston, near Yate, in 1916. and moved to Chelworth during the Second World War when a buyer was sought for a 2,000-acre farm in the village.

He toured the country demonstrating mechanical sheep shearers for the company R.A. Lister, and even took part in a sheep-shearing event for the BBC.

The Lister company gave him the financial backing to buy the farm and after that there was no stopping him.

The pipe-smoking man worked ceaselessly to improve the machinery he inherited at the farm.

He felt his designs for implements such such as straw balers and potato harvesters were better then the market offered, and together with partners formed A.B. Blanch in 1946.

The company, reformed into its current structure in 1952, employed three people and originally made a variety of equipment from butter churns to grain driers.

The son said things changed because his father was a single-minded person.

He said: "As father and son we got on very well. And if he came back my father would be astonished with the way things have changed today. My father wanted to do everything here. He had so much energy you could not stop him,"

Mr Blanch added: "Because he was working so much I did not really know him until we worked together. He was a warm person and not an icy figure, just very busy and involved.

"His temper in the office could be fiery and he might seem a bit hot and bothered but deep down he was a softy. He was an extraordinary man who felt he could crack any problem.

"For example, when he was dying he designed his own stairlift. Even the old grim reaper wasn't an obstacle to him."

Andrew Blanch, who has one brother working in the plant hire business and another as an artist, said business always was more appealing to him than farming.

Mr Blanch said: "After A-Levels, I was thinking of studying, but the idea of business was very appealing to me and from the age of 20 I was visiting places like Nigeria on sales visits."

In 1969, Mr Blanch senior was recognised for his business achievements with an OBE from the Queen.

He remained at the helm of the business right up to his death in 1991.

Mr Blanch thanked his employees for their part in picking up the Royal award. Many of them have worked for the business all their lives.