On leaving school at 16 years of age Graham Douglas Thorner started work as an apprentice carpenter/joinery with a local building firm Amery’s.

Having deferred his National Service until he completed his 5 year apprenticeship, Graham at the age of 21 was inlisted into the RAF where he completed his two years service.

On leaving the forces he returned to the trade working for builders in the Bath & Wells area, eventually setting up a gang of subcontract carpenters to service the ever expanding housing market of the 1960’s. It was during this period that he got envolved with local house builder Cyril Beazer of Bath.

First development

Having worked on housing sites all over the region for Beazers, Graham took the natural step and embarked on his first development in the Stockhill Road area of Chilcompton, Somerset.

This then led on to other projects and the formation of the company G D Thorner Holdings, enevitably the success and reputation of both Graham and his team at G D Thorner Holdings very quickly spread, with new sites springing up all over the region creating what was to become the modern day business success story.

Expansion

In the mid 1970’s G D Thorner Holdings acquired a small but well established joinery/building company based in Oldfield Park, Bath, following the takeover Graham had the vision to develop and expand this small firm into the company we all know today.

Originally founded in 1920 by Mr Thomas Flower and Mr Henry Hayes it was a company that was built on reputation, a company that was known in the area for the highest quality of finish and customer service, a company that looked after and stayed loyal to it’s employees and this is the legacy which we as a company are still proud to adopt to this day.

In good hands

Following his retirement in 2003, Graham handed over the day to day running of the company to his son Roddy but he always knew he was leaving the company in good hands as Roddy’s own career path had almost mirrored that of his father.