The name B5. A personal tale
In June 2020 I launched B5 Consultancy together with Fraser Franks. The naming of the company was crucial. It had to be something which meant a lot to both of us. We chatted a lot and the key theme that runs through both our lives is family. We are both family men and both have inspiration from those in our older generations.
For Fraser his mum, Tracey, has always been his inspiration. A single mum who couldn’t drive but took him to training, supported him and gave him all the love and support he needed to succeed. She celebrates her birthday on the 5th and, throughout his career, he has worn the number 5 shirt so synonymous with towering centre halves.
When he took his first step into fatherhood in 2019 he announced the imminent arrival to his mum with a special shirt ….
For me, much of my inspiration comes from my two grandads. My mum’s dad, Lt Col Raymond Pye, came from a broken home in Croydon and joined the Royal Engineers in 1953 at the age of 18 eventually retiring a Colonel with an MBE for his service in Northern Ireland. My dad’s dad, Frank Himsworth, a gentle country boy and a talented footballer had never even left the County of Kent when the Second World War broke out but on 31st October 1944 Corporal Frank Himsworth and his tank unit set sail for Walcheren Island as part of the allied liberation of the Netherlands, having landed on Gold Beach in Normandy only a few months before. Corporal Himsworth’s tank, call sign Bramble 5, was the second tank to land on Walcheren Island, peppered with German defensive shells and bullets. In 1999, 55 years after the liberation of the island, my Grandad Frank went back to Walcheren to mark that anniversary and discovered that Bramble 5 was still there, on display to mark the allied liberation he had been a part of (full story here).
