Family businesses, large and small, are the backbone of the economy. Two thirds of all companies describe themselves as family-owned. However, I can think of one or two families – the Murdoch’s and Hilton’s spring to mind – as well known for their family feuds as they are for their companies. There’s no getting away from the fact that family businesses are emotional but they also have great stamina, just look at the Japanese construction company, Kongo Gumi, the world’s oldest business founded in 578 AD.

And so I look back at the last twenty five years and recall some of my own emotions growing up in a family where the business and our staff have always been an integral part of our family life. I’m sure there have been feuds along the way but I only recollect fond memories of Saturday mornings and school holidays spent ‘working’ at Black Swan Yard; entertained and humoured in equal measure, I’m sure, by patient staff run off their feet with the day-to-day demands of a busy tool hire depot.

Then the recession of the early 1990s took hold and decimated our customer base. To save the business my parents swapped our leafy suburban home for less salubrious surroundings which strangely enough marked the beginning of my passion for the family business.

The Hireman is now emerging from its second major recession, one of the deepest global recessions in modern history, and we are reminded on an almost daily basis that the UK now faces severe austerity measures to tackle our biggest deficit since the Second World War. In spite of this I believe the challenge ahead for British business will be to foster a conspicuous lack of negativity and cynicism, and deliver truly remarkable customer service.

Being in London, however is a big advantage. The scarcity of houses and apartments on the market in the most expensive areas has prevented many from trading up to larger properties. Instead, home owners are opting to improve and extend their existing properties. And so despite the malaise in the housing market elsewhere in the country, prime property in London is in high demand. Certainly the overwhelming majority of our customers are positive about their order books for 2011. However, it is clear that margins are being squeezed, as the cost of raw materials continue to increase, and our customers price jobs more competitively to retain turnover and valuable staff.

According to the FT Weekend, the developers of the Shard in London Bridge expect the highest residential property in London, at 186 to 224m (floors 53 to 65), to breach the £6,000 per sq ft achieved at the Candy brothers’ One Hyde Park development in Knightsbridge. So don’t worry if you’re in the market for a £6.5 million one bedroom apartment in London, there’ll be plenty on offer!

In a recent interview for Building magazine Nick and Christian Candy lambast the British attitude towards success, saying that “In this country we might as well put a sign up at Heathrow that reads ‘we don’t want people to be successful. We don’t back entrepreneurs and we don’t want people to make money.’” And they’ve got a point; banks are still holding back funding, particularly for SMEs, despite the scale of their national bail-out, and our new coalition government seem more concerned about their recent defeat over bankers' bonuses than the retention of good banking talent mixed with effective regulation.

Twenty five years ago my parents started a business based on the promise that the customer would always come first, and to this day our people and suppliers are excited and motivated by this challenge. The tricky part is retaining, motivating and monitoring talented people so that standards remain high and customers therefore keep coming back.