Horwich businessman Nick Pendlebury has built up a £3 million turnover company from virtually nothing.

And the owner of Monarch Catering Equipment is expecting more expansion this year.

Mr Pendlebury, aged 42, who is from Deane, found himself jobless and skint in 1982.

But the entrepreneurial instincts which he had displayed as a 12-year-old -- he used to collect unwanted items from neighbours and hold a sale at the bus stop -- came to his rescue.

A visit to an Italian restaurant in Leyland changed his life when he took an interest in the pizza equipment they used. He set himself up as an agent for kitchen equipment firms and struggled through three difficult years.

"It was an absolute nightmare -- I could have packed it in at any time," he said today.

Mr Pendlebury, who went to Deane Primary and Deane High School, had previously missed out on police cadet training because of government cut-backs and had worked as a salesman with a firm of builders' merchants.

After about a year on his own, Monarch Catering Equipment was established in premises in Dixon Street, Horwich, and he has not looked back since.

The company has now established itself as one of the country's top kitchen designers and fitters with contracts at leading London restaurants including the Ivy and 184 branches of a national pizza chain.

Recently it has supplied hi-tech catering equipment to the Library of Wales and to restaurants in Paris and Lyon.

Four years ago,Mr Pendlebury bought Crompton Business Machines in Tonge Moor Road, Bolton, and created a subsidiary -- Crompton Catering Centre -- to deal with more local customers in a 50-mile radius.

A year later Bolton Business Machines, a long-established business, became part of Crompton.

The latest development is a direct sales operation aimed at all sectors of the catering industry.

Crompton Direct.co.uk is a tele-sales operation based in Tonge Moor Road which was launched in March last year.

It is concentrating initially on caterers throughout the North-west, but plans to be a national operation.

"The growth potential is huge," Mr Pendlebury said.

"We plan to have another six call centre staff over the next 12 months."

But he never forgets that he had £300 to his name when he started and needed to convince a sceptical bank that he should be loaned £3,000 for a car to help to get the business going.

Nick Pendlebury.