Every career has its ups and downs, but Fredrick Hall's are much more frequent.
Fred is celebrating four decades in the window cleaning business and, for just over 30 years, he has worked in Hayes, Kent. Now his patch covers more than 500 houses.
Doing 12 to 15 houses a day means one round takes him a little over two months, meaning he is always a familiar face to residents of the area.
In his words, the hardest part of his job is climbing the ladder. The physical nature of the job leaves father-of-three Fred in good shape, and he has done the London marathon in 2001, 2002 and 2003. He said: "One for each kid, you see. You get a medal, and a bag and it tells you your time. It's a nice souvenir for them."
He also did it in 2007 and added: “I thought I would see if I could still do it.” He ran for a different charity each time and overall made about £10,000.
While many people found work challenging during the pandemic, Fred wasn't fazed by it and it actually made his job easier. He found people were more likely to be at home, so he did not need to return to collect payment.
Fred has a naturally cheerful demeanour, which was particularly welcome during lockdown, when in some cases Fred's was the only face some residents living alone would see.
Many people may love the idea of having an excuse to peek through other people's windows and doing just this may have saved one Hayes resident's life.
Fred remembers looking through the windows of one house once and seeing an older woman who had fallen over.
"She was lying on the floor when I saw her," said Fred. "She was OK but just couldn't get up. I do the windows next door, so I went round and knocked. The neighbour had a key so she let me in and I helped her back to her chair."
Fred is not ready to hang up his chamois just yet, but he is looking forward to passing the business onto his eldest son, who is already a window cleaner himself.
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