PLUMBING and heating engineer Paul Pethers has joined Taunton-based developers Summerfield working out of the office where his wife Anita has recently marked 40 years of employment with the company.

Anita joined the company when it was Stansell Builders as a 17-year-old under the Youth Training Scheme (YTS) becoming an administrator for one of their subsidiary companies.

The company created Summerfield for its development work in 1987 and Anita is now an accountant in Summerfield’s Property Management Team where she has worked for ten years.

Paul also worked at Stansell Builders, starting his career in construction as an apprentice.

He continued to work for the business as a carpenter, joiner and maintenance engineer before becoming a self-employed plumbing and heating engineer.

Coming full circle, Paul is now working for Summerfield as a property management supervisor.

Welcoming Paul back to Summerfield and presenting Anita with an M&S voucher, James Holyday, group managing director and a descendant of the group’s founder William Stansell, said the couple were great advertisements for Summerfield as a family company.

Anita said the main changes she had seen over the years were the reduction in the number of directly employed people and the introduction of computers.

She said the company looked after its staff and it was like working in a family environment.

Anita added that being in the same office as her husband was working well but “we only work together for a limited amount of time and maybe if we had to work closer together it might not be so easy”.