A CHANCE remark led to former management consultant Dick Balcer making a key decision which unlocked a whole new career.

His decision led to him spending £4,000 on a course and equipment to enable him to retrain as a locksmith.

The radical change came about after he had casually mentioned to a plumber who was mending his boiler that he was mulling over retraining as a tradesman.

The plumber asked if he’d thought of becoming a locksmith, given his engineering background, and a few months later Dick began his new career.

Now aged 63, Mr Balcer runs his Action Locksmiths 24/7 business from his home in Glaister Close, Tonge Moor.

During his varied career Mr Balcer has been made redundant five times from various high-powered, senior management roles in the pharmaceuticals, carpet and food and drink industries, before retraining for roles in health and safety and training jobs.

He has worked in many roles during his working life, and started off as a chemical inventor for ICI, seeing if laboratory experiments translated into production processes.

After being made redundant for the fifth time, in 1992 he set up as a management consultant and prospered until he lost several contracts all at the same time which led him to consider a new career.

Mr Balcer says: “There are too many locksmiths about now for the work that is available. Part of my work involves picking locks when people are locked out of their homes.

“When I first started out it could take me up to six hours to open a security lock — now that rarely takes me more than 20 minutes.”

Being a locksmith is not for the faint-hearted. Dick said: “It takes good self-discipline, organisation, time, commitment and good technical skills to become a successful locksmith.” Dick says that he takes great pride in giving customer satisfaction and maintaining high standards for all his work, be it domestic or business.

He recalls a Bolton bank asking him not to bother picking the lock but to just smash the door window because they wanted quick access.

On another occasion a man phoned him to pick a lock. He said he couldn’t pay him in cash but that he could take the flat screen television inside. “Needless to say I declined that particular job,” said Dick l Contact Action Locksmiths 24/7 on 07748 782357 or 0800 781 2398.