Start the old North of England business-related quote and Murray Robson will finish it off seamlessly: “Where there’s muck, there’s money, that’s very true. But what’s even more important, you have to work really hard to find it.”

With just a handful of months to go to rack up a half-century in the business of muck, Murray has seen highs and lows beyond number. And far from it being an automatic source of wealth, a steady golden-brown stream if you will, the muck has at times being a capricious will ‘o’ the wisp – fluctuating with changes in agricultural fashions, coming and going in response to regulatory changes, shrinking temporarily in the face of competitive price-cutting.

Some companies might have folded in the face of such ups and downs of fortune, but Robson Environmental Services seems to have thrived, building a reputation as innovative and quick-responding, able to come up with homegrown solutions to technical challenges rather than accepting off-the-shelf answers.

In its own way this could be a reflection of Murray’s willingness to have a go at anything, for his introduction to the business was far from being part of a long-range plan, but more an example of happenstance.