At the crack of dawn on a cold Sunday in winter, a 40-something Clive Emson packed his car with boards and hit the road with his teenage son James.

The then-workaholic businessman, now chairman of the fourth largest auctioneering company in the UK, would spend all day on the Sabbath putting up signs at houses across the county, advertising properties for auction.

Next month his business celebrates its 25th anniversary thanks in no small part to the seven-day weeks he used to work, occasionally enlisting the help of James, now 40, who runs the firm today.

“We didn’t have the luxury of employing a board man,” said Clive, 68, who lives in Monks Horton, near Sellindge, Ashford.

“We had to do it on a Sunday because Monday to Saturday was quite busy. That is how you build a business up. It has got to be hard graft.”

In truth, Clive never had a choice. He set up his business after resigning as regional director for Prudential Property Services in 1989, where he saw the business was suffering heavy losses.

He decided to set up his own business in Folkestone at the height of a recession, opening another office in Strood quickly afterwards, where he had to learn tough lessons quickly.

“I opened an office on my own – which was crazy to do at the time – but when you’re 43 and just been regional director of a firm that has lost £400m, there are not a lot of job opportunities,” said Clive with a hearty laugh.

“I didn’t want to go into estate agency. There were plenty of big, small, good and mediocre ones.

"I couldn’t see a niche in the market. You need a niche otherwise you are cutting a thin cake even thinner.

“Auctioneering is what I have done all my life so I took a hell of a risk and set up the company.

"It was the first time someone opened a property auctioneering house that was not backed by an estate agency.

“That was new. I was offering a service to all the agents who hadn’t got auctioneering facilities.

"As we only sold by auction, the agents could give us business knowing we were not taking business away from them. That was the strategy and it worked.”

Within three years, the company consolidated its offices into one base in Maidstone, which remains the company’s headquarters today.

The company had found its niche – 95% of estate agents did not have auctioneering facilities – but it would be a while before the tough times let up.

In the early 1990s, Clive would often hold auctions for companies on a freelance basis, travelling across the country.

"We didn’t have the luxury of time so we paid to have adverts on TV on the morning of Christmas Day, when it was cheap..." - Clive Emson

Everything he earned on those jobs went into the business, which he admits kept the firm afloat in the early years.

Clive said: “When we set up, we were in a time of big recession. I thought it would last for 18 months and it lasted five years.

“It meant financial prudence had to be there from day one. It gave us good habits which we still maintain.

"We needed to get known quickly. We didn’t have the luxury of time so we paid to have adverts on TV on the morning of Christmas Day, when it was cheap.

“I remember answering the phone on Christmas Day and people still remember today that we answered the phone.”

These days, things are a bit easier. Clive Emson Auctioneers has sold £75m of land and property this year, putting it on course to match last year’s total of £110m.

The company runs property auctions from Kent to Cornwall and regularly features on BBC show Homes Under The Hammer. It has a sale success rate of 85%.

As the company marked its quarter of a century this week, did Clive imagine the business would get this far?

“Sometimes no,” he said with another trademark laugh.

“I didn’t imagine we would be as large as we are.

"We are the fourth largest in the country, which is quite an achievement, and all down to the staff. They are all as important as everyone else.”

Clive Emson Auctioneers is not Clive’s first business venture.

He set up his first estate agency, Clive Emson & Co, in 1973 in Hythe, having started his career at Geering & Colyer in Maidstone in 1968.

A move to their Tonbridge office in 1969 would be where he would meet his wife Sue, who was the daughter of his boss at the time.

He would run his estate agency until 1983 when he merged the business with Ward & Partners, who were rapidly expanding around him.

They were taken over by Prudential in 1986. He left to launch Clive Emson in 1989.

The firm has four offices, in Maidstone, Brighton, Hampshire and Devon, but not all its expansion plans have gone smoothly.

An attempt to launch a branch in New York, under the brand Clive Emson US, was a failure, losing the firm more than £250,000.

“We set up a partnership with some guy who had all the contacts out there,” said Clive. “What we found was not all the contacts wanted to deal with him.

“We went over to assess the market and our logic was if we had said no and someone else went out there and made a fortune, I would have been holding back the future for the young guys who have careers ahead of them.

“The people over there weren’t doing their share of the job so we were sending parts of our team over.

“Then it started compromising our core business.

“We took a big-boy decision. We had lost a significant amount of money and decided it had been worth a try but we would do our job over here properly rather than plough more money into it.”

More than 1,250 lots are sold each year by Clive Emson, which the company’s chairman believes is down to the trust people place in the firm.

He said: “We have a strict rule in the office that none of us buy, sell, deal or invest in any properties. Then no line can be perceived to have been crossed.

“It’s appalling when agents are competing with people they are supposed to be selling to.

"Even if you are 100% straight, there will always be someone who says ‘you must have done a good deal’ and I don’t want that.

“We are for other people, not for ourselves. We get some good commissions but not any bargains.

“So we all have different things we put our money into – and mine is cars.”

Clive is the owner of several classic British cars, including a vintage Bentley.

Letters from Clive Emson Auctioneers do not differentiate between management and other staff.

Everyone signs their emails with the job title auctioneer because, according to Clive, “people don’t come to me to be a chairman – they come to me to be an auctioneer”.

He was delighted his son James joined the business in 1991 but “only as long as he enjoys it”.

Now managing director, it means Clive no longer works six-day weeks, which he gave up about five years ago.

Clive said: “It’s nice if your family take it on because it makes the business last longer rather than selling it.

"He has always shown an interest but he has been around auctions since birth. He was holding up boards in the auction room when he was eight.

“I was nervous about him doing it for me rather than himself but we had a meaningful conversation and he wanted to do it.”