Perhaps the greatest indication of the success of the bottled water industry is that those who find the very idea of selling the stuff of life absurd - once the overwhelming majority - are now forced to keep their doubts to themselves, terrified of being labelled un-trendy.

Liquid assets - after being made redundant, Simon Beale joined Geoff Chapman in the bottled water business. Picture: ANDREW BELFORD 4ENHW2

It was into this maelstrom that Leigh-based Simon Beale stumbled, almost by accident.

Spring Cool Soft Drinks, the company that Simon and partner Geoff Chapman created 12 years ago, is now making real inroads to this lucrative market, using its own Wickham Bishops spring to supply around 8 million bottles of Spring Clear and Pop Ups flavoured spring waters to Britain's schools - making it the biggest supplier of schools in the UK - and the Barcelona football team and Airtours flights with Liquid Oxygen - its premium spring water infused with up to 10 times normal oxygen levels.

It wasn't always like that, however. Made redundant from his job as a kitchen salesman, Simon joined Geoff traipsing around Essex and beyond selling water purifiers 12 years ago, eventually changing tack to sell post- mix syrups - the concentrated basis of most soft drinks sold in pubs and clubs - and then flavoured water. But it was a chance phone call that really saw the pair step up into the big league.

"We had a phone call out of the blue," recalled Simon, "from a guy who bought one of our drinks in his local pub. He phoned up to say he had a spring that he was considering bottling and would we like to buy the water from him. We quickly decided that it would be far better if we built the manufacturing plant ourselves."

Nearly half a million pounds later, the Wickham Bishops bottling plant, drawing natural water from a spring rising by the 15th hole of the Benton Hall Golf Club, gurgled into life, enabling Spring Cool to manufacture all of its own products.

"We are going to produce 15 to 18 million bottles this year," Simon went on, "and next year considerably more as more is spent on the facilities. We are aiming at turning out 350 bottles a minute next year. Even so, its a constant problem at the moment keeping up with orders."

And this pressure is set to get even greater next year with the launch of Straw Pops, Spring Cool's attempt to break into the lucrative children's fizzy drink market by luring potential drinkers with a free bendy straw contained inside the bottle.

Things are going well, but in such an overcrowded marketplace, its a tough business.

"We get less than 50 per cent margin from a case of water now than we did five years ago, because the market is just so competitive. I guarantee that if I started up in business now I would be out of business within six months.

"It's a lot of fun, even if it is a bit cut throat. In the end I am ever so proud of what we have achieved."

Published Monday November 19, 2001