His sons Stephen and Sean however made a vow following his passing to keep i-Spi Signs in business. Eight years later the firm is still going making its way despite the vagaries of the economy and the loss of its founder.

 “We were obviously 'thrown in at the deep end' so to speak, so at first it was a lot to take on as well as having to deal with the sudden loss of our father,” says Stephen Ferrie. He adds: “But as the months went on we got the hang of it and a big motivation was continuing our dad’s business, which he had worked so hard to build. The experience we had working with our dad helped us enormously as we picked up things from him along the way that we didn’t even realise.

“The main challenges we have faced is making sure people know we are still trading without my dad and we have done this by maintaining a high presence in sign magazines such as SignLink by advertising, also by attending trade shows like Sign and Digital UK. This also gives us the added benefit of attracting new customers.”

Together with Sean (Stephen’s young brother) and their mother Linda, the trio steered the sign company to safety by emulating Chris’ business ethic of as Stephen recalls of, “a quick and polite service as well as going that extra mile for the customer, which we are striving to continue.”

This year they have seen a growth in business in Scotland revealing that north of the border the economy is growing following uncertainty over the referendum. Looking to the future Stephen sees a new LED trend. He says: “We have found that anything with LED lighting has become very popular in the last few years, we currently have our LED sign fixings (Signalite) and LED sign clamps which have been very popular with customers and we are also bringing in LED illuminated cable systems for 2015 due to constantly being asked for them.”