CARDIGAN building contractor Malcolm Williams thought someone was pulling his leg when answering the telephone to a customer.

The veteran builder was asked to undertake a job installing new floors on a cruise ship in Sydney, Australia.

And the call was genuine, coming as it did from Liverpool-based Durastic Flooring the biggest supplier and installer of marine deck covering systems in the UK.

Malcolm’s firm has done work for Durastic throughout the UK for many years, and two years ago carried out a major refit of the Cunard flagship Queen Mary 2 in Hamburg.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. You could have knocked me down with a feather,” said Malcolm.

“It’s one thing doing work in this country and even Hamburg, but nearly 11,000 miles away is something else altogether,” he said.

P&O Cruises Australia, a British-American owned cruise line with its headquarters in Southampton contacted Durastic who rang the Cardigan building contractor.

Malcolm was unable to travel Down Under but four workers led by Phil Pardoe of Llechryd got their visas in order and were soon jetting out to New South Wales where they laid specialist new floors throughout the line’s star attraction which has eleven passenger decks. The job was completed in 18 days.

Now the local builders can claim to have gone global as they prepare for a job on a P&O cruise ship in Singapore in November, another trip to Sydney in the not too distant future and work on Royal Navy vessels at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead is also in the pipeline.