If ambulances suddenly start to look a bit shinier, not to mention healthier, it will be down to Mark Wright’s handiwork.

Mark’s business, Benfleet Car Wash, has just acquired the cleaning contract for the Essex ambulance service Caring For You.

This involves not just shining up the fleet of about 150 vehicles, but also the application of deep hygienic cleaning to eradicate any threat of infection.

Mark, 50, who rose from car washer to car-wash owner, says he never touts for business.

“The boss came in to have his car done, and when he saw the result, he gave me the contract for the ambulances,” he said.

Mark began in the car washing business in his late twenties.

“I’d been involved in construction and car sales, but I could see there were opportunities in car washing,” he said.

He worked alongside a group of Albanian car washers.

“They are real grafters,” he said. “I picked up a lot from them.”

To learn his way round the business, he worked as a car washer, and his hands-on approach has never faltered.

He employs a team of 12, but works alongside them, washing and polishing.

“Quality is everything, and I want to make sure every vehicle which leaves here is a perfect job,” he said.

“I check every detail, down to the door shuts. I clean my own car, and I want that to be the model for every one we do.

“Everyone gets the same approach.

“Every car is treated with the same respect.

“I have five regular customers who bring their Bentleys to me, two Ferraris I clean regularly, and my own car is a Porsche.

“But I will put exactly the same care into a rusty old banger, or any other vehicle.

“One owner brought his car in to me to clean, and then he brought his tractor in to clean.”

Mark says the main requirement for good car washing is hard, concentrated work.

“I am very regimented and meticulous and people have got to match those standards.

“Not everyone does. Some people only seem to be interested in moaning.”