WHEN Matt Williams’ livelihood was destroyed by lightning, fire officers told him that nine out of 10 businesses fail after a natural disaster.

But the Oxford Charcoal Company – where Mr Williams is a co-founder and master charcoal maker – has reopened its online shop just three months after being struck in a thunderstorm.

Mr Williams, 40, had opened the company’s public store for the first time just a few hours before his entire stock of charcoal and timber was destroyed.

He said: “Unbelievably it was on Friday, June 13, and Jesus saw fit to strike us with a lightning bolt.

“There were seven tonnes of charcoal and six or seven tonnes of timber, and all of our equipment burnt down.”

The company is based in a barn near Cassington and creates sustainably-produced charcoal for high-end restaurants across the country.

Among the destroyed equipment was a £20,000 kiln specially imported from Ukraine in October last year.

Mr Williams, who lives in Wytham with his wife Sam and children Charlie, 17, and Beth, 16, said: “We had already been slowed up because of the flooding over the winter.

“When we went in after the lightning with the fire service, there was nothing in the barn apart from ash.

“There were three holes blown into the concrete floor – 10-inch thick concrete just blown straight out.

“It was destroying, heart-breaking, seeing everything you’ve been working for months for in a pile on the floor.

“We had to immediately abandon all plans of trading.”

Mr Williams found encouragement in the fact that no one had been hurt.

He said: “When I’m working up there I sometimes stay in a metal cabin and one of the strikes was directly on that.

“It melted the glass out of the windows.

“I would have died if I had happened to be in there. It made me realise that everything else was just stuff.

“We picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves off and started again.”

He thanked his co-founders and financial backers – Worton Farms and Simon Fineman, the chief executive of timber firm Timbmet – for his recovery.

He said: “I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

“We were insured but with the best will in the world you’re never going to get it all back.

“But they just told me to make a list of everything that had been lost and said they would sort it.

“Since then we’ve been rebuilding our stock and machinery.”

The company, which has four staff members, sells charcoal to high-end restaurants such as the Beagle in London and celebrity chef DJ BBQ.

As well as its online store, the charcoal is stocked in several shops across the county including The Market Garden, Eynsham and The Post Box, Wolvercote.

The Oxford Charcoal Company is now publically trading for the first time selling BBQ charcoal at theoxfordcharcoalcompany.co.uk

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