I saved dad's business with a single tweet

A woman has described how she brought her father's car repair business back from the brink of collapse by posting a single tweet.

Harley Walsh says she posted an image of her mechanic dad, Jim, in the hope of drumming up a few customers.

Her appeal was prompted after Jim said his East Kilbride business of 35 years was "in crisis" because of the pandemic.

He has remained open during lockdown as an essential business, but has seen his customers dwindle to almost nothing.

Harley said customer numbers had dropped from five per day to fewer than five per week in recent months because Covid travel restrictions had curbed the number of drivers on the road.

On Thursday, the eyelash technician tweeted the photo of her dad in order to drum up what she hoped would be a modest number of bookings.

But within an hour the post had been shared over 1,000 times, snowballing to over 19,000 shares in less than a week.

She said the garage was now fully booked this week and was busy for the next fortnight.

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The tweet read: "This is my Dad. His car mechanic garage of 35+ years is in crisis due to the ongoing pandemic.

"If it keeps going this way, it isn't likely it will survive."

"It's been dire for dad recently", Harley told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime programme. "He's never had any issues, but on Thursday he had no one in - it's been like that for a few months now.

"I actually had to persuade my mum and dad to let me put [the tweet] up because he just felt a bit like, 'uch I'm just asking people to come in'.

"I said 'but dad you're asking for honest work'. It kind of blew up, he was so overwhelmed."

'It's made such a difference'

Harley said the dip in business was beginning to take its toll on Jim - but he was now back to his old self.

And the majority of new business as a result of the tweet is young customers who they expect will return.

"We're just hoping that it can continue," said Harley. "Dad seems to think that young folk don't need their cars fixed so he was really surprised at how many young people were reaching out to him for MOTs, services and brakes.

"It just shows that there's good people and it's nice to see that on social media

"Last week he just kept coming over and giving me a hug, just randomly during the day when I was helping him at work. It's been so good to see him like this, it's made such a difference."