CLOSE-UP: WHERE ARE THEY NOW? - A former chicken plucker who drove Volkswagen to success.

John Meszaros took three attempts before calling it a day.

John Meszaros has retired several times. He finally left the world of advertising just three years ago and now lives in a thatched cottage in Northamptonshire. He keeps busy using his recently acquired computing skills to transfer his huge collection of commercials on to disc, while wondering whether to 'cobble something together' from 30 years or so of his diaries.

They ought to make interesting reading. Meszaros is one of the more unusual clients of the past few decades. A Hungarian refugee, who went from Welsh miner and Sainsbury's chicken plucker to head the marketing for Volkswagen and Audi, he not only oversaw some of the most famous and effective campaigns of the century but went on to write award-winning advertising himself.

Meszaros came to England in the late 50s as a trainee miner and then took an opportunity during a strike to leave his base in Pontypridd and set out for London.

In 1968, after spells spent as a hotel porter in Baker Street and plucking chickens in a Sainsbury's store, he took a job at VW cleaning cars. Then he was promoted into an office job and in 1975 he was asked if he wanted to do a bit of marketing. 'I said 'yes please',' Meszaros remembers.

As the head of marketing for Audi and VW in the UK, Meszaros worked with Bartle Bogle Hegarty and DDB on a number of famous advertising campaigns.

Audi went to BBH as one of its first clients, with Meszaros at the helm, and early on in the relationship the agency came up with the idea that found its way into British culture. The 'vorsprung durch technik' campaign was designed to give the brand more German credibility. 'After 'bier, bitte', the other German that the English know is vorsprung durch technik,' Meszaros says.