I thought this was worth an update.
The chap who I selected to clean my gutters, arrived on the dot, and he brought his nephew with him. You can usually tell after the first couple of sentences with someone whether you have made the right choice and it became quickly obvious that I had. He looked sharp with a shirt with his company name on, and he had a nice clean van with his company name on the side. I started off by making the two of them a really nice cup of tea, after which he climbed his ladder and immediately identified the blockage in the V bend that leads to the down pipe.
He unblocked it and cleaned out all of the crap in the front and back guttering. He also had one of those purified water tanks in his van and he cleaned all my windows, frames and sills without me asking. Took him around 45 mins for the lot. He had quoted me £50 for the guttering job, and that is all he wanted to take, but I shot him £80 because it was well worth that imo.
I also asked him for 30 of his business cards which I distributed around my area. I have since emailed him to set up a contract for his to clean my windows every 8 weeks. all in all a very satisfactory experience and conclusion for both parties.
I think that there is a moral here, and that is don't try and rip customers off, treat them reasonably, do a good job, and it will be worth it the long run for customers and businessmen.
Furthermore, I hope that some of those who came onto this thread calling me a cheapskate and generally taking the p*ss, and telling me what my responsibilities were, will now review their position, but I'm not really bothered either way.