"Old skool hooligans bikes" anyone know anything?

I think you all have to remember that they are cheap bikes & rather old fashioned. If you want them to remain working well you have to look after them - ie keep them clean & adjusted.

not necessary, if you been to the Netherlands, you'll notice that no one look after their bike, it's just a tools to them, a mode of transport.
Those dutch bike were design to be maintenance-free, the general population usually want a bike just to ride to and from work as well as general shopping and the like, I abused my old dutch bike quite a lots, especially in the worse of winter, yet it still work perfectly well since the day I got it despite showing some scar.

it's a bit of a poor excuse to tell people that it's their fault that they didn't look after their bike once it fall apart rather than finding a solution to a problem, I realise your business is rather small in comparison with the big brand who pump out reliable bicycle that's likely not to break as easily as your, but if those cheap dutch bike managed to be trouble free for quite a while, surely you can able to do the same to your bike.

I've kept an optimistic view about your bicycle in the past hoping that they'll turn out to be half decent, but sadly this isn't the case, in the meantime I'll still recommend people to spend an extra £100-150 for a proper dutch bike or a bit more for a singlespeed bicycle
The last thing they want is a bicycle that they end up needing to spend more money on repair, not everyone know how to fix bicycle like the general forumeager on the LFGSS.