The firm that just keeps on trucking

It's a remarkable success story of an enterprise which has blossomed from a one lorry operation 64 years ago, to its status today, of a comparative giant of Britain's haulage industry.

Yet, Taylors of Martley remains a family firm, spanning three generations and is still based at its birthplace in a fairly remote part of rural Worcestershire.

The firm was born in 1939, when Edgar Taylor of Martley, bought his first tipper lorry and was joined in the venture shortly afterwards by wife Gladys, who became the driver, sometimes reluctantly, of a second lorry purchased by her husband.

Their son Donald, who "grew up with lorries" as a boy, entered the business from school and, in time, became head of the firm, masterminding its decades of significant growth and also its expansion into warehousing and storage.

In retirement and at 69, Don Taylor remains chairman of Taylors of Martley, a company now owned by his three sons.

Currently, the family firm commands a fleet of 160 trucks and haulage vehicles - each new one costing £50,000 - plus 280 trailers. It employs more than 400 people around the country and has over 1.3m sq ft of warehousing in the UK.

The far flung array of storage and operating centres built and developed by Taylors of Martley over the past 16 years, or managed and operated by the company, are in such strategic locations as Wisbech, Manchester, Leeds, Sunderland, Milton Keynes, South Wales, Worcester, Burton-on-Trent, Longbridge, Elmdon, Stratford-upon-Avon, Northampton, and a site near Leominster.

Seven years ago, the company also set up Worcester Truck Services in purpose-built premises at Blackpole, to handle all the maintenance of the Taylors of Martley vehicle fleet countrywide.

Unquestionably, this family firm, whose trucks are now such a familiar daily sight on our roads, has put Worcestershire very squarely on the commercial and industrial map of Britain.

In Victorian and Edwardian times, Henry Taylor, father of the firm's founder, was a coachman - at the reins of genuine horse power - for Colonel Currie and his family, who lived at the elegant country mansion, Laugherne House, Martley.

His son Edgar, after marrying a local girl, set up home in a little bungalow at Martley Hillside and brought up a son, Don and four daughters. For a time, Edgar drove lorries for the long-established Worcester haulage firm of AF Tansell before taking the plunge of setting up on his own in 1939.

Edgar's first lorry was bought from HA Saunders Limited in Castle Street, Worcester and had the index plate FK 930. His next purchase was a square-nosed Bedford lorry which his wife Gladys would often drive, though she adamantly refused to take it through the centre of Worcester, on coal and coke runs to and from the Gas Works near Shrub Hill.

As a boy Don Taylor recalls: "Mother would go as far as Hylton Road and park the Bedford on the riverside near Worcester bridge where father would meet her with his lorry and swap over. She would then drive his lorry back to Martley.

"Often too, mother could not get reverse in the old Bedford and I would help out, knowing how the gear lever worked."

Clearly, a woman lorry driver was a rare sight then, and Gladys Taylor somehow managed to combine her hours at the wheel with bringing up the family of four children!

Edgar Taylor's early years as a haulier were during the austerity of wartime, and his tipper lorries were engaged carrying coal and logs around neighbouring villages and "lugging" gravel from hillside quarries at Martley and Malvern, to airfields such as those at Defford, Moreton-in-Marsh and Little Rissington, presumably for run-way construction.

Tipper lorry operations also remained the mainstay of the family business in the post-war period, though in 1945, when Don Taylor was 11, his father moved the family from the little bungalow at Martley Hillside to a more substantial property he bought in the village itself - Laugherne Villa.

This was to be the base for the family firm and also its fleet depot for several years to come. It was obviously there, that Don joined the business after leaving Martley School.

Edgar Taylor greatly enjoyed country pursuits and was very much "a shooting and fishing man," driving out and about in his van during the war years. Son Don would often accompany him on these sporting pastimes and also became a keen cricketer and rugby player.

In 1952, however, 18 year-old Don was called up for two years' National Service, being enlisted first in to the King's Shropshire Light Infantry and then serving with the Durham Light Infantry in war-torn Korea. He was finally transferred to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment to complete his service.

It was not until after Don's return in 1954, that the firm bought its first flat lorry, a 10 tonner which he drove, as well as other vehicles gradually added to the firm's fleet. Runs to Neath, South Wales and Wisbech, Lincolnshire, were regular trips for him.

In 1958, Don married Margaret Jones of Stourport-on-Severn, and the couple set up home in a new bungalow, Mardon, next to Laugherne Villa, having three children - sons Stephen, Grahame and Robert, who all went to school in Martley.

Margaret was later to become involved in the firm, gaining the nickname "Road Runner".

She drove around the country by car to collect spares and the like!

Don was taken into partnership by his father in 1965, with the setting up of E Taylor & Son (Haulage) as a limited company. It won significant contracts with Metal Box, Worcester and Wells Drinks at Tenbury.

Then, in the 1970s, Don Taylor began a diversification into warehousing, building a warehouse near Laugherne Villa and setting up D Taylor Warehousing, which became a limited company in 1976.

In 1987, Don's company built a warehouse at Swadlincote, near Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire and won a delivery and distribution contract from the Bass Brewery, still fulfilled by Taylors of Martley, today.

Next came the development of a 90,000 sq ft warehouse at Wisbech, mainly to handle storage and distribution for vegetable canning operators in East Anglia. An extension was added later to take the warehouse to 120,000 sq ft.

The Wisbech warehouse opened in 1988, the same year that the family firm reached a major crossroads in its existence. Edgar Taylor retired, and the company was re-named Taylors of Martley plc, with Don as chairman and his three sons as directors - the third generation in the business.

"It cost us just £25 to get plc status, and it was the best £25 we ever spent," says Stephen Taylor. "It meant that what had been a reasonably small haulage company began to rub shoulders with some of the big boys of the industry."

Further warehouse and distribution centres were then gradually developed as Taylors expanded its storage and handling expertise to offer an essential degree of flexibility and practicality to today's diverse business logistics.

Taylors' Worcester warehouse was built at Blackpole, in 1989. It was the same year that the family firm proudly celebrated its 50 years in business.

Then, in 1992, Taylors was invited by one of its customers - what is now the giant Scottish Courage brewery group - to take on the palletisation at its big depot at Moss Side, Manchester.

"It was one of the most innovative contracts we had ever tackled, and we still have it today," added Stephen Taylor.

His grandfather died in 1994 and his grandmother, three years later.

In 1996, Taylors built a substantial new head office on the Maylite Trading Estate in Martley, previously the site of a sawmill, and named it Edgar House in honour of the firm's founder.

"People often ask why we decided to remain in Martley, as such a widely-spread nation-wide operation. The simple reason is that we all live within a mile of the office," said Stephen.

"However, in promotional material and brochures we have had to include a map of Britain with our HQ location distinctly pinpointed on it, lying in rural Worcestershire. Some people also wonder how we can possibly accommodate so many trucks at Martley, when they see them all out plying the nation's roads.

"In reality, however, only 15 vehicles are kept at Martley. The rest are based at our various warehouse centres around the country."

Don Taylor retired from an active role in the company when he reached the age of 65 in 1999.

He looks back on his early years in business as being a time of "working hard and playing hard", out all hours and so intensively involved that there was, alas, little time to spend with family.

"We launched various business initiatives in those days and, fortunately, things went right for us, though I always heeded my father's strong advice: 'It's all right having everything, but always try owning half of it'."

The company is now managed by a professional team, including Celia Adams who manages the day-to-day operation, and Bruce Maltby, who heads up the Automotive Logistics Division.

In addition, there are a number of young professionals - David Bratton, Scott Hayward and Adrian Fleming - who manage regions of the country.

They work alongside Richard Osman, who runs Worcester Truck Services. Di Spriggs and Bev Sherratt run the corporate and financial services of the company.

The late 1990s saw Taylors of Martley developing or taking on the operation of further new warehouse complexes - a pioneering one for Sainsbury's at Oldbury, West Midlands, a small unit at Warrington, Lancashire, another of 130,000 sq ft at Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, and a fourth near Leeds.

Then in 2000, Taylors won a major contract from the international beverage can producer Rexam to handle the management of all its distribution operations in the UK. Ten billion cans of beer, lager and soft drinks are consumed in Britain every year and, of these, three-and-a-half billion cans are produced by Rexam and, therefore, delivered by Taylors - one in every three cans drunk in this country!

The Rexam base is at Luton, Bedforshire and, though the distribution vehicles carry only the logo and livery of Rexam, they are, in fact, Taylors of Martley trucks.

The year 2000 also saw Taylors taking on an MG Rover contract to provide warehouse and delivery services at Longbridge, Birmingham, where around 15 trucks are based, and last year, the company opened a warehouse at Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, for the storage and distribution of Coca Cola drinks vending machines to shops and stores nationwide.

Also last year, Taylors won a contract from Kingspan, manufacturers of insulation boards for the building industry, to handle its storage and distributions from a base near Leominster, Herefordshire.

As with Rexam, the trucks involved in this operation, carrying up to 80 loads a day out of the site, are emblazoned with the Kingspan livery, but belong to Taylors of Martley.

As a continuing part of its TM Automotive Logistics wing, Taylors also gained a contract last year, from Kautex Nissan to operate a distribution centre at Sunderland, and this year the company installed warehousing at Hams Hall, near Birmingham, for a vehicle bumper manufacturer.

In recent months too, Taylors has taken on a 40,000 sq. ft warehouse at Northampton, to distribute Carlsberg products.

A further wing of Taylors of Martley is Packaging Logistics Services Limited which, as a joint venture with an American company, supplies and uses a unique design of plastic pallet, bringing an end to splinters, jagged edges and sharp nail heads associated with traditional wooden pallets.

As for its national haulage operations, the company now boasts "one of the most advanced information technology systems in the business, giving nation-wide on-line control and monitoring of vehicle movements 24-hours a day, seven-days-a week."

The control centre maintains direct contact with drivers via a dedicated telecommunications system.

However, Don Taylor adds a wry note to this high-tech advancement following a recent chat with one of his "older" drivers. "

He said he missed the occasional telling off which used to be delivered personally and verbally. Text messages aren't the same!"

Stephen Taylor adds: "There is never a boring day, but always highs and lows, including the discovery of immigrants in trucks or break-in robberies from vehicles."

He warns, however, that a major problem is already confronting the haulage industry in Britain - an increasing shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers.

A shortfall of 50,000 such drivers is forecast for three years time.

Stephen is a governor of the Chantry High School, Martley, while brother Grahame is a Martley parish councillor.

The Taylors are happy that the company, despite all its vast growth, still has, in essence, its original main telephone number from the time it was founded - Wichenford 241 - though more digits have been added to make it now 01886 888241.

However, the family know that working with a strong management team secures a future for all.

The three Taylor brothers are all married and have six children between them, with another due in a few months time.