Davies Transport is driving ahead as it nears its 60th anniversary. Peter Barron finds out more about the family business after it was at the centre of a surprise visit by Prime Minister Theresa May

WHEN the Prime Minister visited Darlington in her bright blue battle-bus, she chose to call in at a haulage company about to mark a milestone on its long road to success.

Every business has to have a starting point, and the wheels began turning for Davies Transport in Ferryhill, County Durham, almost 60 years ago.

Arnold Davies had been born into a proud, hard-working family, with his father Arthur running his own coal company.

Arnold inherited the same entrepreneurial instincts and his first foray alone into business came in 1958 when he bought an Austin Sheerline limousine to transport brides to their weddings and families on weekend trips to Blackpool.

The Davies business journey was under way, but Arnold could see bigger opportunities on the County Durham horizon.

A year later, he traded in his limo for a tipper wagon from Chambers and Holliday, the deal going ahead despite the car breaking down at the Eden Arms roundabout and having to be towed in.

Arnold and his wife, June, initially lived in Ferryhill, but moved to Middlesbrough after selling the limousine.

While June ran a corner shop near Ayresome Park, Arnold gradually built up the transport business, ferrying sand and gravel from Anderson’s Quarry in Catterick, North Yorkshire, to Teesside.

Within 18 months, he had acquired more wagons and moved the company to a site in Darlington, off Yarm Road, and never looked back.

With work created by the construction of the A1M, Arnold’s business grew and he relocated again to a bigger Darlington site, this time in Southampton Street, off Albert Road, in 1969.

The couple had two daughters, Karen and Alison, and a son, Jonathan, who joined the family business straight from school in 1982.

“I was in awe of my father because of what he’d achieved,” he recalls.

“I just wanted to follow in his footsteps.

"He’d been made chairman of the Darlington Driving Training School in the seventies and he’d taken me to meetings when I was only five or six, so I grew up with the business.”

But there was no easy ride for young Jonny. Right from the start, his father made it clear he’d have to work his way up from the bottom.

“I came in as a mechanic – well, more of a gopher really – but that’s what I had to do,” he says.

“The only downside was having to listen to Diddy David Hamilton and ‘Beat the Intro’ constantly on Radio 2. I was young, so I wanted Radio 1 on the workshop radio.”

Despite those musical differences, Jonathan learnt his trade well under the expert eye of head mechanic Ronnie Walker, who’d been recruited from Neashams garage on Darlington Ring Road.

Jonathan qualified as a long-distance lorry driver and built up a solid understanding of the transport industry.

It was just as well because, when his father suffered a heart attack in 1995, Jonathan suddenly found himself having to take over the business as managing director.

“Thankfully, I had Ronnie and my mother by my side and they were my rocks,” he says.

Arnold died, aged 64, in 1997 and his son has been the driving force behind the business ever since.

Jonathan and his mother, who are joint owners, made a key decision in November 2015 when plans for a retail park created the oppor- tunity to leave Southampton Street.

They might have called it a day but chose instead to re-invest the money from the sale of the land back into the business and retain jobs in Darlington by transferring to a more prominent site at Faverdale.

For a business reliant on reaching every corner of Britain, it’s literally miles better.

“We’re closer to the main routes and the brand is much more visible – it couldn’t have worked out better,” says Jonathan.

The company now has a fleet of high-spec rigid and articulated trucks engaged in general road haulage all over the UK.

It has 20 full-time and part-time employees, including experienced transport manager Colin Lowe, and long-serving administration manager Peter Ratcliffe.

Jonathan took pleasure in telling the Prime Minister that year-on-year sales are up 7.1 per cent, despite uncertainty over Brexit.

“We’ve come through the recession with a strong balance sheet and that’s gratifying,” he says.

All 12 trucks are being equipped with greener, more efficient Euro 5 and Euro 6 engines, and Jonathan takes pride in being one of the first companies to become a member of the Fleet Operator Recognition Scheme (FORS), the industry standard for best practice.

The company has invested in camera safety equipment for its trucks to safeguard pedestrians, cyclists and other road users.

Jonathan maintains he’s not overtly political and was as surprised as anyone when two representatives from the Conservative Party turned up on the eve of the PM’s arrival.

“I was having an ice cream – three for a pound at the Co-op – when these people came in and asked if we’d host a political event. “We didn’t know who it was until 11am on the day of the visit,” he says.

Nevertheless, he found Mrs May “very approachable” as he took the opportunity to highlight the challenges facing the haulage industry.

Brexit remains at the top of the list, although he acknowledges the impact has been minimal so far.

Fuel costs are relatively stable, running at about one per cent up year-on-year, though any rises clearly have a huge impact in a highly competitive market.

Wages, along with pension contributions, are up 2.73 per cent and Jonathan has made it clear he doesn’t believe in zero hours contracts.

“I’m blessed with hard-working, loyal staff and they deserve security,” he insists.

“The Prime Minister listened carefully over a cup of tea, not just to me but to the drivers.

“Hopefully, she went away with a better understanding of what we’re trying to do - sustain our levels of growth and continue to support jobs here in Darlington.”

It’s been a long and sometimes bumpy road since Arnold Davies swapped his Austin Sheerline limousine for a tipper wagon in Ferryhill way back in 1958.

But he’d surely be proud to know the business he founded on enterprise and hard graft is still being steered in the right direction as it approaches its 60th anniversary.