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1
Len Valsler, the man behind Kent-based LV Transport, had a boyhood dream of driving trucks. That certainly wasn't what his father wanted him to do, but where there's a will
f-A there's a way—and now he runs a successful fleet of more than 30 HGVs... LEN VALSLER is a bit of a historian on the quiet. The boss of a thriving haulage operation based in Gravesend, Kent, he is proud of his Kentish roots and can trace his fam. ily back a couple of hundred years to Rochester, on the river Medway (there's a Valsler buried in Rochester Cathedral, he says).
But his love of history is more focused on the haulage industry than his own roots. He set up his company, LV Transport, back in 1976. With only 24 years to look back on, it's not exactly a dynasty, but there's definitely some history in there. "I've been in the business since the age of five," he says—and he's not joking.
"Back then, my grandfather, two of my uncles and my dad were all
driving for A&14 dy of
Northfleet," Valsler explains. "I spent every bit of spare time I could in the cal, with another of them. I've been driving all over the country since as long ago as I can remember."
Despite the apparent indulgence of the male members of his family, Valsler recalls that his father disap proved of his interest in road haulage: "When I left school, my dad said 'you can do what you want, but you're not going into transport'.
He thought driving lorries was the lowest of the low and he wanted me to do better: Reluctantly, Valsler obeyed his Lather's stern instructions and in 1961, aged is, he became appren ticed to the South-East Electricity Board to train as an electrician. He learned the trade, but his heart lay 0 0 elsewhere. When he finished his apprenticeship in 1965, he went straight into road haulage with a Gravesend-based firm. "As long as I finished my apprenticeship, my dad couldn't object", he says.
Valsler dived in at the deep end, doing longdistance "tramping" work. This entailed taking the truck out with a load on Monday morning and then finding his own work for the rest of the week. He roamed the country in a 24-tonne AC Mammoth Major, picking up what loads he could and returning to the depot at the end of the week.
"You never knew where you'd end up—you could go from one end of the country to the other," he says. Few drivers these days are cast adrift so lightly and hardly any are so dependent on their own initiative. And Valsler was doing it at the tender age of 20. "Of course, I was under-age", he adds airily, "but I'd been driving lorries since I was 15. I was allowed to take pulp to the paper mills in Gravesend for one company my dad worked for."
Normal
How things have changed. Armed only with a normal car-driving licence, Valsler was employed by the Gravesend firm to drive vehicles he couldn't possibly hold a licence for at the age of 20. Didn't anybody ever check? "It just wasn't like that in those days," he explains.
From that company Valsler moved to Reed Transport for a month, then back to the Gravesend firm before he eventually took a job, tramping again, with Wallis Haulage of Dartford. Finally, in 1976, he took the plunge—Bill Wallis sold him his first truck, a Guy "Big J" 32-ton artic, and LV Transport was born.
Fast-forward to 1999. LV Transport is a thriving transport firm with a fleet of 32 tractors and rigids and 41 triaxle curtain-sided trailers, most of them fitted with tail-lifts, working for "every plc in the area". The "area" is difficult to define, as LV Transport now has two satellite depots; one in Brighton, the other up in Kendal.
The company relies heavily on long-term contract work; so much so that Valsler has a transport manager dedicated to each of his three biggest customers and based at the customers' premises.
But although it is conveniently located for work on the Continent, LV Transport remains resolutely British in its operations. "We go to France, Belgium and Holland, but only because we have major clients who require us to go there," Valsier explains. "I won't go any further—there's no money in it. I can get the same money taking a load to Canterbury as I can going to Belgium."
And he's not been tempted to flag out: "I did consider it, but by then all our trailers were triaxles and we saved on tax and didn't need to base vehicles in Europe."
The modern haulage industry is a world away from the business he learned, literally, at his father's knee in the cabs of A8cH Hardy's wagons, but there are still tangible links with the past. For a start, many people, like Valsler's own father back in the early 195 OS, still have a low opinion of the road haulage industry. Instead of accepting this situation, however, Valsler is prominent among Kent hauliers in taking action to promote the industry He's a member of Trans-Action and
was one of the nine hauliers who recently held talks with Tory leader William Hague to highlight the industry's plight.
Another, more direct link with those early days is the profile of LV Transport's staff of 40 and his customer base of about 30 regular clients. "We've got the best people in the industry," he says. "Some of my drivers, managers and fitters were with me when I started out—and I've still got many of my original customers."
Even the Hardy link remains; Valsler took the firm over in 1980.
Museum
Visitors to his two-acre yard in Gravesend will find a veritable transport museum there, with books, photographs, models, old signs and a range of other memorabilia. This fascination with transport is as strong now as it was when he was a five-year-old boy riding in the cab of his father's lorry: "It's my hobby, my life," he says. But this fascination does not blind him to the loss of the old camaraderie or the ceaseless pressure ofjust-in-time deliveries. "These days everybody's tearing about because the pressure's always on. It's a high-stress industry now," he observes.
At 54 Valsler laughs at any suggestion of impending retirement. With his wife Kim as company secretary, he intends to keep his hand on the tiller for a good many years yet.
But already, history appears to be repeating itself: his three-year-old daughter, Leona, is showing an uncommon interest in trucks, and misses no opportunity to visit the yard. And unlike his father, Valsler feels no compulsion to steer his offspring away from the industry—although he's quite certain she won't be driving anything until she's licensed to!
• by David Taylor
FACTFILE
LV Transport
Based Gravesend, Kent.
Founded Gravesend, 1976.
Contact Len Valsier, managing director.
Fleet
25 tractors (mainly ERFs with a couple of Oafs) hauling 48 curtainsider trailers, mast fitted with tail-lifts. Also includes seven rigids—four 17-tonners and three 26-tanners—all ERFs. Guys new and second-hand. Most recent purchase: ERF EC11 380 6x2 tractor, October 1999.
brawler Approx £2.25m.