My Story
A lifetime in this game — same as you.
I was born in Sheffield in 1961. At seven I was a van lad on a mobile bread round, delivering to the OAP flats at dinner time and going back to school with my pockets full of tips. At nine I bought my first bike for cash — even then I knew debt was a mug's game.
An apprenticeship at Hargreaves Vehicle Distribution at 16. Youngest supervisor at Fletchers bakery at 22, running fifteen roundsmen — always top three out of sixty-five. When the franchise came in I bought five rounds and built them up. Then I saw the supermarkets coming and sold while the business was still worth something. My first exit, done at the right time.
Then transport. I built a courier operation — five artics, fifteen vans. When the national courier we served went into administration, it cost me dearly. But before I sorted myself out, I set my drivers up as owner-drivers and found them contracts. Nobody got left behind. That's how I've always worked.
I ran international distribution across Europe, then spent years turning failing pubs around. In 2019 I sold up and opened a café bar in Buxton. Covid closed it, and eighteen months of nothing followed — the worst period of my life. I don't dress that up. Most owners I talk to have had years like it.
In 2024 I came back to the industry and bought two haulage companies. Doing those deals taught me where my real value is. It's not running trucks anymore — it's the deal itself. Sitting across the table, face to face, finding the shape of an agreement where the seller, the staff and the buyer all walk away better off. That's why The Junction exists.
My rule, my whole life: nobody ever walks away from a deal with me feeling they've been ripped off.