Family succession is a common theme in the coach industry. But what happens when your family business is sold and you find yourself having to start again?
It’s 2016 and a library van belonging to Derbyshire County Council is making its rounds of villages in the east of the county.
As the van draws to a halt to await local residents, a smaller, bright yellow van pulls up behind it. Two women jump out, taking a small advertising board from the back doors and setting it on the pavement. Clair Owen, and her mum, Pam Draper, are looking for customers for a new coach holiday business called Clair’s of Derbyshire. Low key it might appear, but for Clair and Pam this is a significant step forward.
To understand why, we must turn back the clock.
Tim Draper (Clair’s dad and Pam’s husband) was the proprietor of Alfreton-based Tim Draper Travel, operating a mixed fleet of coaches and buses on holidays, day trips, schools, baths and other private hire work.
As a child in the early 1990s, Clair, together with her older brother Charlie, would spend time helping start vehicles on frosty mornings. Passing her test at 19 she worked for the family business, mostly driving home-to-school and baths contracts. During that time she developed a skill for the mechanical side of things.
‘Mum pushes me’
“I had no real career plans,” she tells me as we meet at the depot on an industrial estate in Tibshelf, near Alfreton. “I was very happy doing what I was doing. Only the other day I found an old diary entry that read: ‘Oh my God. I’ve found what I love to do, driving a Bristol VR and an ex-Nottingham City Transport Atlantean’!
“In 2003 my mum asked me to drive a coach on a day trip to Skegness. I really didn’t want to do it, preferring to stick in my comfort zone. I asked for help from two very knowledgeable chaps, Neil Marriott and Les Hayes, both of whom had endless amounts of time for me and never let me down with their wealth of information. I did a few of those runs but it took a long time before I felt comfortable. I was always anxious. I didn’t like talking to the passengers. How things have changed! I have to thank my mum for pushing me; she’s always believed in me.
“In 2004, dad became ill. He should have been driving a Christmas tour to Carlisle. I had to step in. I needed a briefing, and I remember chatting with him in the hospital. He must have had confidence in me, but he was no real help. I remember him giving me some general directions and saying I’d be fine!
“I struggled with the route, but my passengers were great. They got me there. That was the start of the magnificent relationship I have with my passengers. I remember my dad never praising me for anything I achieved, but my passengers did!
“But bit by bit I got over my anxiety and started to really love driving the day trips and tours. In the 2000s, Graham, now my husband, came into the picture. He’d been a friend of dad’s for some time, always there in the background, helping out with the engineering.”
School incident prompts change
Clair recounts a story that changed the business forever.
“I was driving a school run using one of our Bristol VRs. Going round a bend I suddenly felt the bus lean. All the kids upstairs had thought it would be funny to move to one side. I really believed the bus was going to tip over. It shook me up. I pulled up and went upstairs to give the kids a piece of my mind. I didn’t hold back. A few days later I was called into the school to be reprimanded for swearing at the kids! It seems nothing was done by the school to reprimand them! As a result we started cutting back on schools work and started focusing on day trips and holidays.”
In 2009, now married to Graham, Clair became pregnant. She kept driving right up until two days before her son, Matthew was born. But maternity leave? Not a chance! She managed three months before Pam called her up to say she was needed. With child care organized, on the coach, Clair was back on the road, and in her words: “Not a minute too soon.”
A Jonckheere called ‘Joanna’
In 2014, Tim announced that he wanted to retire.
“We knew that other operators were interested in the business,” says Clair. “But I was under the impression that dad would be passing the business to me. However, that wasn’t to be.”
The business was sold to an operator down the road in Hucknall in Nottinghamshire, the package including two coaches, the customer database and the 2015 holiday programme.
“There was no role for me with the new owner,” says Clair. “I didn’t know what I was going to do but I knew I wanted to continue running tours. Mum made sure she told the new owners this, and that I would be doing my own tours at some point. Dad had kept three coaches: a Dennis Javelin, a Jonckheere Mistral and a DAF SB3000, with a view to selling them. In lieu of redundancy he ended up giving me the Jonckheere (named ‘Joanna’), albeit with no MoT and plenty of rot. We spent most of our first year in business (2015) getting her roadworthy. We got the MoT, applied for and received an O-Licence (I had my CPC) and were able to rent space in the Tibshelf yard.”
The yellow van does the job
“Mum and I teamed up and started putting a 2016 coach holiday programme together. We made a great team because she had been involved in putting brochures together for some years and I had the experience of doing the work and knowing what was feasible on the ground. But we had to find customers. That was when we acquired the yellow LDV van. Following the library van was a good idea but it wasn’t bringing in the numbers. We started taking the van to market days across the region. Many of my old passengers would spot us. “Clair, it’s you!”, they would shout. “Yes,” I would reply, “and don’t forget it’s Clair without an ‘e’!” Bookings started coming in, and word of mouth did the rest. Our first tour, to Eastbourne in the spring of 2016, went out with 14 passengers, most of whom we knew. Then the numbers started to grow. This year, 10 years on, we’ll be running around 100 tours and a handful of day trips. Mum looks after the contracting and admin from our office in Clay Cross with two staff, Charlene and Gill. I do what I love best, the driving and looking after my customers. We’ve just run our anniversary tour, with 143 passengers, to Potters Resorts Five Lakes in Essex.”
Clair notes that the yellow van, which still has a regular monthly schedule of visits, provides a valuable place for customers to come and book and to pay.
“We’re old fashioned,” she says. “We like the personal touch. No online booking for us.”
Clair’s ‘girls’
Then there are what Clair describes as her ‘girls’.
“I have five coaches in the fleet, all Volvos, four 9700s and one Van Hool Alizee,” she explains. “All of them carry girls’ names beginning with the letter ‘V’, for Volvo. Graham and I look after them all. We’ve nothing swanky, but each coach is really loved.”
Graham, who also runs his own car and commercial vehicle repair business, echoes the love for the ‘girls’.
“I have the fleet I want,” he explains. “I prefer older vehicles. They were just built better than they are now. If something goes wrong we can usually get the coach back to the depot. We have a vehicle lift and our own diagnostics. I wouldn’t want anyone else to mend one of my coaches.”
So, as Clair, Graham, Pam and the ‘girls’ reflect on their well-attended 10th anniversary tour, is the future looking good?
“I’m grateful to all the people who have helped me along the way,” says Clair, “as well as those who didn’t, because your experiences are what make you what you are. If I’d received the reins to a fully-fledged business then I wouldn’t be driving around in sexy looking girls with my name on the side, now would I?
“But looking ahead, I’m really pleased what Pam, Graham and I have achieved. It’s been quite a journey, and I can’t wait to see what adventures await over the next 10 years. We were delighted to be shortlisted in the routeone Awards in 2024, and we’ve joined the Coach Tourism Association to network and gain ideas and inspiration. Yes, perhaps I might stop one day for five minutes, but I’d soon be wanting to get back to my coaches.”
