John Shirley (far right) explains the origins of the company to the assembled company including Emily Shirley (left) and Robin Ross (centre)
A fortnight ago, John Shirley Ltd celebrated an important milestone in its history. Marking its 15th anniversary, the company’s staff travelled to London for a commemoration in the West End.
Given the Operation Manager’s longstanding reputation for being rather partial towards the band Queen, the company graced the musical We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre. The performance was then washed-down by a meal at The Italian Kitchen, culminating with a glass of champagne at St Pancras International.
Given the Operation Manager’s longstanding reputation for being rather partial towards the band Queen, the company graced the musical We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre. The performance was then washed-down by a meal at The Italian Kitchen, culminating with a glass of champagne at St Pancras International.
A glass of champagne at St Pancras International
Since the company was established in 1996, John Shirley Ltd has grown from strength to strength, and has continued to adapt to evolving economic circumstances. In view of the recent financial crisis and recessionary effects through the trade sector, commemorating 15 years and 20,000 consignments was deemed all the more important.
John Shirley, Managing Director described the initial steps after he founded the company:
“The first year of the company was a dynamic and stimulating period with turnover five times that expected. Bookings flew in from all quarters. We were the second agent to locate to near the new customs facilities at the Channel Tunnel. Within three months we took larger premises within the same building. The goodwill accorded the fledgling company by suppliers and customers was most heartening. With a location on the outskirts of Ashford we all greatly enjoyed cycling to the office as well.”
He added: “Sadly after four years there a fire occurred in the Tunnel and hauliers refused to use it so we moved to even larger premises at the other end of Snargate Street in Dover. It was at this point that the NATO bombing of Serbia took place. So much relief work followed to Kosovo subsequently that our turnover doubled! All day the phones rang incessantly to the point where personally I was suffering from RSI and ordered a headset to answer calls.In 2003 we bought Maritime House and have been comfortable here ever since”
The company has continued the building’s link with transport, given its former use as an important branch for the National Union of Seamen. The NUS has since become part of the RMT and continues to occupy one of the offices below John Shirley Ltd.
Robin Ross – the longest serving member of staff, joined the company in 1996. Describing the progress of the company over fifteen years, he remarked at how things had changed:
“[quote to follow]”
Amongst a certain degree of continuity since 1996, there has been a fundamental move towards greater trade integration in John Shirley Ltd’s specialist area – the Balkans. In addition to the increasing harmonisation of regulations between European countries and the enlargement to include Slovenia within the European Union, other Balkans countries have demonstrated greater alignment.
For the company, there has also been an evolution towards emphasis upon commercial consignments since 1996. The post-conflict and post-Yugoslavia transition has been felt in the nature of trade, which in the steady state, has enjoyed an upward trend. More recently, the balance of British exports versus imports to the Balkans has also seen some marginal balancing, given the depreciation of Pound Sterling.
Mr Shirley distributes File '001'
BORN OUT OF MISFORTUNE – THE ORIGINS OF JOHN SHIRLEY LTD 18.1.2011
In 1992 the London commodity trading company where John Shirley had his own department was suddenly shut down by U.N. sanctions on Serbia as, despite the £200m turnover it turned out to be Serb rather than Yugoslav.
Of all the many contacts he had the only one to strike a deal on employment was a small clearing agent in Dover’s Eastern Docks which, faced with the demise of customs clearance within the EU, wished to try trading and to build greater links with the non-EU countries emerging from the old Yugoslavia.
The attempt at trading failed but what did work was plain freight-forwarding. This came about as a result of cycling round the docks and talking to those drivers who spoke Serbo-Croat, trying to cajole them into steering their shippers to use the agents’ services for customs clearance. Most drivers said that they would “see what they could do but could someone find them loads back home to the Balkans from the U.K. in exchange?”
A little research revealed that there were quite a number of charities and other bodies keen to ship humanitarian aid to the ex-Yugoslav war zones. They leapt at the chance! A lorry that had come to the U.K with a load, was fully insured and so on was far cheaper for them than hiring a truck, finding a volunteer driver, insuring the truck for theatres of war and then bringing it back empty once the aid had been delivered.
Among the many customers that emerged were people like Feed the Children, Princess Katherine of Serbia, Women’s Aid, The Medjugorje Appeal, The F.A.O, the Earl of Huntingdon and the Japanese Government and DFID via the Crown Agents; Brown & Root for the US Army etc and the quantities were staggering getting even larger in 2000 following the bombing of Serbia and four years after the founding of John Shirley Ltd.
Feed the Children ran an appeal on Yorkshire TV only having done a deal with British Rail telling people that they could take boxes of food for Bosnia to their local station and it would be forwarded to them in Reading. Somehow the ad got repeated around the country and the main stations in London were inundated. In desperation instructions were given to load directly out of Paddington, Victoria, King’s Cross and so on. Not knowing what was on each truck they were just declared them as “one lot humanitarian aid” and sent them on their way!
Princess Katherine would ask a driver to do 5 or 6 collections but not advise the helpers when the truck was about to turn up!
Women’s Aid found the funds to move 20,000 tonnes of 1963 Naafi biscuits in black steel tins from an MOD hangar near Cheltenham. There was only one phone and one worker, even at two trucks a day, it took weeks to get through and the further inroads were made into the biscuits the longer it took him to get to the phone till by the end it took over 20 minutes!
The Medjugorje Appeal was run from the warehouses of a successful stainless steel trader in Godstone called Bernard Ellis. Not only did his people load a Croatian truck virtually every day, he sent out 150 4x4 Army trucks to get the food the hauliers delivered to a Caritas depot into the mountain villages of Bosnia. He organised convoys as well of all sorts of vehicles. One, of 40 horseboxes full of aid, was led by Lord Huntingdon.
The Japanese Aid Program via the Crown Agents paid for the bulk of the rebuild of Bosnia and Kosovo. Essentially John Shirley would be asked for a rate say from Nuremberg to Sarajevo and the producer would be asked for their ex-works and delivered prices. Invariably John Shirley was cheaper and was asked for example, to move 1000 tonne bailey bridges in 24 tonne lots from Bristol, scrap paper from Ziar na Hronom in the Czech republic, cables from Balassagyarmat, tipper trucks from Lyon and an entire stone crushing plant (all out of gauge) from Ploče .
For Brown and Root the company would be asked for say, 17 trucks to take unspecified cargo (US Army vehicles on the whole) from Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo to Aviano Air base or Ramstein or Kapesvar Army bases all under special US Army paperwork which could get the trucks through virtually any border.
Today many of these clients no longer exist or operate in the Balkans, however one that still does is Operation Christmas Child for whom the company has been doing the national shoebox appeal for almost 15 years. Nine-tenths of the year the staff quietly go about the routine commercial shipments then suddenly in mid-November all hell breaks loose and it’s just as it once was – barely time to answer the phone!
Encouraged by a curator at the Imperial War Museum John Shirley has written ten chapters of a book on the subject of logistics in the Balkan war zones and hopes to complete it this year.
In 1992 the London commodity trading company where John Shirley had his own department was suddenly shut down by U.N. sanctions on Serbia as, despite the £200m turnover it turned out to be Serb rather than Yugoslav.
Of all the many contacts he had the only one to strike a deal on employment was a small clearing agent in Dover’s Eastern Docks which, faced with the demise of customs clearance within the EU, wished to try trading and to build greater links with the non-EU countries emerging from the old Yugoslavia.
The attempt at trading failed but what did work was plain freight-forwarding. This came about as a result of cycling round the docks and talking to those drivers who spoke Serbo-Croat, trying to cajole them into steering their shippers to use the agents’ services for customs clearance. Most drivers said that they would “see what they could do but could someone find them loads back home to the Balkans from the U.K. in exchange?”
A little research revealed that there were quite a number of charities and other bodies keen to ship humanitarian aid to the ex-Yugoslav war zones. They leapt at the chance! A lorry that had come to the U.K with a load, was fully insured and so on was far cheaper for them than hiring a truck, finding a volunteer driver, insuring the truck for theatres of war and then bringing it back empty once the aid had been delivered.
Among the many customers that emerged were people like Feed the Children, Princess Katherine of Serbia, Women’s Aid, The Medjugorje Appeal, The F.A.O, the Earl of Huntingdon and the Japanese Government and DFID via the Crown Agents; Brown & Root for the US Army etc and the quantities were staggering getting even larger in 2000 following the bombing of Serbia and four years after the founding of John Shirley Ltd.
Feed the Children ran an appeal on Yorkshire TV only having done a deal with British Rail telling people that they could take boxes of food for Bosnia to their local station and it would be forwarded to them in Reading. Somehow the ad got repeated around the country and the main stations in London were inundated. In desperation instructions were given to load directly out of Paddington, Victoria, King’s Cross and so on. Not knowing what was on each truck they were just declared them as “one lot humanitarian aid” and sent them on their way!
Princess Katherine would ask a driver to do 5 or 6 collections but not advise the helpers when the truck was about to turn up!
Women’s Aid found the funds to move 20,000 tonnes of 1963 Naafi biscuits in black steel tins from an MOD hangar near Cheltenham. There was only one phone and one worker, even at two trucks a day, it took weeks to get through and the further inroads were made into the biscuits the longer it took him to get to the phone till by the end it took over 20 minutes!
The Medjugorje Appeal was run from the warehouses of a successful stainless steel trader in Godstone called Bernard Ellis. Not only did his people load a Croatian truck virtually every day, he sent out 150 4x4 Army trucks to get the food the hauliers delivered to a Caritas depot into the mountain villages of Bosnia. He organised convoys as well of all sorts of vehicles. One, of 40 horseboxes full of aid, was led by Lord Huntingdon.
The Japanese Aid Program via the Crown Agents paid for the bulk of the rebuild of Bosnia and Kosovo. Essentially John Shirley would be asked for a rate say from Nuremberg to Sarajevo and the producer would be asked for their ex-works and delivered prices. Invariably John Shirley was cheaper and was asked for example, to move 1000 tonne bailey bridges in 24 tonne lots from Bristol, scrap paper from Ziar na Hronom in the Czech republic, cables from Balassagyarmat, tipper trucks from Lyon and an entire stone crushing plant (all out of gauge) from Ploče .
For Brown and Root the company would be asked for say, 17 trucks to take unspecified cargo (US Army vehicles on the whole) from Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo to Aviano Air base or Ramstein or Kapesvar Army bases all under special US Army paperwork which could get the trucks through virtually any border.
Today many of these clients no longer exist or operate in the Balkans, however one that still does is Operation Christmas Child for whom the company has been doing the national shoebox appeal for almost 15 years. Nine-tenths of the year the staff quietly go about the routine commercial shipments then suddenly in mid-November all hell breaks loose and it’s just as it once was – barely time to answer the phone!
Encouraged by a curator at the Imperial War Museum John Shirley has written ten chapters of a book on the subject of logistics in the Balkan war zones and hopes to complete it this year.
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