New Bailey for Kay Bailey as her father's company celebrates its 75th Anniversary

It’s a new Bailey for Kay Bailey (now Taylor) as her father’s company celebrates its 75^th Anniversary. Kay and her husband Phil purchased their new Alicanto Grande Evora from Chipping Sodbury Caravans, part exchanging their existing Unicorn Cabrera in the process. As part of a double celebration, their good friends David and Margaret Young also purchased the same model from the same retailer at the same time!

Sadly, Martin passed away twenty years ago, but Kay’s mother, Joan Bailey, is still in fine form at the age of ninety-three. She was also present at the recent handover of the two new caravans, which was carried out by Jamie Pickford, the owner of Chipping Sodbury Caravans.

Martin Bailey started his working career as an apprentice cabinet maker at A. G. Farmers in Bristol, where he trained to become a fully qualified carpenter joiner. Following the outbreak of World War II, he was then seconded to the Bristol Airplane Company, where he learned new sheet metalworking skills working on planes such as the Bristol Blenheim and Bristol Beaufort. After the war, Martin returned to his trade as a cabinet maker and set up his own joinery business producing furniture. His career path took a different turn shortly after that when a neighbour asked for his assistance in building a caravan in his backyard. After this successful trial, Martin quickly realised that he had all the engineering skills necessary to design and manufacture caravans on a commercial basis and the premises in which to build them. The rest, as they say, is history…

He built the first Bailey caravan, the Maestro, in 1947 and sold it at Ashton Gate market in South Bristol for the sum of £200. A year later, F. G. Bailey Ltd was formed and went into operation, initially producing two caravans per week. Growth in car ownership in the 1950s meant demand for caravans increased rapidly, and the company continued to expand, eventually outgrowing its original premises, and ultimately relocating to its present address on South Liberty Lane in 1960. In 1977, the business was purchased by Patrick and Stephen Howard, and Bailey Caravans Ltd, as it is now known, has remained in Howard family ownership ever since.

Bailey has subsequently become not only the UK’s favourite caravan brand, accounting for approximately one in three new caravan sales but also one of the largest manufacturers in Europe. More recently, in 2011, the company brought the same level of design and engineering expertise to the motorhome market and has also expanded into new export markets as far afield as South Korea and New Zealand. Today, Bailey employs over 650 local people across its three sites in Bristol and currently produces over 6,000 touring caravans and coach-built motorhomes per year, generating an annual group turnover of more than £130 million.

Kay has been a keen caravanner all her life and fondly remembers her first experiences of going away with her parents in their Bailey caravan to their favourite site at Shaldon in South Devon. As with all good family businesses, from an early age, she was also actively involved in assisting her father in running the company. Initially, this involved working in the office during her school holidays, helping her mother Joan work out the wages and putting the correct amount of money into each of the pay packets. As she got older, Kay worked on the Bailey stand, qualifying prospective customers at the big exhibitions held at Earls Court and Olympia. Later, she even spent time visiting International Bailey Distributors across the globe in countries such as the Netherlands and Canada.

She commented, “As a family, we are extremely proud of what my Dad achieved, and seventy-five years later, every caravan and motorhome leaving the South Bristol factory still carries his name.”

“Naturally, we’ve always had Bailey caravans, and we really love our current Unicorn Cabrera, but when Phil and I saw ‘Evie’ the Evora at the NEC Show, we knew it was time to start some new adventures in a new Bailey.”

Simon Howard, the current Bailey Marketing Director, also added, “It was great to meet Kay and her mother Joan when they recently collected their new caravan. Hearing their stories about the early years of the company, it is clear that, while the size of the company’s business has changed dramatically, it is still very much the same family business today as it was then.”

“Perhaps, more than anything, this is why Bailey has been such a lasting success over the past seventy-five years,” he concluded.