PROFILE
‘I’LL WORK UNTIL
I KEEL OVER’
Is Joe Langdell, 89, Britain’s oldest
travel agent? He recounts tales
from his career – which spans
fi ve decades – to Juliet Dennis
For most of us, there comes a
day when it’s time to hang up
your coat and put your feet up.
Not so for Joe Langdell.
Thought to be the nation’s
oldest working travel agent,
Joe turns 89 this weekend. He
still works six days a week at
Lancing’s one and only travel
agency, Lancing Travel in
Sussex.
He certainly wouldn’t
have life any other way.
“I’ll work here until I
keel over. I lap it up,”
laughs Joe, who’s been in
the travel industry since
1960. “I wake up every
morning and think: I’m
still on the right side of the
grass.”
Every day at 10am, Joe
goes to work and joins his
loyal team of girls, which in-
28 | Travel Weekly | November 7 2008
A promotional poster for Joe’s
agency with pictures of his
‘charming young ladies’
cludes daughter Marolyn,
granddaughter Cheryl, and
great granddaughter Lauren, 15,
who works as a Saturday girl.
Joe is managing director and
majority shareholder of the
business but still sells holidays
on the front desk and has
a string of regular clients.
Until 2005 he was
still taking customers
to Florida as part of
the agency’s Go With
Joe escorted tours.
But the glitz and
glamour of Orlando
and the early days
of package holidays
to Spain are a
far cry from
Joe’s early career.
From joining
the Territorial Army at the age
of 18 and a stint in France dur-
ing the Second World War, Joe
had a variety of jobs including
helping to run a guesthouse
with wife Inez in Worthing.
But it was as a greengrocer,
and later fi sh shop owner that
Joe fi nally settled into as a trade
in Worthing.
“I knew nothing about selling
fruit and veg. In those days
lemons were impossible to get
so I bought a case of them.
Women would come to the shop
asking for half a dozen and I’d
say you can only have one!”
What started as one greengrocer’s
soon became three,
plus two fi sh shops, and before
long Joe was supplying the
local police station and post
offi ce canteens with food.
“I used to take a 100 weight
sack of potatoes on a trade
bicycle!” laughs Joe.
Ironically, it was through
this work Joe got his fi rst taste
of travel, when he was
approached by one of the
canteen managers who had
started to sell holidays to staff
to Palma, Majorca.
“He wanted to start a travel
agency and felt they had a
future,” says Joe, who decided
to invest £2,000 to set up
Strand Travel Bureau in 1960.
Joe became a shareholder in
the agency where his daughter
Marolyn went to work to learn
the trade.
The shop almost didn’t survive
those early days. “It was
losing money and we were insolvent.
My solicitor said we would
have to close down,” says Joe.
Fortunately, help from
a London-based barrister
enabled them to keep the busi-
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