Talk to Bob Gowans and you’re can’t fail to be struck by his quiet authority. It’s a voice rich in knowledge and experience. But then he did start early. As a boy in the mid-1980s his house overlooked the yard of Culcheth-based haulier Hunt Bros.
“Every morning before primary school I’d watch the trucks go out, then after school I’d watch them all coming back in,” he recalls. His interest even extended to dropping into the company’s front office to read back copies of Commercial Motor ― what the company thought of him wandering in to catch-up with the latest transport news isn’t known. “I guess I showed an interest” says Gowans with a wry smile.