In 1968 Edward Stalker identified an opportunity to enter the haulage industry and purchased his first heavy goods vehicle, notably a T.K. tipper. With this tipper Edward carried stone from the quarries throughout Cumberland for use in the construction of the new M6 motorway. Edward and his wife Rene ran their new business under the name of E.T. & I Stalker from their home in Heads Nook, a small village close to Carlisle in Cumbria.
After the completion of the local section of the M6 motorway, Edward traded in his tipper for a 17ft Ford D2000 flat-bed, followed shortly after by a Scania. It was around this time that Edward began hauling paper on behalf of The Inveresk Paper Company based at Denny in Stirlingshire. Little did he know at the time that this contract would play a key role in the future development of the company.
Expansion was steady and in the early 1970’s, sons Hughie and Gerald joined the company as working partners, thus strengthening the future of the family-owned and operated business. E.T. & I Stalker became Stalkers Transport as more Scanias were added to the fleet.
Further growth in operations led to the relocation of the business to its present site at Townfoot Industrial Estate in Brampton, Cumbria. This prime site, much smaller then at just 6 acres, is an ideal Northern Gateway servicing all major road networks from the South into Cumbria, Scotland and the North East of England.
Following further development in the 1980s, Stalkers Transport became a limited company – Stalkers Transport Services Limited – continuing to be family-owned and run as Hughie Stalker took over as Managing Director.
The company purchased a further 14 acres of adjacent agricultural land during 2001. Much of this has now been developed to further expand and improve the site. Hughie Stalker was joined by his children, Karen and David Stalker, in running what is now a genuine 3rd generation family business, maintaining good old-fashioned family values, emphasising strongly on plain old hard work, but delivering these ethics alongside a continuously reliable service to their highly regarded customers by state of the art methods, employing almost 100 staff and operating 60 vehicles of various sizes on a 24/7 basis. Sadly, Rene passed away in 2004, Edward in 2011 and more latterly, the family lost Hughie in 2013 after a long battle with cancer. Stalkers Transport continues to thrive as one of the North West’s successful transport businesses.
