Graeme, who runs the agency with Joan, adds: “It’s been wonderful to work with my wife for 35 years, 24 hours a day! Having her here means it’s a lot easier to run the business – and to work until three or four in the morning when we’re processing the travel arrangements for fans before one of the local football teams plays a match.”
When asked how the husband-and-wife duo complement each other, Graeme highlights Joan’s “enthusiasm”, adding: “I would say marketing is my forte, while she focuses on accounts and the finances. So, we leave those areas to each other.”
Graeme and Joan started their business almost 35 years ago to the day when they opened up at 134 Westoe Road in South Shields where Graeme’s mum Olive and dad Stan worked in a newsagents.
At first, Westoe Travel only offered Blue Line coach tickets to London, but soon it expanded its product range, selling hotels, rail travel and coach holidays to other parts of the UK outside London. Becoming an Abta member allowed the agency to book “the right tour operators for individual customers”, Joan explained.
Sixteen years later, Graeme and Joan moved from the newsagents to Westoe Travel’s current premises at 120 Westoe Road – just a few doors down from the old shop.
David Miliband, then the local MP, was due to attend the official shop opening on 8 July 2005, but was instead called into a Cobra security council meeting due to the 7/7 bombings in London.
Despite his secretary telling Westoe Travel he would not be able to attend, Miliband is said to have driven from the capital to Westoe Road once the meeting had finished “so as to let us down”, recalls Graeme.
Sadly, this wouldn’t the only time Westoe Travel was affected by acts of terror at opposite ends of the country.
The day after South Shields FC had won the FA Vase – one of the agency’s highlights, according to Joan – Westoe Travel apprentice Chloe Rutherford and her boyfriend Liam Curry were tragically killed in the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
Understandably, Graeme finds it difficult to talk about the horrors of that day. But he says: “The support we received from Abta and so many people throughout the travel industry – most of whom we had never met – was amazing. Our travel industry colleagues and the residents of South Shields helped us raise £33,107 for the families of Chloe and Liam.”
Graeme, who has acted as treasurer for the Chloe and Liam Together Forever Trust, has gone on – along with the help of his team, the South Shields community, industry colleagues and a host of celebrities – to help the trust raise hundreds of thousands of pounds to help young people like Chloe and Liam achieve their potential.
Little Mix success
In 2011, the agency played an important role in getting Little Mix to the X Factor final – and ultimately going home with the title.
Two of the band members’ mums lived near Westoe Travel. Taking up the story, Graeme says: “We were contacted by the mums of Jade [Thirlwall] and Perrie [Edwards] to arrange their travel to the show each week.
“South Tyneside College produced 1,000 ‘Vote Little Mix’ posters and we were the collection point.
“Shops and businesses through South Tyneside had the posted displayed in their windows and the local council changed the electronic road signs to say ‘Vote Little Mix’.
“We still have our framed signed ‘Vote Little Mix’ t-shirt and a thank you letter from Jade displayed in the shop.”
Graeme says the Little Mix’s run in the TV talent competition “brought together the town” which is “half Newcastle United fans, and half Sunderland fans”.
