Born in Blackpool in 1945 to working class parents, Townsley began his career in travel in the early 1960s at Blackpool airport, where he worked as a passenger handling apprentice.
In 1970, Townsley used his redundancy pay to set up his first travel shop, Trident Travel. By 1978, this had evolved into Gold Medal Travel, which was the UK's largest British-owned tour operator when Townsley sold it to Thomas Cook in 2009.
The group has since been acquired by dnata and lives on today through Gold Medal and its other trade-only brands – Pure Luxury, Cruise Plus and Incredible Journeys.
