Young Driver Award

With her father diagnosed with cancer and the survival of his haulage business potentially on the line, Holly Histed swapped hairdressing for the highway and has never looked back

- Dougie Rankine

When owner-driver Stephen Histed was diagnosed with prostate cancer he faced a crisis for both his health and his business. With nobody to drive his Daf XF 26 tonne rigid during his treatment and recovery of up to three months, he risked losing the business he’d worked so hard to build up. But his daughter Holly, 24 years old at the time, stepped up and volunteered to take on the driving.

She passed her Class C licence first time and was soon out on the road working in the 16-speed manual Daf. “I always used to enjoy going in the truck with my dad during the school holidays and I loved to help wash the lorries at the weekend, I must have diesel in the veins!” she tells us.

Stephen started off his driving career with John C Wheeler Transport driving a Bedford TK and then jumped up to a Ford Transcontinental and European work. He then got the first Daf 3600 ATi Space Cab in the country before deciding he wanted to head out on his own. That was 30 years ago and his first truck was a Daf 2100. “I was fortunate to get a good start, as John Wheeler said if I painted my truck his colours, then I could subbie for him” he explains. This got Stephen’s business up and running until he built up his own customer base. The company has around 20 customers, transporting all types of goods which takes them all over the UK.