60 YEARS ON   AND STILL GOING STRONG

Now in his 80s, Ron still keeps a sharp eye on the business that’s taken six decades to build. On most days he can be found in the shop and as a trained joiner he was ‘hands on’ during the showroom’s recent refurbishment. Today, Ron Daley’s is one of the country’s leading suppliers of Vespa, Scomadi, Royal Alloy and Peugeot scooters, a high street showroom and multi-brand franchises were the stuff of dreams when he began trading, though it was in confectionery not motorcycles that he honed his sales techniques.

Early days

“I’ve never had a sweet tooth,” he began,”but always loved shooting. I’d spend my sweet ration on aniseed balls as theyregistering them as ‘RDS’, Ron Daley Specials, the first of many to come. Obsessed with motorcycles he had little time for the fairer sex but it was a match made in heaven when he was introduced to Marian, the daughter of another motorcycle enthusiast and one of the few woman in Barnsley to hold a full motorcycle licence. “We were so poor that one of our wedding presents was a chair; it was the only furniture we had and we took turns to sit down,” laughed Ron.