It was the oldest bike shop in the UK, but Lloyd Cooper has closed its doors for the last time. The Watford store, which opened in 1900, was still located in the original premises set up 125 years ago by Richard Cooper at 61 Queens Road. It was most recently a Motorcycles Direct branch, featuring one of Kawasaki’s largest showrooms, until its closure last month.
Des Gregory, took on the business with Gordon Heal in the late 1970s, running it with their sons Luke Gregory and Jim Heal until now.
There has only ever been four owners of the business in 125 years and those owners, bar the first, had all been employees. This gave the business continuity, which contributed to its long-running success.
Lloyd Cooper Motorcycles was originally started by Richard Cooper in 1900, followed by Ernie Dell in the 1930s to the late 1960s, when Charles Heal, who had worked for Ernie, took the shop over with his son Gordon. Des worked for ‘Charlie’ and took over the business with Gordon from the late 1970s, when Charles finally retired. Sons, Luke and Jim, joined in the late 1990s and remained until the end.
The shop has sold most brands of motorcycles over the last 100-plus years, originally all British, like BSA and Triumph, eventually to be replaced by Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki.
“The business experienced so much history,” said owner, Des Gregory. “From the mods and rockers, the café racers at the famous Busy Bee Cafe and the ‘Fizzy’ generation of the 70s, to the sports bike craze, which saw the same customers return as born-again bikers many years later. The Busy Bee was a popular meeting place in the 1950s and 1960s on the A41, heading north out of London. Cafe racers attempted to get to the nearest roundabout and back before the record on the jukebox finished!
“Watford was a huge newspaper print town, and many of the workers, especially the night shift, kept the store busy buying Honda C90s, as did the London cabbies doing the ‘knowledge runs’. The amount of business generated was immense in the 1970s and 1980s. When larger bike sales slowed, that side kept us going.
“We had quite a few WW2 Japanese POWs who resisted the first Hondas and Suzukis at first, but eventually, when there was no alternative, they came to love them. Some interesting customers included F1’s Damon Hill and many of the Eastenders cast – we often supplied bikes for the programme.
“Other customers included Lewis Collins from The Professionals, footballers like Vinnie Jones, and singer Ronan Keating. One of our technicians built Eddie Kidd’s engines for him.
“Our most famous customers were the Rolling Stones, who didn’t buy any bikes but bought the 1930s fitted kitchen we had upstairs for their world tour. I saw it on display in Vegas, which was an odd experience. My kitchen was living the rock’n’roll life that we all dream of, touring the world with the Stones!
“It’s been a fantastic place to work, and the support of generations of bikers from Watford and its surrounding areas has seen the store through both good and difficult times. It was fairly common to have grandads, sons and grandsons from the same family, all riding bikes supplied from us at Lloyd Coopers.
“Gordon and I had reached that point in life where we wanted to retire from retail, and as Luke is now running Lukas Distribution for BSA and Royal Alloy from Coventry, the overall decision was to close the doors at Lloyd Coopers for the final time. It was a bittersweet experience turning those lights off on the last day after 50 years of working there, but ultimately, it was the right thing for everyone involved, and 125 is a fitting number to finish on.
“The huge amount of lovely messages of support and memories from old customers are still continuing to pour in, and even from those outside the biking community who just window shopped or felt the store was part of Watford’s history. We have finished on a high note, and that’s all we ever wanted to do. We all enjoyed the ride.”