The History of Directa

Directa began in 1971 in the City District of London, the company was registered as City Directa Ltd.

1971

The three founders were: (Dave) Mr. L.D. Dennison .DL (Mick) Mr. M.D. Coburn (Deceased) Mick passed away in 2015 (Terry) Mr T.R Poston (Deceased) Terry passed away in 1988

The three founders having been friends since schooldays and early teens.

The main aim of the company was to be able to supply consumable materials directly to customers without the need of a retail shop or showroom. Being able to supply directly meant savings and efficiency. Our logo, a bow and arrow, was to indicate directness.

Directa’s display at the NEC

Finance House

Our first address was ‘Finance House’, an impressive office building of 5 floors that stood proudly on the corner of the Shoreditch High Street and Rivington Street EC2, opposite Shoreditch Church.

1972

To begin with we occupied just one floor of the building, but as our success grew, we were to quickly take over more floors until finally purchasing the freehold of the building in 1972.

Kingsland Warehouse

We were also to purchase our warehouse close by in Kingsland High Road. We enjoyed working in the city for ten years before deciding travel to and from our city location was proving progressively difficult.

1980

To begin with we occupied just one floor of the building, but as our success grew, we were to quickly take over more floors until finally purchasing the freehold of the building in 1972.

1980

The great improvement in communication technology enabled us to look outside of London. To the surprise of many, in 1980 we bought what appeared to be a tumbledown site in Cold Norton.

Cold Norton Warehouse 1980

We could see the potential of the acreage and the great attraction of having a happy staff, who we hoped would be able to travel home in a matter of minutes as opposed to hours.

It took a while to make the site habitable, not least by the installation of a proper sewage connection to the main drain!

1981

Site Renovation at Cold Norton

We said goodbye to Finance House and relocated to part of the Cold Norton warehouse in 1981.

1983

Cold Norton Warehouse

At that time we kept a London presence by using our former warehouse as a London sales office. This satellite system of incorporating local sales offices was to be extended to include Rochester KENT, Ipswich SUFFOLK, Leeds YORKS, and Hitchin HERTS.

Our new Head Office building was completed, ready for us to move in on the seventh of January 1983.

1988

Cold Norton Head Office 1983

Then it was time to set about reconstructing the two warehouses on site into one large facility by adding a third building in between the older constructions. This work was completed in 1988.

1996

Cold Norton Head Office 1996

The Head Office building was extended in 1996 to mainly provide expansion for our sales department.

We were to extend our offices again in 2003 by building offices above a new workshop at the bottom of the site.

2003

New Offices 2003

The lower building is a manufacturing unit and the upper floor is where the Marketing and Purchasing Departments are.

2009

New Warehouse 2009

2009 saw the completion of a new warehouse with an undercover loading bay, which connects the old building with the later workshop and offices.

Calendars

From the outset most of our everyday endeavours concerned mundane, (some would say boring), items, our philosophy remains to make life more colourful and interesting for our customers. We regularly introduce marketing and promotional ideals designed to be both interesting and amusing. This is probably best illustrated by our calendars, our first was in 1977. We began custom making our own calendars in 1993. We have built up quite a following; our motto being that we are to humour what Pirelli are to naked female flesh. We actually have customers who collect and save them!

Promotional Offers

As part of our regime of making our activities colourful, we often use sales promotions as giveaways. We try to have new offers about four times a year. We design them for small as well as large customers, trying where possible to have something for everybody. We used to make a leaflet with each offer for reps to post out a couple of days before making a sales call. These days we prefer to make an email for reps to send just a couple of hours or so before making contact. Here are some examples of the old and the new: