IT started in 1962 with four caravans on Northbourne Avenue, but now with his three sons by his side and his father’s legacy behind him, Kerry Lloyd says he’s proud to be carrying on the family business Lloyd’s Caravans.

“My dad’s mate approached him to sell the caravans, and when they all went in the first few days, he thought he might be on to something,” says Kerry.

“Soon after he started selling caravans from our family home in Red Hill.”

A panel beater by trade, Kerry says his parents George and Mollie Lloyd and his eight siblings moved from Wagga Wagga to Canberra in the early ’60s.

“Dad was a mechanic and taxi owner, and worked in the air force as an aircraft mechanic during World War II,” he says. “He was the first to introduce radios to taxis in Wagga and Canberra.”

He says the Lloyd family has a long history in Wagga, with both his parents’ ancestors owning a lot of farming property in the area and a suburb named after them.

Kerry says he joined the family business in 1977, along with his brother Bob who has since retired.

“I’ve always enjoyed it, I still like coming to work,” he says. “The good thing about it is that the people we deal with are on holidays, they’re happy and we get to share in that and we get to know them.

“Many people go up north on Anzac Day when it gets cold and by September they come back. I could set up shop up there and serve the same people.

“Caravans and motorhomes are evolving all the time and we’re evolving with them.”

Kerry says his own caravan of choice is a 1970s Viscount called Priscilla with a checkerboard floor and lots of pink, which “looks like a 1970s milk bar” and he enjoys taking it down the coast to go fishing.

He says there have been some brushes with fame over the years, having supplied vans to Olympic basketballer Phil Smyth (adding a hoop to the back of his van for fun), hiring granny flats to Pope John Paul II on a papal visit in 1986, and providing Sir Robert Menzies with one of their vans at the coast when he was prime minister.

“We also fixed Dire Straits’ tour bus in the ’80s, the hatches had blown off the roof and they had nowhere else to fix it. It was just a big bus with a lounge room in the back really,” he says.

“And we had Normie Rowe’s van to fix in the backyard with all his memorabilia and stuff, word got out and people thought he was staying there, so we had girls all out in front of the house, saying ‘we want Normie’.”

Kerry says he’s glad to be carrying on his father’s legacy as well as working with his three sons, Mitchell who’s an auto electrician, Matthew, a panel beater and Kyle who’s a carpenter.

“It’s great to be working with my sons here, they’re keen and they’re good. This is the third generation, which is just fantastic.

“We are still run totally by Lloyds, and I’m looking forward to another 55 years. I don’t know if I’ll make it, but my sons might!”