Lancing Travel was formed on 28th April 1966 by Joseph Langdell. Joe moved to Worthing in the late 1940's after completing his service in the army throughout WW2. With little money, Joe started himself a small business greengrocery business travelling to Covent Garden market each morning and returning to the south coast and delivering to local hotels. This developed throughout the 1950's into a prominent chain of successful fishmongers and greengrocery shops. In the early 1960's, Joe was offered a franchise with British Rail to sell train tickets. This started out with himself at a single desk in the strand post office Worthing assisted by his daughter Marolyn. As by this point his son, Malcolm, was running the operations of the other greengrocery business. Joe had a good eye for opportunity, and it was the dawn of the jet set era, with air travel becoming more affordable to the masses. Joe decided to expand and began to sell holidays abroad. At this time the package holiday we know today was not quite on the market, therefore people who wish to travel abroad would need to manage their own arrangements whilst away. With a vast majority of the population not even having passports, people were understandably sceptical about the prospect of going abroad as a couple or family and not understanding the local area, not speaking the language or being able to contact anybody for help. Joe therefore started offering all in personally escorted tours around the world.
