Leatherhead business moves to Africa

By lbishop luke bishop luke.bishop@essnmedia.co.uk

As you enter the dusty little village in Zambia under a blanket of stifling heat there seems to be little affinity with a drizzly and cold Surrey commuter town.

But once you come to a one-storey hut with a corrugated iron roof, the familiar name of Hardy Engineering appears and an unlikely connection between Leatherhead and Mfuwe becomes apparent.

The link between the Kingston Road-based gear-box repair firm and the land-locked African country was forged when owner Neil Hardy first set foot in Zambia.

Mr Hardy, 40, who lives near Horley, visited the country on safari in 2005 – and while staying there he wondered how the 4x4 vehicles were kept in such good condition.

He said: "I was interested in how they looked after the vehicles, which got quite a rough ride.

"I went behind the scenes and met this guy called Raphael Bhanda who was the chief mechanic.

"Raphael was interested to learn about automatic gear boxes so he kept coming to find me and asking me questions."

Mr Hardy said he recognised a "talent and thirst for knowledge" in Mr Bhanda and asked the camp management about the possibility of him joining the company in the UK.

A year later Mr Bhanda joined Mr Hardy and his team to learn about automatic gear boxes from the staff on site over here.

Staying with Mr Hardy and his family, Mr Bhanda got a real taste of British working life.

Mr Hardy said: "He is a very hard worker. He was shadowing lots of people, helping and basically learning as much as he could.

"At night he used to go up to his room and read all the books."

But it was not all hard work as Mr Bhanda also got a flavour of what it is like to live in Britain.

Mr Hardy added: "He had never been out of Zambia so he was amazed by the amount of traffic and the lifestyle we have in this country.

"We just wanted to try to give him as many experiences as possible. We took him down to Brighton to see the sea, which he had never seen before, and he had also never experienced cold or frost before.

"We also took Raphael along to a Status Quo concert."

When Mr Bhanda returned to Zambia after two weeks in Britain he set up his own business specialising in vehicle maintenance and repair.

He named it Mfuwe Hardy Engineering in honour of the British business that had helped him so much.

Speaking to the Advertiser from Zambia, Mr Bhanda said: "I was so happy with the service there and the knowledge I learnt there.

"That is why I founded my own business in Zambia."

Last month Mr Hardy travelled to the African business set up in his name and stayed with Mr Bhanda and the owner's family.

Mr Hardy said: "It makes me very proud and we wish Raphael every success in the future."