Gillian Ramsey first opened Ramsey’s garage in Newton Aycliffe more than 25 years ago with her late husband.
Then joined by her brother in law Ian and son Elliott, Ramsey’s continues to thrive as a family business who pride themselves on superb customer service and having generations of customers who keep coming back.
One of their long-standing customers is the Great North Air Ambulance Trading Company, also based on Aycliffe Business Park, being the service & maintenance provider for their van fleet and supplier of cars and vans. The Trading Company runs the recycling collection service for the Charity and the beautifully liveried vans can be seen across the entire region picking up bags of unwanted clothes and homewares which are then sold to raise funds.
Recently the team at Ramsey’s were given the opportunity to apply for funding to make a charitable donation, they jumped at the chance and secured £1000 which they passed on to the Great North Air Ambulance Service.
The charity is funded entirely by voluntary donations and takes around £5 million per year to operate, flying over 1000 missions a year and literally saving the lives of local people who simply wouldn’t have survived the major trauma or acute illness had it not been for the Air Ambulance Service.
To thank Ramsey’s for their generous donation, Gillian and Ian were invited along to the airbase at Teesside Airport to hand over their cheque, meet the crew and have a tour of the facilities. Gillian took along grandson Alfred, the next generation of Ramsey’s, who was amazed by the helicopter.
Gillian said ‘We’ve had a great relationship with the air ambulance for years so to be able to give them a donation towards their life saving work is fantastic, but to actually go along and talk to the doctors, paramedics and pilots was really eye opening. I just don’t think people realise what they are capable of’.
Elliott Ramsey also runs a campervan hire business, from the garage in Aycliffe, which was recently featured in the Charity’s current raffle campaign, where the crew are pictured enjoying a campervan break as part of the theme ‘How would you spend £10,000?’ Raffle tickets costing £1 are still available.
