Hilary Devey – Not Superhuman

Hilary Devey says she has been fortunate in life. But there are those who would beg to differ.

In fact, many would say Devey, the chairman and founder of Pall-Ex, the UK’s largest freight distribution company, who came to fame on Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire series last September, has had a very rough ride.

There was the stint in her 30s when she was a single mother with a severely dyslexic seven-year-old, and had to sell her car and her home to set up her own business after being turned down for a loan by the bank.

Then, ten years later, she found herself driving the streets of Bolton at night, looking for her son who had fallen in with the wrong gang and became hooked on heroin.

And, of course, there’s the long term chauvinism she’s faced working in a man’s world, in the haulage industry. “I’ve had comments like ‘If she succeeds, I’ll show my backside in Sainsbury’s’,” she says. “Others told me ‘I won’t join your network because you’re a woman’.”

But the 52-year-old, whose business now turns over £100m, employs 300, handles 9,000 deliveries a night for 100 companies, and just recently launched in Italy, has always stayed positive. And she’s continuing to do so now, after suffering her biggest setback yet. In February, Devey had a massive stroke.

“It’s all very much a blur,” she says. “I woke up with this searing headache one morning and carried on throughout the day, taking various painkillers that just didn’t seem to touch it.

“By the end of the day, I had lost the feeling in my arm, my mind was just a jumble, my words wouldn’t come out and I couldn’t walk straight. When my son got home hours later, he dialled 999 and I was rushed to hospital where they did a brain scan and confirmed it.”

“To go from running a £100m business to not being able to dress myself or make a cup of tea is humbling and very frightening.”

For days, Devey was touch and go, before finally pulling through. “It was incredibly scary. I think I was in shock for a month. The most I’d ever had was a bad cold, so to go from never having an illness to being told I had a stroke, I just couldn’t believe it.”

Looking back now, she says she refused to see the signs. After capturing the nation’s heart on The Secret Millionaire, where she gave away £145,000 to charity youth projects in Lancashire, her already hectic pace of life moved up a notch, becoming virtually unsustainable.

“By the back end of last year, I was doing 15-17 hour days, I needed ten days in a week and literally every hour was taken, it was horrendous,” she admits. “I was racing all over the country, it was a stressful time in the business with the recession anyway and then there was all the extra media interest. I was trying to do it all and not let people down.”

Along with exhaustion, Devey had made the decision to have some cosmetic surgery in the New Year, while in hospital for other medical procedures. “I had a tummy tuck and I think it pre-empted the stroke,” she admits. “They say that the effects of the anaesthetic on the operating table can do it.”

But there was another crucial element that contributed to it. Devey had been told by her doctor to stop smoking three weeks before the operation, as smoking deprives the stomach tissues of the oxygen it needs to heal properly. She never stopped.

“I was doing 15-17 hour days, needing ten days in a week and literally every hour was taken. I was trying to do it all and not let people down.”

“I was quite blasé about it,” she reflects. “Since having my child, I’ve always thought ‘Oh, I wish I could have this done…’ I know thousands of women who have had tummy tucks and had no problems whatsoever. So, once I’d decided, I just didn’t give it much thought.”

After the surgery at a private hospital in Leeds, everything seemed to have gone successfully initially, with Devey returning home after five days. But ten days after the operation, a blood clot had lodged in her neck, cutting off the blood supply to the brain which led to the stroke.

Since then she’s had six months of rehabilitation, including physiotherapy on her arm to bring back the feeling in it, and a lot of time to think about her work and her life.

“To go from running a £100m business to not being able to dress myself or make a cup of tea because I lost the use of my arm, is humbling to say the least, and very frightening. When I did finally wake up, it was scary to think ‘Is this what I’m going to be like forever now?’ Fortunately, it didn’t last long.”

Devey feels fortunate about a lot of things these days – the friends that supported her through the experience over the past six months, her son, now over two years drug-free, who also helped her through. And she feels fortunate to have such a great team at Pall-Ex, who have been managing the business in the interim.

She is not one for regrets, insisting she’s delighted with her ‘lovely, flat stomach’, and is even back focusing on the charity she came across in The Secret Millionaire, The Backdoor Music Project, a programme that helps kids get into music instead of hanging around the streets.

With every intention of getting back to work full-time – she does admit having a new perspective on life. “I won’t be doing as much travelling, I’ll be doing what needs doing and listening to my body. When it says that’s enough, then I’ll know to stop. My stroke was a sign that, like many other working women, I was doing too much. I’m not superhuman, I’ve learnt that and now I’ve got to accept it.”

For more information on strokes, visit www.stroke.org.uk. For information, or to get involved in The Backdoor Music Project, visit www.backdoormusicproject.co.uk.

By Barbara Walshe