IIn 1977, former teacher David Loxton was trawling the streets of London flogging paper lanterns from the boot of his Citroen Dyane.

Plenty has changed in the ensuing 25 years, but nothing has diminished David's passion for business.

Walking proudly around his firm's new headquarters, he wears a broad smile across his face as he surveys the stunning range of stock amassed in the enormous warehouse.

David is clearly a man who's happy in his job.

And Bradford's happy to have him doing business in the city.

After all, he's just bucked the trend of some firms by quitting his existing headquarters on the Leeds side of Pudsey for a new base in the elegant old tram terminus in Thornbury.

Loxton Lighting has bought the 75,000 sq ft development which fronts on to Leeds Road and is now home to the firm's 50 employees.

The business is this year expecting to turnover around £5.5 million - quite a rise on the £49,000 worth of stock that was bought from the boot of the old Dyane.

But David is the first to admit that the transition from travelling salesman to boss of one of the industry's leading players has been far from easy. A devastating fire and a tax investigation put the future of the business in doubt. But the move to Bradford is indicative of just how far the business has come.

It supplies major national firms such as Focus DIY, Wilkinson's, B&Q, Alders, Grattans and Freemans. And it even has a dedicated team of six working in an office in China.

It's all a far cry from 1977 when David quit the classroom in search of a new career in the business world.

"As a teacher, I was always a bit short of money so I went for a reps job selling lighting because it came with a free car," explained David. "The company made Indian lampshades and I managed to put them all over the UK. I got lots of accounts and got to know loads of people in the industry.

"I worked for them for about two years before I decided I quite fancied importing my own stuff and doing my own thing."

He set up his own firm specialising in the paper lanterns, which were highly sought-after at the time, and then expanded into wicker shades imported from Korea.

A shortage of warehousing in London prompted David to return to his home town of Leeds, where he took out a lease on a 5,000 sq ft unit in Hunslet.

David can still reel off the firm's turnover in its first five years - from £49,000 in year one, then £97,000, then £156,000. By 1985, business was booming and David snapped-up a 10,000 sq ft former mill building in Pudsey. From there, the firm continued to grow with the purchase of a neighbouring building, bringing the total space to 35,000 sq ft.

But then disaster struck. In 1989, a devastating fire ripped through the complex, just three days after the firm had signed a contract to supply hundreds of Sainsbury's Homebase stores.

The blaze - a suspected arson attack - destroyed every item of stock and every customer record the company owned. The following day, while David was still in the Far East on business, Homebase withdrew from the deal.

"That was a very hard time for us," he said. "It was very soul destroying because I was left with just one lampshade and all our customer records were lost. Unfortunately, we were under-insured so it cost me £550,000 just to rebuild the place, not accounting for all the stock that we lost.

"I very seriously asked myself if I really needed all this in my life any more."

But despite the blow, David pledged to rebuild the business. And the firm was soon back on track, only for a computer problem to cause an accounting backlog which ended up costing the firm £660,000 following an Inland Revenue investigation.

It might have been a blow too far for some firms, but David was determined not to give up.

Turnover continued to grow, new lines were developed and major contracts signed. "You need to keep sticking at it," said David. "I think tenacity is the key. I have made a lot of mistakes and learnt a lot of lessons over the years."

Sitting in his large office at the new Thornbury base he bought from furniture giant Flexiform, David has no regrets about sticking with it.

And he is equally convinced Loxton Lighting made the right decision to quit Leeds for its less fashionable neighbour. The firm was encouraged to look at the city by the Invest in Bradford team and received a grant and advice from Business Link.

"The location here was very convenient compared to Pudsey and there was no worry about losing a lot of the workforce and having to start all over again," he said.

"I consider myself very fortunate to have found this place. It is on the right side of Bradford in terms of being accessible to Leeds and there is a lot of development going on here.

"Bradford definitely offers better value for money than Leeds and this is a wonderful building that has all the benefits of a modern unit."

David proudly shows off all the new lines of stained glass and acrylic lampshades on display in the sparkling showroom currently under construction in his new headquarters.

The firm, which employs its own designers, is at the cutting edge of technology with its pioneering shades designed for energy-efficient halogen bulbs.

And - in a telling twist of tradition - Loxton has just scooped an order from a Japanese firm for the new products which are still made in the Far East before being shipped to Bradford.

David now spends a lot of time in the Far East and his son, who lives in Taiwan, has just married a Chinese woman and will next year join his dad and sister in the family business.

As David completes the tour of the impressive new headquarters, he's almost bursting with pride.

Standing below the glass ceiling in the imposing foyer, he admitted he was surprised how far the firm had come. "It's a long way from selling lanterns from the boot of my car!" he said.