A firm started as a spare-time business at home is now one of the top five belt manufacturers in the UK.

Sue Waters, then a teacher, started the Horsforth firm with her late husband Rolf, then a research engineer, in 1969.

They worked from their home, then in Dewsbury, and built up the business which was started almost as a hobby. Now Xerxes Belts, of Troy Mills, Troy Road, employs 36 people and has a turnover of £1.4 million.

It designs and makes more than a million belts a year - most of them leather - using a mix of hand and machine manufacturing techniques.

The firm's products also go to wholesalers, retailers, catalogue firms and corporate organisations and are worn all over the world.

The company now has household names among its customers including Post Office Counters, British Airways, Ford, Safeway, BT and Boots.

The name Xerxes, after a Persian king, was chosen because it was seen as especially eye-catching.

The company has also set on Horwath Clark Whitehill, which has offices in Bradford, Keighley and Ilkley, as its accountants.

Sue Waters said: "At the end of the Sixties, we found opportunities for selling to fashion boutiques and would go round and call at shops.

"Early on, one of the belts appeared in the Harrods Christmas catalogue. We then received orders from a leading north of England department store and this moved us along quite a notch," she added.

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