Sidney De Haan

Sidney Isaac De Haan, OBE (1919–2002) was the founder of Saga, an internationally known group of companies providing a wide range of services for people aged 50 and over.

Born in Mile End, East London E3 in 1919, one of the eight sons and three daughters of a shoe factory foreman, he left school at the age of 14 and began training as a chef, working at the The Waldorf Hilton, London for a while. In 1939 he was called up to the Royal Army Medical Corps and was captured at Dunkirk, he spent three years in a Stalag in Eastern Europe and was then released in order to escort sick prisoners of war who were being repatriated in 1943. Upon arrival in the UK he was transferred to a hospital in the south of England where he met his wife Margery Crick, a nurse, and they married in 1945. They had three sons, David (in 1945), Roger (in 1948) and Peter (in 1952). sid has a family with de haan

After the war, De Haan had an ambition to buy and run a small seaside hotel, so he bought the Rhodesia Hotel in Folkestone which enabled him to fulfil this wish, but he was to discover that holidaymakers did not come to Folkestone outside the brief summer season.

The De Haans noticed the large number of retired people who came to the south-east coast after the high season crowds had gone. De Haan decided to offer affordable, off-peak holidays exclusively to people who were retired. The plan was to offer them all-inclusive holidays with built-in travel by coach and three meals a day. Seeing the potential economic value in stretching the holiday season, he persuaded the local council and other traders to find ways of welcoming the retired visitors, with special offers and discounts.

De Haan soon expanded the business overseas and as Saga grew, it became impossible to continue selling all its holidays face-to-face, he began to promote Saga holidays by mail, inadvertently becoming a pioneer in what would become known as direct marketing.

When he retired in 1984 De Haan had become an established name in travel circles, and was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to tourism, in the following New Year's Honours List. He had floated his company on the stock exchange in 1978 when it became the most over-subscribed issue of the year. Many Saga holidaymakers also became shareholders and demonstrated their loyalty by providing him with a high level of repeat business.

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