Gary Roberts: Cover Photo Winner July 2024
My name is Gary Roberts and I have lived in the great border city of Carlisle for 60 years, I work in the Lake District, Southern Scotland and Yorkshire.
My first job was in farming where I attended Newton Rigg College. This was a great job but not enough money when you have just bought your first home and a child on the way. I got a job offer for a timber truck for a company in Longtown, Cumbria. While there I was involved in the clear up from the great storm in 1987.
Following this I was offered a job with Sheffield & Co who are now a wholly owned subsidiary of Euroforest. Since Euroforest took the business over we have gone from strength to strength and we have seen massive investment and support in the business which has resulted in the fleet expanding and we now have wagons stationed at our base in Nairn and also some in South West Scotland. This supports our own harvesting activities and also helps to secure deliveries to our customers.
This is a fantastic place to work with great people and a good work life balance and I At Sheffield & Co I am left to get on and do the job treating the truck as if it is my own. I never find it hard to get up at 4am to go to work. It is a job I love.
I currently drive a Scania 540 and drag with Kesla double telly crane, 44-ton gross. These are changed every 4 years.
I want to continue in timber haulage as long as I can. I would like to see more younger people come into the industry as most of us are now in our 50’s and 60’s. Not a lot of young people seem interested in doing the job but they are missing a trick, it’s a great life and we are now looking for young drivers and we will invest in training for them as we see them.
I don’t have many hobbies but enjoy caravaning, running Timber Trucks UK on Facebook which I started 10 plus years ago and now has over 8000 members.
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That’s a remarkable amount of work hours for a single machine, the Norcar 600 owned by Erkki Rinne is taken well care of, it even has the original Diesel engine.
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Kieran Anders is a forestry contractor working in the lake district. His work involves hand cutting and extracting timber using a skidder and tractor-trailer forwarder.
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It is not possible to eliminate chain shot, but there are simple steps that can be taken to reduce the risk.
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Arwel takes great pride in the fact that the mill has no waste whatsoever, “the peelings are used for children’s playgrounds, gardens and for farm animals in barns in the winter and the sawdust has multiple uses in gardens and farms as well.
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Timber hauliers need to encourage young blood in, and also look after the hauliers we have, we need make the sector a safe and positive place to work.
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Perfect photo! It would be nice to smell the scents, the smell of the forest, the mud, and the machines at the same time at dawn. Congratulations on the photo!