Haulage contractor retires after serving JS Wright & Sons for six decades!
We pride ourselves on a rich history that this year sees the company celebrate its 140th anniversary.
During this time, we have enjoyed lifelong relationships with both customers and contractors. Contractors like John Ashby, who is preparing to retire after delivering trees to J.S. Wright for six decades!
John’s story
John Ashby started working with us in 1976 as a haulage contractor hauling trees with his lorry into our yard.
He tells us he got into trouble with Carleton Wright (grandfather to co-director Jeremy Ruggles) for hauling trees in the full length and not in rolls which is how they always used to deliver the timber.
We got over that hiccup and we have never looked back – with John delivering trees to the yard for almost 50 years.
Passing his test with no second gear
John passed his lorry test when he was 21. But, he admitted that it wasn’t like the rigorous driving test you have now. Indeed, it was not so much as a test, more an ability to simply drive a lorry.
When he took his test, his lorry had a broken second gear so that examiner said he wouldn’t test him and to come back next week.
When John returned a week later, the same problem with the second gear occurred. Only this time, the examiner told him to ‘pretend’ to use second gear.
It was enough for him to pass the test and go straight onto articulated lorries, although his first one was a rigid lorry (as shown in the photo).
Building boats and other engineering feats
John is not merely a lorry driver. He is a marvellous engineer as well, as shown by his many engineering feats with us – repairing and making almost anything.
One of his best projects was building a boat to get a tractor onto an island at St Neots where he had purchased a lot of willows.
As you can see from the photo, the boat, made out of a container, worked very well and we got all the trees off the island successfully.
Among other things, he also designed and built our second splitting machine to split the rolls in the yard.
John’s legacy is that this is now used as the base design for all our machines in the yard.
Thanks John
John has thought about retiring a few times, but he tells us this time it is definite.
In his words, driving is increasingly difficult on the roads, age is creeping up on him and with the rising cost of insurance and lorry running costs, it is time to retire and let his son carry on the haulage business in earnest.
We would like to thank John for all his hard work over the years and wish him all the best in his retirement.