Calafat.. March 2008
When I'm not digging trenches and levelling stone you can often find me out with some of my biker pals on my Triumph motorbike, I've been involved with machines of one type or another nearly all my working life and loved motorbikes since I was a teenager, after leaving school in the early 70's I started a general engineering apprenticeship and I soon found myself involved in tinkering with my friends cars/motor bikes which I enjoyed, after finishing my apprenticeship I wanted a change from a factory based job and was offered a job by a friends father (Frank) working as a service engineer in his small plant hire business, this was my first experience of operating earth moving equipment ( JCB 3c, International Drott and a Cat D6) after servicing of course we needed to test the machines or move/load them and I slowly learnt the basic operations.
I started operating construction equipment in the early 1980's when the boss (Frank) needed someone at short notice, it was only meant to be a week or so but I enjoyed operating machines of all kinds and the boss replaced my position on the maintenance staff before he found a machine operator.
I was married by now and with my wife in full time work we saved enough to buy a building plot, sold our small terrace house and started to build our 'dream home' while living on site in a mobile home.....ah! happy days.
Of course digging foundations and drains was made easy and cost next to nothing as I could borrow the JCB at weekends, this was the start of a self build craze in the UK and we moved and constructed 3 more house's in the following 10 years buying an old JCB 3c of our own instead of using the machines of who ever I may be working for at the time.
Mini diggers were starting to appear in the UK around this time (1992) and I thought like many people that they were toys with no real industrial use, until I had the chance to try a Kubota mini digger at the local agricultural show where I was completely won over to this new idea. Yes I wanted one and this was the start of my mini plant hire business which in 1998 I moved to the Costa Blanca.
I started operating construction equipment in the early 1980's when the boss (Frank) needed someone at short notice, it was only meant to be a week or so but I enjoyed operating machines of all kinds and the boss replaced my position on the maintenance staff before he found a machine operator.
I was married by now and with my wife in full time work we saved enough to buy a building plot, sold our small terrace house and started to build our 'dream home' while living on site in a mobile home.....ah! happy days.
Of course digging foundations and drains was made easy and cost next to nothing as I could borrow the JCB at weekends, this was the start of a self build craze in the UK and we moved and constructed 3 more house's in the following 10 years buying an old JCB 3c of our own instead of using the machines of who ever I may be working for at the time.
Mini diggers were starting to appear in the UK around this time (1992) and I thought like many people that they were toys with no real industrial use, until I had the chance to try a Kubota mini digger at the local agricultural show where I was completely won over to this new idea. Yes I wanted one and this was the start of my mini plant hire business which in 1998 I moved to the Costa Blanca.