Agri Adjustment

or, adventures in driving to farms

Hello friends, I hope that this email finds you well.

It has been quite a while since I sat down at my computer and wrote a letter. I have been swamped over the summer. Most of my time was spent as a driver delivering grain samples and crop protection products to farms across the southeast of England. In August, I passed my Class 1 (C+E) HGV driving test and became a qualified lorry driver. Off the back of that, my Uncle, who manages the Frontier Agriculture site at Hermitage near Newbury, contacted me and offered me a position working out of Wingham, close to where I live. I jumped at the opportunity!

So, I became a “seasonal grain harvest temporary driver”, running daily grain samples between Wingham and Hermitage, Monday to Friday. I had to drive the same route daily, collect the samples from Hermitage, and bring them to the laboratory for sampling and grading in Wingham. They gave me a brand-new van, a fuel card and a mobile phone, and off I went. I did this for over a month before I changed roles slightly and began working out of another depot near Sevenoaks. This time was operating as a crop protection (CP) delivery driver. The new position involved delivering various agricultural chemicals to farms. The size of my delivery vehicle increased, but it had to be a van; trucks would not fit into some of the places I needed to go!

The staff at The Agronomy Partnership (TAP) are some of the finest people I have had the privilege of working with. They all made me feel welcome and couldn’t do enough to help me whilst I was there. My days involved driving from Adisham to Wrotham, loading up my vehicle with CP products and then hitting the road, visiting several farms per day. I would have to locate the farm chemical store and deliver orders as per the customer’s instructions. I drove across Kent, Surrey and Sussex, going to places I didn’t know existed in some of the most beautiful countryside I have seen. It was great. But alas, the seasons moved on, and the demand for CP products began to decline, so I began to look at what I would do next.

Earlier in the summer, I had a conversation with the regional transport manager for Frontier and mentioned that I had recently passed my HGV licence and was looking for work as a lorry driver, ideally staying within the Frontier family. He took it under advisement and said he would speak with me again once my time at TAP ended.

Having been told that the CP work was winding down, I once again contacted the managers at Frontier in Wingham and said to them that I needed a job and that I would like to remain with the company. We had a meeting, and he told me to leave it with him while he spoke to upper management. A week later, I was called in for another meeting, and I immediately asked if I would be interested in becoming a relief driver, covering sickness and holidays for the existing crew of drivers operating out of the southeast at the Wingham depot. I jumped at the opportunity, and so, from next week, I begin full-time training in the dark art of bulk grain transport. I will move large amounts of grain between farms, ports, mills and breweries. I will be driving the very best trucks, with little or no weekend working, although I will live in the truck from Monday to Friday.

So, there you have it. The latest instalment of my professional driving career. Am I nervous? You bet. But I look forward to learning from the best, driving the newest trucks and working for one of the best companies in the business. I will have time to write blog posts each week, most of which will be from out in the field. I will have plenty of downtime each evening to work on those entries, so keep an eye out for them over at my website.

Until next time, adieu.

JP