 My
full name is Andrew Lambert (but to everyone I am Andy) and these days I
live in Hampshire near Southampton, England.
It is fair to say I have been successful in my life and 'made a name' for myself in several very diverse areas, including changing the UK Recovery Industry for the better and organising the recovery of most of the major exhibits at Brooklands Museum. However, before I 'bore you to tears' with some of the achievements I am most proud of, here is a brief background to the start of my life. I was born back in1946 and lived in London's Replingham Road in Southfields (to be exact above the co-op for those that remember it). I grew up around the Wandsworth area, with my older brother - Geoff. That's the two of us below on his wedding day (I am on the right).
Old Elliott pupils might like to know there is a Elliott School Egroup as well as a fascinating website that I manage. To view it click here . When I left school, I first worked for Decca in Queenstown Road, located in what was then the 'rough end' of Battersea (is there a posh end?). What an education that was, talk about the 'swing sixties'!
My father was sadly killed in a car accident during this time and so I had
to do my growing up damn quickly.
Fortunately I was amongst friends (a bunch of very tough 'rockers') and
that no doubt is where I developed my love of fast mechanical things, as
well as a taste for leggy blondes!
See the picture below showing me with some of the 'gang' I hung out with
then (left to right) Christine and Colin, leaning on a BSA Goldstar. Derek,
Myself and Penny, just some of the 'The Battersea Jets'. |
 Around
that time, my good mate Don Freeman introduced my to the world of 'motor
cycles' and my projected carrier in the world of electronics, started to
move irrevocably towards the wonders of the combustion engine. It would
take a few more years before motor vehicles became my life, but they did
(although electronics would remain a hobby throughout).
I stayed with electronics for a bit longer, joining Redifon (part of the Redifusion Group) at Wandsworth, around 1965. I then worked for DER at the Mitchem Depot and CES (Part of the Philips group) as a service engineer.
I then married my first wife Barbara, left home and we moved down to
Portscatho in Cornwall. Here I worked again as a TV repair man, in and
around the Roseland area.
|
Into Vehicle Recovery
I attended my first breakdown with Forge Garage of
Poynings down in Sussex (with whom I was working through my holiday), in the
summer of 1965 and become hooked (no pun) on recovery vehicles. |
|
From that turning point on, I spent every spare moment nights and weekends, as a 'part time' recovery driver. My speciality being working the Kingston Bypass, and if you knew the bypass when South Lane was still a crossroads, you will understand what it was like. Still I lived through it and sadly there were some that did not.
Finally I joined Cambridge Coachworks, on the Cambridge Road Kingston. To start with I was an evening controller, However I was asked to join them full time around 1971 and became the manager. While the Coachworks side was expertly run by Wally Pells, the
coachworks could not survive without its trucks looking for work. It was then
that I decide to start
National Rescue, firstly as a division of
Cambridge Coachworks, although of course in the end it would swallow the
coachworks up.. |
|
What followed, were probably the best years of my life. We did not have much money but I loved the work, even if it was 'non stop' 24Hrs a day.
The incredible joy and camaraderie, of working with those recovery drivers and police officers I knew at that time, will remain with me forever. They were all characters and I have not meet their like since. Nor do I expect to, because today our behaviour would not be 'politically correct'. If any of you read this: Jaws, Phil the Gypsy, Snake, Sunshine, Alan the Poet, Trio, Trigger, Stitch, Grisly, Chunky and so, so many others - Thanks for all the fun we had. If you have time, please read my Recollections of Vehicle Recovery (also link on the main home page), to get a feel for those incredible times. It seems imposable today to believe that such things happened then, but happen they did and you can see some of the photos to prove it. During the time at Cambridge Road Kingston not only did we start National Rescue, we also broke in to CB. To be part of the legalisation of CB in the UK, we converted an old wooden hut (on the front of the coachworks) in to a Shop, and called it The Rabbit Rabbit Hutch (were we the original nerds?).
One of the hardest things about running a recovery operation, was the paperwork. Each day you could undertake a large number of lift and tows. Everything is done as quick as possible, but this means the paperwork, becomes a poor second. I ended up writing a computer program to do all the invoicing and soon found other recovery operators, needed something like it themselves. So in 1985 myself and a genus called Ian Lane, started Motor Trade Software. A software company producing programs for the motor trade and vehicle recovery operators. I was MD of that company, until we sold it, in 2002. My only brother Geoff worked for BT as an engineer, but like me spent his spare time around the recovery scene. In 1982 he joined me at National Rescue full time and when I left to expand Motor Trade Software in the nineties, he took over and run The National Rescue Group until he retired in 2008. His son Martin now runs it today. Part of the expansion I left NRG to undertake, was to launch a new company Mobile Tracking Systems Their main products were vehicle location devices and guess what? Their largest customer sector, was the UK's Recovery Industry and it was for their use we developed Turbo Dispatch. Much has been written elsewhere about this and how it changed the industry for the better, therefore I don't intend to dwell on it here. If you have an interest in it, the Wikipedia page will give you a good background. The two MTS companies, grow to provide the majority of software and hardware, that is used by the Recovery Industry. I was amazed in 2001, when it was calculated, that 93% of all vehicle recoveries, subcontracted by all the UK Motoring Organisations, were sent over the MTS data network! When I first drove a recovery vehicle back in 1965, I could never have guessed that I would be associated with vehicle recovery for the rest of my life. I also could not have guessed that at the end of my active career (forty years later), 'The Good and the Great' of the industry would to my eternal pride, make me a Fellow of The Institute Of Vehicle Recovery.
Then in 2006 The Institute sprung one of the biggest surprise of my life on me, when during the annual dinner, I was awarded this incredible Green Flag Trophy. This lifetime achievement award, was given to me for the contributions my peers thought I had made to the recovery industry. It is a couple of foot long and so bloody heavy, you need a full size flat bed to get it home.
When I finally retired in 2007 I thought it was all over and I could get
away from Recovery Vehicles, but again I was honoured to be asked to become
the fourth trustee in RISC UK (The Recovery Industry Support Charity),
along with my old mates Brian Hagen, Tom Johnson and a new friend Debbie
Hewitt. Read about RISC
|
My
first School was Riversdale School in Southfields, then later I went to the
(then new) Elliott Comprehensive School, up on Putney Common. 
First
I 'part timed' for Windmill Coachworks, (then
in East Molsey opposite the police station). Next I joined
Instant Service Garage, in that most famous of suburban roads - The Avenue
Surbiton (never did get to meet Felicity Kendal
though). It was interesting 'fighting for
work', in those days when only a few motorist belonged to one of the 'motoring
clubs'
On
one occasion I was unloading the cockpit sections of a Valiant 'V Bomber'.
Quietly watching me was an 'old boy' cutting the grass. After an hour or so he
had finished and come over to where we were having a break.
