Andy Lambert a life in Vehicle & Aircraft Recovery
Some Background to Andy Lambert:
Welcome to the historical archive of Andy Lambert, founder of National Rescue and historic vehicle recovery specialist. For over forty years, Andy Lambert has served as the longest-serving volunteer at the Brooklands Museum, specializing in aviation salvage, heavy vehicle recovery, and preserving British transport heritage. From successfully campaigning for flashing rear red lights for roadside recovery operators to appearing on BBC Breakfast TV, lifting the historic Loch Ness Vickers Wellington Bomber, and operating the famous AEC Militant recovery vehicle 'Miss Milly Tant,' this archive documents a lifetime dedicated to the UK vehicle recovery industry.
That is the bit AI tells me I need to get Google on board so here is why this page is here. My wife and daughters keep saying "You need to write a biography of your interesting life in Vehicle and Aircraft Recovery". Well yes, I would like to, but I am crap at grammar! So here is my life summed up in a few web pages, including some of my many pictures, all of which tell a story.
Even by my own admission I have made a 'name' for myself in several different areas including vehicle and aircraft recovery, charity, journalism and both boat and vehicle tracking. I am lucky to have worked with some incredible people on, some seriously mind boggling projects, some of which changed the vehicle recover industry forever, while other projects helped in building Brooklands Museum's large collection. I would love to tell you all about it and so if you have the time, please click on the 'About' link above.
I was born a Cockney, grew up in Wandsworth and now live near the coast in Hampshire. I am proud member of that historical family the Lamberts, (my 22nd Grandfather was Edward the 1st, King of England). I went to the Elliott School in Putney and grew up with an interest in all things Mechanical and Electronic. On leaving school in the sixties, I entered the world of electronics. However, I was soon seduced by the 'Vehicle Recovery' industry and spent nearly all my working life in it, founding both the National Rescue group and the MTS group with my brother Geoff along the way.
Today I have more or less retired, but being a guy who gets bored easily I helped set up the Recovery Industry Charity RISC UK and on the sad death of Tom Johnson in 2018 I was asked to become Chairman. We try and help VRO's in trouble and spend a lot of time lobbying government for changes to safety. I have also continued my forty year connection with the Brooklands Museum, still undertaking aircraft recovery and supporting other volunteer teams on site (even though climbing up on the back of my AEC mobile crane Milly is becoming harder each year!)
Explaining what is of interest on this website
Along with the 'About' link above you will see ones for 'Media Links'' The Media Link one will take you to and explain my several playlists containing 800 plus fascinating Videos that I have put on-line. Subjects include Brooklands, Motor Racing, Vehicle Recovery, Aviation and Travel, all divided in to playlists. There is also a few of the thousands of photographs I have taken over the years in the Images gallery.
Off special interest to some is my Scrapbook which contains some of the press cuttings I have kept over the years, to start with it shows some of the RTA’s I have dealt with (an RTA (Road Traffic Accident) is what the youngsters call an RTC these days). It then goes on to show a little of the MTS days, a few obituaries and more recently work on Safety and scattered throughout are the odd aircraft and vehicle recovery stories.
Some of the stories you can learn about here
A little about my lifetime around Vehicle Recovery
I started National Rescue around 1973 while running a recovery operation for Kingston-based Cambridge Coachworks (in Cambridge Road). Within a few years, it had become one of about four leading London recovery operators. At the time, recovery operators were free of drivers’ hours, but, fearing this would change, by the mid-eighties we had some ten relay sites around the UK, including Devon, Birmingham, Gatwick, Sunbury and our HQ at Brooklands. In 1985, I wrote what was possibly the first dedicated recovery control program for our own use, but also offered it free to my fellow operators. This would lead to Ian Lane improving it and the birth of MTS. Of course, I was still enjoying vehicle recovery, and here you can see us recovering a stricken Tesco articulated lorry on the A283 near Steyning, Sussex. See the full story www.vehiclerecovery.org
First M25 Accident at Surrey's Jun 10
During my years as an active recovery operator, my work ranged from well-known TV moments, such as recovering Ringo Starr’s Mercedes after he rolled it on the Kingston bypass, and rescuing the Queen Mother’s horse box, complete with horse, when it dropped into a gutter, to more everyday jobs, such as lifting cars out of the River Thames and supplying damaged vehicles for TV and film shows like Z cars. The image above shows me dealing with the very first accident on the Surrey stretch of the M25 at Cobham, while the motorway junction was still being built. I have also rescued many complete aircraft and aircraft sections for Brooklands and other museums. Fortunately, if I happened to have a camera with me, I would sometimes photograph or video the incident, many of which can now be seen at www.andysvideo.com
Lifting a Valiant Cockpit into the Stratosphere Chamber
I am the longest-serving volunteer at Brooklands Museum, having started in 1984. Over the years, I have been involved in the recovery and transportation of most of the major exhibits, including most of the aircraft. Along with building the museum’s first website and installing its first CCTV system. This image shows me lifting the Brooklands Valiant cockpit into Barnes Wallis’ Stratosphere Chamber, using the Brooklands Belle, a recovery vehicle I designed with Gordon Jackson. I have also, until recently, (when they started doing it themselves), videoed most major motoring and aviation events held there. You can see many videos about it at www.andysvideo.com
Lifting the Wellington Bomber's rear at Brooklands
As stated earlier, I, Andy Lambert, have been collecting, transporting and helping to maintain most of the aircraft at Brooklands for over 40 years. This includes airbag-lifting the “Loch Ness” Wellington high enough to fit the wings and undercarriage, putting Concorde’s famous droop nose back on after I had recovered the cockpit and rear fuselage from Bristol, and transporting and reassembling the Brooklands Vimy replica after it landed in a field next to the museum. Most of it with my ex-London Transport, ex-National Rescue AEC Militant recovery vehicle, 1456MR, called Milly, seen here lifting the rear of the Loch Ness Wellington. You can see more of Milly at www.millytant.com
MTS's legendary Garage Manager and Turbo Dispatch
My wife, Christine (above), Ian Lane and myself launched Motor Trade Software, known by all as MTS, in the late eighties. We developed the first purpose-designed vehicle recovery control software, which, by the late nineties, was used by some 80% of all UK recovery operators. Later, as Mobile Tracking Systems, we developed Turbo Dispatch, which, although now renamed, is still in use today. You can see more about this at www.vehiclerecovery.org
The first-ever vehicle recovery Standards Committee
The very first Standards Committee in the recovery industry only happened because, in 1984, I invited my best contact from each motoring organisation or clubs to a “boys’ day out” at Brooklands Museum, and then trapped them all in the same room! It worked and an industry standard was born. This image shows one of the later and larger meetings. You can see more about this, and some of the skulduggery that went on at www.vehiclerecovery.org
Andy Lambert appears on BBC Breakfast TV
The story of how we fought to get rear-facing red flashing lights for recovery vehicles over forty years is well covered elsewhere. As Chairman of the Recovery Industry Support Charity, RISC, I raised money to for the campaign and fought hard to keep peace among the groups fighting the government. As a result, we all did our bit to force the government to agree. Then to my surprise because of my involvement with it, I was invited, along with Sam Cockerill, whose partner, Steve Godbold, was killed possibly through lack of them, to the BBC to discuss our success in 2023. See more at www.riscuk.net
Aviation Heritage UK Award 2023
During my sixty years involved with the vehicle recovery industry, I have also been involved in the rescue and preservation of a huge number of aircraft, ranging from the Beagle Pup prototypes up to the Brooklands Concorde. This work has been undertaken for free, using my own equipment and, later, when I retired from National Rescue, anything I could convince my many friends among still-active recovery operators to loan me for a few hours. As a result, in 2023, I was honoured by Aviation Heritage UK with a lifetime achievement award. See more about AHUK www.aviationheritageuk.org