Eddie Stobart: The man behind the most recognisable lorries on the road
Eddie Stobart, who has died at 95, started an agriculture business after the war which expanded into a haulage company whose green and red trucks became amongst the most familiar on British roads.
A native of what was still then Cumberland, Edward Pears Stobart began his professional life by delivering agricultural products and goods to local farms.
The logistics of getting vehicles and products from his base in the isolated Lake District village of Hesket Newmarket to the right locations at the right time would form the basis of the company that carried his name into the next century.
It was his son, the late Edward Stobart Jnr, who took over the running of the business in the 1970s, diversifying from agriculture to general haulage and turning it into a household name with its own fan club and toy lorries bearing its insignia.
His father had bought his first truck, a Guy Invincible four-wheeler, second-hand in 1960 and had it repainted in green and red.
He took over the collection of waste products from steelworks which could be used as fertiliser, when another local firm went out of business, and added two Ford Thames Trader trucks to his fleet, with his name on the doors.
A contract with ICI in 1963 enabled expansion of the business, and it eventually became a limited company valued at £10,000. By 1978 Stobart had eight vehicles on the road.
After handing over the reins, Stobart, a devout Methodist, chose to remain out of the public eye though he remained a respected figure in the Cumbria farming community.
When Edward died in 2011, a funeral procession of Stobart cabins processed through Carlisle as crowds lined the streets.
Eddie married Nora Boyd in 1951, having met at a bible rally, and in retirement they lived in a bungalow near Carlisle. They had three sons including Edward, and a daughter.