Sam Gray looks to the future
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Report by lain Sherriff
I HAD NEVER heard of Aghalee until last Thursday, nor do I suppose had many people outside Northern Ireland. A small village in County Antrim, as far as I can discover it has never made any impact on events beyond the shores of Ulster. At least this was the case until September 8 this year when one resident, Mr. Sam Gray, came to Bramcote and became the Lorry Driver of the Year, winning a load of silverware which is now in the boardroom of Northern Ireland Eggs Ltd., for whom Sam drives an articulated vehicle.
At the final, Sam Gray besides winning the championship gained awards for the best novice, the best artic driver and the best own-account driver. He had cheques for £55, a silver cigarette case and a radio. In addition the Champion was invited to be the guest of Vauxhall Motors at the Commercial Motor Show for two days and to spend a weekend at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London, as a guest of the Rank Organisation.
Little wonder that when I met Sam on CM's stand at Earls Court he was bewildered. It was all happening and there was more to come—yet it almost didn't happen at all.
Four years ago Sam Gray was a vehicle shunter at Belfast dock. He frequently found himself moving articulated outfits for short distances and finally decided that he wanted to drive a big vehicle full-time. Sam applied to Northern Ireland Eggs for a job and within minutes of hearing about it his existing employer showed him the door!
Northern Ireland Eggs recognized ambition and gave Sam Gray the opportunity to show that he had the ability to match his enthusiasm. That was when Sam's trip to the top began and as we stood together on the 18th floor of the Royal Lancaster looking out over Hyde Park on Thursday he kept repeating, "I still can't believe it."
Sam agrees that in winning such a competition there has to be an element of luck, even if it's the bad luck experienced by a rival competitor_ However, it would be less than fair to assume that there was a large slice of luck helping Sam Gray—he got there by determination and hard work. Since he joined his present employer four years ago he has been a competitor at the Belfast event in Castlereagh every year. The first year he entered he was leading his class until the kerb parking test when he dropped about 1,000 points.
This year's score list tells the tale of how seriously Sam takes the business of competing and driving. He could easily have lost his class place at the final if he had not studied the new road signs. It was at this section that he clinched his title, dropping only three points. The runner-up in the class dropped 13 points here but only eight points separated them at the end of the day.
Sam Gray had spent all of his leisure time studying the Ministry of Transport booklet on traffic signs. "I used to fall asleep reading it", he said. To win the LDoY competition you have to be an allrounder, however, and Sam had to tight off a second challenger who beat him on the signs but dropped too many points on width judgment.
In Ulster there are few road signs—at least compared with the more populous areas in Great Britain. Sam Gray gets very little opportunity to study the signs at first-hand and it was therefore important that he studied the book. In pure driving techniques Sam perhaps had the edge on a few of his opponents because of the demanding nature of his.job.
Delivers chick meal Every day he leaves the company's depot at Lisburn, County Antrim, and delivers chick meal to the egg packing stations in his area. He collects 960 cases of eggs on his rounds and delivers them to either Larne or Belfast for shipment across the Irish Sea to Ardrossan, Preston or Stranracr. Each week he covers 1,200 miles and although this could not be considered high by any standards, in covering this mileage he carries a fragile load of 172,800 eggs. If you're still not convinced that this type of job requires a special kind of skill have a look at roads leading into farms and try to imagine how you would negotiate such a terrain with a 33ft artic loaded with eggs without breaking them or scratching the vehicle. Remember, by the time they reached the LDoY final competitors had been
accident free for 18 months.
This 36-year-old Irish bachelor is the type who is quietly ambitious. That spark he displayed four years ago still glows—he wants to be more than a lorry driver although he hastens to point out two things: he enjoys driving and he wants to remain in transport.
I sensed a desire in Sam Gray to become a training officer and I put the point to him. "Yes", he said, "I would like that." Certainly he has the technical ability, but does he have the confidence?
At midnight last Thursday Sam Gray removed the question mark. He and Peter Saunders, truck sales manager of Vauxhall Motors Ltd., accompanied me to BBC's Night Ride studio and there before the microphone Sam Gray, Lorry Driver of 1968, told his tale of success—and with confidence.
This is Sam Gray's year and everyone wishes him well. At Earls Court he was stopped regularly to be greeted by wellwishers, and on the Bostrom (UK) Ltd. stand he was presented with a Viking 4000 seat to help him iron out those rough farm roads back in his native Ireland.
During the weekend he was joined by his fiancée in London and they enjoyed a conducted tour laid on by Vauxhall Motors. However, Sam does not look on this period in his life as a passing carnival but as a step into a new level of employment, a period of opportunity, the start of a new .chapter in his life.
Last year the Belfast team won the team prize at Bramcote and the entry at the centre increased this year. With Sam Gray's success whetting their appetites it is expected that his chums who subjected him to some good-natured banter when he went home victorious will swell the entry once more.