First In Last Out

Who’s the Elddis driver? It’s Andy Mitchell, one of the first drivers taken on by Elddis Transport in 1971 – and, aged 79 and 10 million miles later, he still drives for the operator.

- Bob Tuck

Andy Mitchell did try retirement once. In 2004, on becoming a pensioner, he left Elddis for two months – but once the gloss wore off he was back on the phone asking to go part-time.

“I started on three days a week tramping,” he says. “But a couple of years ago I changed to working day shifts, just Thursdays and Fridays. The trouble with this job is that it gets in your blood.”

Old-school driver

We meet at the Elddis traffic office window at the Consett company HQ. Andy normally likes a sharp start but says a 7am departure is fine for our easy day. Handed a set of keys and details of our first two loads, Andy seeks his unit and his first trailer. Not having a regular motor means he has to lug his personal gear round in the back of his own car.

“I’m very much old school,” he says, as he takes out the two A-Zs that he might need today.

It’s a steep climb into the 17-plate Mercedes Actros 2545, which has more than 190,000km of doubleshifting behind it, Andy dumping the suspension seat and shifting the steering wheel into its lowest position.

“I like this laid-back style,” he says, but we soon see there’s nothing laid back in his approach to 44-tonner driving, 2018 style. In no time we have trailer 821 hooked up, Andy having checked inside the back doors to ensure he’s not just loaded with fresh air, and with all the checks done we head into the rising sun.