On the 25th June, The Paviors made a visit to Hillhead in Derbyshire. Hillhead is the largest quarrying, construction and recycling equipment exhibition, with nearly 20,000 visitors and 620 exhibitors at its unique working quarry venue in Derbyshire. It’s put on every two years by QMJ, which is headed by our own Past Master Terry Last and Liveryman Richard Bradbury.
Ian Robinson, Chris Webster, TJ Lyons and Charlie Laing met in Buxton before heading up to the quarry for 9 am. It’s a staggering size, spread out over the whole of the quarry basin, with live demonstrations happening in many locations. It soon became apparent that we had two in the party fluent in the technology on show. Thankfully, they were very happy translating for the other two and explaining things like why the asphalt plant has to be so high and the dangers of the hole “hoovers”. This knowledge was crucial as we were able to ask sensible questions when hosted by JCB, thank you to Liveryman Charles Stevenson, where Richard Tilden explained the prowess of their hydrogen machine or the 9t bucket machine launched just prior to the show. We all enjoyed the balleticism of the JCB display team and fantastic fish and chips.
More tech chat (and a bacon sandwich) at Wirtgren, thank you to Ian for the introduction. We’ll have to see if tech capability helps assess how many footballs fit in a hopper.
FM Conway provided the ice creams (it was a hot day), and there was a good discussion on their new plant in Wellingborough and some lovely reflections on great decisions by the much-missed Michael Conway.
Charlie won some sweets in the fairground grab game but was eclipsed by Ian winning the star prize – FM Conway branded Monopoly.
A big shout-out to Terry Last and Liveryman Sasho Kamburov for hosting us at the QMJ stand and telling us about the record numbers attending the show this year, the school liaison programme, and the plans for 2 years’ time. We’ll be back.
Thank you too to the Paviors Motoring Club for organising the itinerary.
/ Charlie Laing, Past Master