The Eddie Stobart Story. Hunter Davies
the figures have stayed roughly the same. It occurs throughout the world, across all cultures, all social groups. And everywhere it shows the same remarkable characteristic: four times as many boys are afflicted as girls. Hard luck on the Stobarts, having it happen to two of their number.
Edward’s own theory is that it’s all to do with trying to speak too quickly: ‘That’s when I always have trouble, when I want to say too much, all at the same time. I start one sentence before I’ve finished another, so it comes out as a stutter. I’m thinking too far ahead, that’s it. Same with eating: I eat far too fast. Always have done. I used to bolt all my meals – in fact, really, I didn’t like eating. What used to happen was that I couldn’t really taste what was in my mouth, so I was rushing to the next bite, to see if that tasted better. I used to say I wished they would invent pills that would save the bother of sitting down and eating.’
Edward doesn’t recall his stutter being a particular handicap at school. ‘It was just embarrassing, that was it really. I don’t think it got me down, not that I can remember. There were certain words and sentences I couldn’t say. When you see them coming, you try and say something else. Which means you often don’t say what you want to say.
There was one word I couldn’t say: Stobart. I always hesitated on that. It’s better now, because most people down South pronounce it “Stow-bart”, not “Stob-burt”. I find “Stow-bart” easier – it probably is the proper way. Having a stutter does make you try to speak properly. If anyone ever did try to tease me at school, then I tried to get in first. Take the mickey out of myself before they could.’
Nora says Edward’s stutter has greatly improved over the years, though she notices it can still be bad if he gets overexcited. ‘Perhaps it will go in the end, now he has much more confidence. After all, Eddie conquered his.’
Eddie, too, had a stammer, although to hear him today, there is no trace of it. He so clearly loves talking, telling stories, anecdotes and moral tales. This is in contrast to Edward who, even today, clearly doesn’t like talking, especially about himself. ‘My stammer arrived when I was about ten years old,’ says Eddie. ‘It happened in much the same ways as Edward’s – after an accident. I caught my thumb in a door and the shock made me stammer from then on. But it left me at the age of seventeen. And I’ll tell you exactly how. It was the first day I was ever asked to stand up in chapel and talk. I didn’t want to. I was scared to, because of my stammer. But God took me by the hand. God helped me to cure it.’
During the years he had his stammer, Eddie can’t remember being worried by it. ‘A stammer can be useful, you know. When I was queuing up for sausage and chips, I would say s-s-s-sausages and ch-ch-ch-chips p-p-p-p-please, and I would always get given two more sausages than the others!
‘I’ll tell you a little story about a man with a stammer. He was a Bible seller, going round the doors, selling Bibles. And he was a great success, this Bible seller, the best Bible seller in the region. Naturally enough, all the other Bible sellers wanted to know the secret of his success, how he could possibly manage with his stammer. “It’s really very easy,” he said. “When they open the door, I say to them ‘Would you like to b-b-b-buy a Bible, or shall I r-r-r-read it to you …’”’
Eddie laughs and laughs at his own story, eyes twinkling, as merry as the little gnomes in his garden. This, again, is a contrast to his son Edward. Even as a young man, Edward was always the serious one, devoted to hard work rather than God, to getting on; determined to beat his own targets, whatever they might turn out to be.
There was never any doubt about where Edward would be employed after he left school. He always knew exactly what he was going to do: carry on as before. He would work with his father full time, without the inconvenience of having to go to school during the day and thus waste so many precious working hours.
No other career ever entered his mind, not even something which, in an ideal world, he would like to do if things had been different. The only childhood fantasy career that ever tempted Edward was to drive cars like Stirling Moss. In a fantasy world, yes, it might have been nice to be a racing driver.
But, of course, Edward always inhabited a very real world. By his own admission, he’d hardly been a childish child or a soppy teenager, feeling grown-up from the age of twelve. From that age onwards, he’d been doing man’s work for his father, driving tractors and diggers or any other bits of machinery his father was using. At the age of fourteen, he was even driving a JCB – illegally of course. ‘The JCB driver had left,’ Edward recollects, ‘and my father had a contract through Brown’s of Thursby for some work on the new M6 between Junctions 42 and 43. It was the long summer holidays from school, so I took over the JCB and did the work.
‘My job was to dig holes for the new signposts being put up along the motorway and the slip roads. You don’t realize how many signs there are on the motorway: hundreds of them. When I’m driving on the M6 today, I always look out for the ones I put up. They’re very deep, you know. They can be ten feet in the air, but they probably go ten feet into the ground as well.
‘I worked with an Irish gang. I dug the holes with my JCB, the Irish lads put the signs in. They didn’t know how young I was, or anything about me. I never told anyone at school, never boasted I was driving a JCB. I loved it – loved every minute.’
Edward estimates he did that job for six months, despite the fact that his school summer holidays were only six weeks long. ‘In the whole of my last year, I probably only spent three months of it at school.’
Some grammar schools at that time, in the big metropolis of Carlisle and even in smaller towns like Wigton, taught the classics and had modern-language groups and science sets. Instead of this, Caldew School, a newly emerging comprehensive serving a rural community, tried to specialize and suit its pupils to their future careers by creating an agricultural course for those about to leave. Edward took this course in his fourth and final year at school. He enjoyed it, as it mainly meant visits to farms and places of agricultural interest.
Edward finally left school in the summer of 1970, aged fifteen. His leaving report, signed by his form tutor, Mr Monaghan, and his headmaster, Mr Douglas, indicates that Edward’s frequent absence made a true assessment of him difficult. The leaving report does, however, manage to praise his ‘natural flair for repairing machinery’ and how on ‘numerous occasions [he has] shown good organizing ability in practical tasks connected with his agricultural studies’. The mention of some sort of organizing ability is interesting, though it appears to refer to organizing himself rather than others in practical tasks. The report makes it pretty clear that he had made ‘limited academic progress’, but that he should prove to be ‘an excellent employee’.
On leaving school for good, Edward just carried on working for his father. His next contract was with a firm called Sidac at Wigton that was building a new factory. Edward’s job was to dig the foundations. His wage, paid by his father, was £5 a week. When that contract came to an end, Edward returned to helping his father at home in the yard, working on the fertilizing side of the business.
For the next two years, till the age of seventeen, this was Edward’s main occupation: spreading lime on farmers’ fields. This business was expanding all the time, as Edward’s father had now built the slag store and was both collecting and delivering as well as spreading lime.
Edward worked all hours and weekends if necessary, as ever setting himself little targets, aiming to get so many fields spread in an hour, so many farms in a week, aiming to do more than all the other Stobart workers. His father was pleased that Edward worked so hard, but thought the weekend work was a bit unnecessary.
By this time, Eddie had half-a-dozen drivers and half-a-dozen assorted vehicles. There was still little demarcation between the employees and the Stobart family; everyone mucked in, did what jobs had to be done.
By the time he was seventeen,