People

Tony finally calls ‘time’ on million mile sales journey

I’Anson Bros long serving salesman refects on 60 years around the roads and farms of the Yorkshire Dales

When a 22 year old Tony Morris fnished his National Service and joined a small, animal feed company he had just three colleagues and the business counted less than 100 local farm customers on its books and generated sales of little more than £100,000 a year.

As he marks his formal retirement sixty years and one million miles around the roads of the Yorkshire Dales as a salesman later, the company he joined has somewhat changed.

Today, I’Anson Bros of Masham, North Yorkshire is one of the leading, independent, family owned and managed animal feed producers with annual sales in excess of £40 million, serving 2,000 farm and trade customers around the UK and exporting its award-winning equine feed to more than 40 countries worldwide.

Staff numbers in the business have grown to 95 and production mushroomed from the 3,400 tons a year when Tony joined in 1962 to more than 150,000 today.

During his six decades with the business, he has worked with three generations of the I’Anson family and is ‘Uncle’ to the current family members, Chris, Sarah and Will, a relationship created when Tony’s father – who also worked as a sales rep for I’Anson - married into the family. Reinforcing the family ethos within the frm, Tony’s son Paul has been with the company for more than 30 years and another son also worked there for a number of years.

He also served for some 30 years as a Director of the company and continued to visit long-standing clients until the pandemic outbreak forced him to fnally call a halt to his travels.

Tony formally marks his retirement as I’Anson’s embarks on the biggest single investment in its 120 -year history with the £20 million+ development of a state-ofthe-art, new feed mill at Dalton New Bridge which will complement its facilities on the outskirts of Masham.

Donna’s getting her fundraising kicks for Rabi and Yana on Route 66

The fnance director of one of the UK’s leading agricultural machinery manufacturers is getting her kicks for charity by tackling one of the United States’ most iconic road trips.

Donna Hall, who works for GRIMME UK, has set off on a charity challenge, aiming to run, ride and walk the distance of Route 66.

One of the most famous roads in the United States, Route 66 originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona ending in Santa Monica in Los Angeles County, California.

Having read about a drastic reduction in donations to charities caused by the pandemic, Donna decided to do something to help the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RABI), and You Are Not Alone (YANA), both of which support agricultural workers.

When she heard about the Route 66 virtual challenge on the website EndToEnd.run Donna saw it as the perfect charity challenge and embarked on the 2,278 mile sponsored walk, ride and run.

Having recorded just 190 miles on Strava in 2020, Donna is aiming to complete the challenge well within EndToEnd.run’s two year target and is looking to raise more than £2,278.

People wanting to support Donna can donate uk.virginmoneygiving.com/ DonnaNewsonHall

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people Humble Bill’s lasting legacy nurtures engineers of the future

A talented JCB engineer who amassed a multi-million pound fortune thanks to his interest in cars has made a life-changing bequest to a Staffordshire school dedicated to nurturing the engineers of the future.

Bill Turnbull spent almost a decade working at digger maker JCB as Chief Engineer helping to develop the company’s frst ever mini excavators. He retired in 1995 at the age of 65.

When he died in 2019 aged 88, he left more than £4.2 million in his will thanks to an investment he made more than 50 years earlier in a rare 1937 Bugatti Type 57S – paying just £1,500 for the car. He had been lovingly restoring the prized vehicle in secret in the workshop of his home in Tean, near Cheadle, Staffordshire ever since. Only 42 of the cars were ever produced at the factory in Molsheim, France.

The native of New Zealand and adopted son of Staffordshire left instructions to his executors John Seddon and Clive Rollinson to make discretionary bequests from his huge estate. Now, in a nod to his life-long interest in engineering, the JCB Academy in Rocester, Staffordshire, has been given a total of £125,000 towards the construction of automation and robotics centre. The new facility will be called the Bill Turnbull Suite in memory of the benefactor.

“Bill was a very humble man and also an extraordinary engineer, who never forgot his links to JCB and the friends he made while working there”, said Executor John Seddon. “He would be absolutely thrilled to think that a bequest had been made to the JCB Academy and will be used to develop the next generation of engineers in the UK.”

JCB Chairman Lord Bamford said: “Bill was a remarkable and talented engineer. This is a very ftting tribute to his lifelong devotion to engineering and will ensure his memory is kept alive for future generations following in his footsteps.”

New entrants making the most of community-owned croft on Colonsay

A tenancy termination by the Crofting Commission on the Isle of Colonsay paved the way for new entrants Lizzie & Darragh Keenaghan to bring a croft back into purposeful use. In less than two years, The Wee Croft has, and continues to, positively contribute to the social and environmental fabric of the island community.

After a summer internship in Alaska on an organic vegetable farm, Lizzie realised that she wanted to do something similar – just a bit closer to home.

“My time as an intern in Alaska many years ago was a really formative experience for me. I always had it in my mind that this is what I wanted to do, but Alaska is a long way from home, so I started looking for similar opportunities in Scotland,” said Lizzie.

Darragh, who has a Masters in Environmental Sustainability from Edinburgh University, had a similar experience while living and working on a small farm in Beauly which cemented their desire to fnd their own croft.

“It took us a long time to fnd the right croft - a place we could afford,” said Lizzie.

“We put adverts in newspapers looking for a few acres and spent time traveling across Scotland searching for the right place, but we weren’t having much luck.”

After trips to Colonsay in the southern Hebrides for beekeeping courses, the couple heard that there were community-owned crofts on the island.

In 2012, Colonsay Community Development Company, with aid of the Scottish Land Fund, purchased land creating fve bare land crofts; the purpose being to offer opportunities and encourage more families and individuals to the island.

“We registered our interest with Colonsay Community Development Company, but at the time all crofts were tenanted. Things changed and, in 2019 after an application process, we were offered the tenancy. We renamed the croft ‘The Wee Croft’,” said Lizzie.

Since taking on the croft, it’s been a busy time for Lizzie, Darragh, and Lizzie’s parents, who also relocated to Colonsay. As a family they have managed to turn what was once a neglected croft into one that is providing for their family and the wider community.

“We worked closely with the Woodland Trust last winter to plant over 700 broadleaf native trees as a shelterbelt, and through the CAGS grant scheme, we’ve been able to afford new fencing which has helped diversify the croft with the introduction of livestock.