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Ayton Products supports fun day out

Ayton Products was delighted to lend support to a local charity by providing one of its trucks for a fun day out at the seaside for handicapped and disadvantaged children.

East Coast Truckers (ECT) is an East Anglian based charity which sends the children to the coast in a convoy of lorries as an annual treat, and each August Bank Holiday Sunday for the past 26 years, dozens of children have been safely transported to a theme park near Lowestoft and then on to Great Yarmouth for a parade.

Each truck carries a special child in the passenger seat and leaves County Hall, Norwich at 10am for a day at Pleasurewood Hills Theme Park near Lowestoft. The journey home back to Norwich encompasses the Golden Mile on Great Yarmouth’s seafront at 6pm. It is always quite a spectacle. Seeing really is believing; the world’s largest and longest running children’s convoy.

Peter Nunn, LGV driver for May Gurney Environmental Services, who volunteered to drive the Ayton Products truck on the day, said: “I was delighted to be involved with this event and to help bring a day of fun and happiness to the children. For many of them it was the first time they had travelled in a big lorry and their excitement was there for all to see.”

East Anglian haulage companies and businesses donate up to 100 LGVs for the event; however the future of the charity is under threat because of the costs associated with policing the convoy, which makes up most of its funding. The charity offers holidays for disabled children in a specially adapted holiday home at California Sands Holiday Park, Scratby.

Tony Hipperson, general manager Ayton Products added “I was delighted to support this very worthwhile event by allowing one of our trucks to be used. I hope that East Coast Truckers can continue in the future, as they clearly carry out valuable and worthwhile work to make the lives of disabled and disadvantaged children more enjoyable.”

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