Our bLogs

Tony Glover – Mechanical Handling Trainer

My name is Tony Glover and I teach mechanical handling. When I think back, I seem to have always been teaching or training something. It started with canoeing soon after I left school.

From there, I went on to dinghies, powerboats, scuba diving and off shore yachting. I first started teaching mechanical handling in the late 1980’s. I teach on most mechanical handling equipment, from fork lift trucks to access equipment and cranes to specialist earth moving machines.

Driving several different machines each week is enjoyable but sometimes perplexing but after 25+ years, it does get easier. The interesting part of my job is to meet so many different people doing so many different occupations.

One day I’m in a garden centre, the next in an electronics company and the next in a steel works. Some of the trucks are new with computer screens and joystick controls. Others are nearly as old as me. (and you can guess which ones break down the least).

However, wherever I am, I find that putting people at their ease during training makes their life (and mine) much more relaxed.

I try to use my motorbike for work most of the year but when it gets too cold, I have an old 4×4. However, the heating in that packed up last year so if you see someone driving around wearing a winter coat, hat, gloves, scarf and a rug, it’s probably me!

Outside of work, much of my free time is taken up being the chairman of the parish council in the local village. Now, everyone knows me so if there’s a problem, I get to hear all about it, whatever the time.