Rules and Guidelines

Tags

#justiceforLB, Connor Sparrowhawk, Eddie Stobart, preventable deaths

Can’t help feeling slightly sorry for the Eddie Stobart PR/comms people (whether it’s the lovely Bonnie or someone else) when they come into work this morning and see what’s been happening on the company Twitter timeline over the weekend.  Here’s hoping they feel love-bombed rather than battered.  And a mea culpa from me, as I’m about to add to the heap of waiting messages.  You see, I wish to resile from my suggestion of Elle Bea as an alternative to Connor Sparrowhawk.  Since I posted A Cab For Connor on Friday, it’s become evident that the ‘Stobart lorries carry female names only, no surnames, no nicknames’ rule is not actually a rule, it’s a guideline that’s been bent or bust on several previous occasions.

The first time of which I’m (now) aware was in 2005, when a cab was named Optimus Prime, to celebrate 20 years of the Transformers. While dear old Optimus comes from a C/Fe culture that seems heavy on the Fe and light on the C, and is therefore probably not gendered, it’s equally obvious that they (a plural pronoun seems appropriate for a multiform entity) have been assigned male by Hasbro and the film companies, and accepted as such by the Stobart company.

At some point thereafter, a truck was named Valentino.  This was apparently after ‘Italian racing legend Valentino Rossi’, a motorbike racer who has had the distinction of winning world titles in four different classes (rather than the fashion designer or the silent film star), but I can’t find any further rationale for this decision.

The third truck, on the other hand, Lee James Rigby (2015) breaks both the ‘no males’ and the ‘no surnames’ guidelines, for the best of reasons.  The fusilier, who was murdered in 2013 while LB was still in the STATT unit, had hoped to become a Stobart driver once his service days were over, alongside his father, also a driver for the firm.  It’s a great credit to the firm that they would honour Lee and support his family, by making an exception to their naming guidlines in his memory.

So I hope the decision-makers at Eddie Stobart will now pronounce themselves in favour of Connor Sparrowhawk, as

1. There’s precedent for the use of male names, and of a surname.
2. Connor loved Eddie Stobart lorries and felt a deep connection to the firm, which has been passed on to the people who have come to know him since his death.
3. Connor, like Lee, died a needless and unjust death, and deserves to be remembered.
4. It would be a wonderful thing to do for his family, who have suffered continuing injustices following his senseless – because preventable – death.
5. Connor Sparrowhawk is just such a fabulously cool name.

Looking forward to hearing from you, @EddieStobartCom. Hope you’re all having a good Monday and that you feel a well-deserved glow of pride in doing Connor proud.

All the best

Kara.

A Cab for Connor.

Tags

#justiceforLB, appropriate vocabulary, Connor Sparrowhawk, Eddie Stobart, lorries

An online discussion yesterday and today, sparked by a tweet from the Eddie Stobart  haulage company about naming its lorries, has hurled some nearly-six-year-old memories into the front of my consciousness.  When LB died, his given name was known only to a few people.  For all of us out in virtual space who knew him through his mother’s mydaftlife blog, he was Laughing Boy, LB. Somewhere on there I had seen a mention that LB’s actual surname was that of a rare bird, so when a week later the obits column in the Oxford Mail mentioned “SPARROWHAWK Connor: Died unexpectedly on 4th July aged 18” I was pretty sure that was LB; and the following day, an article in the paper confirmed it with a piece on the opening of his inquest: “Mr. Sparrowhawk was found unconscious in a bath”.

Back then, apart from those two Oxford Mail pieces, Google only returned a couple of hits for ‘Connor Sparrowhawk’.  One was this lovely clip of LB, recognisable from the glimpses in the blog photos, wearing funky psychedelic wellies and a workmanlike cap, driving a ride-on lawnmower.

The other was a comment from Connor himself (now, sadly, archived and no longer accessible online) on the Carlisle News and Star‘s online obituary of Eddie Stobart Jnr.

By the time the #JusticeforLB 107 days campaign got going in 2014, many people knew how devoted Connor was to Eddie Stobart. Connor’s love of lorries has been a recurring theme ever since.  We still collect Eddie truck names on motorway trips, and since the news came out last year that the Eddie Stobart marque might be at risk of disappearing from our roads, owing to a trademarking  dispute, I’ve been tweeting our gleanings  with the hashtag #GatherYeEddiesWhileYeMay.  We’re  far from being the only ones for whom Eddie Stobart lorries mean ‘Connor’. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people whose first thought, on seeing the iconic green and red livery, is of LB.

So when @EddieStobartCom posted this tweet yesterday, there were a good many replies suggesting ‘Connor Sparrowhawk’ and ‘Laughing Boy’.

Unfortunately, as yesterday’s tweet suggests and the Stobart Club website confirms, Stobart lorries only carry girls’ forenames; preferably a pair of them, to ensure a maximum of unique name combinations. Neither boys’ names, nor surnames, nor nicknames are accepted. During the 2014 #JusticeforLB campaign, one of Connor’s aunts tried to get a Stobart lorry named after Connor, but because of the rules, the nearest she could get was putting his sister’s name forward instead. 

Rodgers Coaches and Earthline Ltd stepped up and named three buses and a heavy haulage truck respectively for LB, and I’m still looking out (fruitlessly so far) for an Eddie named Rosie Bluebell, but I wonder, five years and a huge amount of Connor-related publicity later, whether the Eddie Stobart Company would consider breaking its rules, just once, and using a male name or a nickname to dub a tractor unit either Connor Sparrowhawk or Laughing Boy. 

It would be a fitting tribute to the firm’s No. 1 fan, not least because he always, repeatedly, questioned the reasoning behind rules, to the point where his siblings were driven to capitulation (“I don’t know why, Connor!”) and his aunt begged him to ‘turn off his Y-box’.

But if rules are rules and a pair of girls’ forenames are the only acceptable format, maybe, half a decade after they were originally approached about Connor, the Stobart company could fast-track Elle Bea?

Think about it, eh?

 

 

Who In These Realms Of Love

Tags

#107days, #justiceforLB, buses, Connor Sparrowhawk, Eddie Stobart, lorries

People on the autism spectrum have a gift known as ‘hyperfocus’.  They can concentrate for extended periods, and to the exclusion of all other matters, on the things that really interest them.  Connor’s areas of meticulous and detailed interest included buses and Eddie Stobart lorries.  But his interest in the vehicles did not preclude an interest in, and empathy for, the people behind the machines.

Three years ago, Edward Stobart Jnr, son of the eponymous founder of the haulage firm, died aged 56.  Connor posted his thoughts on the Carlisle News and Star website:

I’m really sad that you died. Eddie Stobart is my favourite thing in the whole wide world. I’m wearing an Eddie Stobart right now.
Love Connor. x
Posted by Connor Sparrowhawk on 1 April 2011 at 14:29

Connor, I’m really upset that you died.  We hope that one day soon there may be a ‘Connor’ Eddie Stobart lorry.  I wish you were here to see your name on a bus livery right now.
Love, K.  x
Posted by kara2008 on 1 April 2014 at 02:29