ANNIVERSARY


PAST REFLECTIONS Ӏ NOVEMBER 2022


in touch with the respective editors and Graham Brent came to see me in the 1990s. I am now also in contact with Stuart Anderson, who I believe belongs to the select group of people who really know what they are writing about! I literally read his book 'Telescopic Boom' to pieces and therefore ordered two more a few years ago, one of which was signed! Cranes Today still means a lot


to me, both in its current form and as a reference source back in the day. I can rely on the fact that I have had all the numbers in my possession since 1975, plus another six numbers from the year before. I was therefore very pleased with the news that a digital archive was coming, so that I might be able to see the contents of the missing issues again.


Many good memories will


stay with me forever. In the early 1970s, the local crane company Blansjaar had a 75 tonne Krupp- Ardelt 75-GMT, at the time one of the largest telescopic cranes in the world! At the same time, the Grove TM-800 was on the market and thanks to a 1:50 scale model of NZG (on 6-axle CD undercarriage!) my model collection also started to take shape. To this day I still think that Grove is the most beautiful crane ever. A few years ago I was briefly tempted to buy a real one, scale 1:1. But where do you park such a thing and then the repairs and maintenance..?! So I went for my dream car instead. From the age of 17 until a few


years ago I wrote about cranes as a freelancer and contributed to various mostly Dutch specialised magazines. Even before I had completed my mechanical engineering studies, I was offered a job as project manager in the late 1980s at Van Seumeren Holland BV, a crane and heavy transport company that would grow into a global market leader.


Dirk Knoester


started reading Cranes Today in 1974


With the surprising takeover of competitor Mammoet in 2000, it was decided to continue under that name. Despite this name change, I still enjoy working for this same company for more than 33 years. When I started I had 200 colleagues, now around 7000…


GRAHAM BRENT: 1979–1980 ED. ASST, CT 1981-1986 EDITOR, CT “Editorial Assistant required for technical publishers. Interesting and varied work with prospects for occasional overseas travel.” Thus ran a four-sentence advertisement in the Daily Telegraph some time in May 1979. It had been


A young Graham Brent, eager to travel


forwarded to me by concerned parents eager to see their son gainfully employed in an occupation he had been pursuing in vain since moving to the nation’s capital the previous year. Little did I know that my application, encouraged by the fact that prior experience was “preferred” but “not essential”, would launch a six-year stint on the editorial team of Cranes Today, including five as Editor No. 3, that would evolve into my long sought after career in journalism. The Journal for the Crane


Industry, as the “Independent Magazine of the Crane Industry” was then rather austerely known, had been founded by Ian MacLaren, a Battle of Britain veteran, and editor Chris Wilson, both of whom had worked together on the Morgan Grampian publication Cranes. When Morgan Grampian decided to fold the magazine, Ian and Chris, seeing the continued potential in a publication dedicated to the UK crane industry, decided to go out on their own, and MW Publishers was born. Their first issue, in November 1972, came out just in time to capitalise on


f CRANES TODAY 27


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