Jane Whitley-Grant admits that as a child she was a little different from the other girls growing up in Sheffield, England.
“As a little girl growing up, I vividly remember my Dad driving us to the south coast of England for summer holidays,” she recalls. “When we stopped at motorway service stations, for some reason I was always drawn to wanting to look around the heavy haulage parking area and stand on the foot of the bridge watching the trucks thunder by beneath me.”
This experience was the beginning of a lifelong love affair between Jane and trucks. She dreamed of being a long-haul trucker one day and even went so far as to get her HGV license. But, sadly, it was an unrequited love.
“As it often happens in life, fate takes you in other directions and it never happened,” she told the website Hub4.
While Jane may have learned to live without the love of her life, her other love interest —her husband, George — had other plans.
When an acquaintance of his, Derren “Digger” Heath, told George that his trucking company was buying a new rig, George asked if he would be willing to take along a very special passenger on the inaugural voyage.
And on her 50th birthday, Jane finally got to take the ride of a lifetime.
“I can honestly say that it was one of the best days in my life and I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity and experience,” she said after making the trip from Middlesbrough to Sheffield. “It was great chatting to Digger throughout the journey and the DAF unit and trailer is truly awesome and a thing of beauty as far as I’m concerned!”