An 85-year-old Harrogate man is on the hunt for two co-drivers to join him on an epic journey to deliver an ambulance to Georgia.
John Shackleton has bought and stocked 35 ambulances over the last 30 years to provide emergency vehicles and medical equipment to humanitarian organisations in Eastern Europe and beyond.
Now, he’s looking for two co-drivers to join him on his final journey to the Georgian border.
He joked:
“I did actually have two co-drivers lined up; one was my grandson who was offered a gig with his band in New York, which he couldn’t turn down, and the other selfishly had a heart attack!”
Mr Shackleton told the Stray Ferret his only criteria was “to be reasonably good drivers and to be easy going like me – after all, we do live in the ambulance together”.
He plans to deliver the ambulance to a small organisation building a hospice on a farm on the Georgian and Russian border.
It has been praying for an ambulance for years, according to Mr Shackleton.
He added:
“I’m happy to stop and see some sights or landmarks, but people do need to understand that this isn’t a jolly.
“This is humanitarian work — you have to put the hours in.”
Two-week mission
Mr Shackleton anticipates the journey will take anywhere from one week to 10 days to complete. The team will stay in Georgia for about two days before hitchhiking to the nearest international airport to return home.
He said:
“I chop and sell firewood to raise money to buy the ambulances.
“I have one ready to go in Amsterdam – which the co-drivers would also join me in picking up before embarking on the journey – but I have to confirm my passengers before I can collect it.
“It’s a process that takes a couple of days as I set up beds for the co-drivers and areas to carry the food and medical within the ambulance.”
Mr Shackleton began his humanitarian work after seeing news reports revealing the poor conditions of Romanian orphanages following the borders opening in 1990. He was joined by a team of volunteers to install flushing toilets and showers at the orphanage. He said:
“I imagine it will be my last journey — it’s hard to raise the money. But I said my recent few trips would each be my last and that didn’t end up being the case, so it’s a bit of a pinch of salt situation!
“However, I have just been given an order to quit the garage I am using to store my logs, and without somewhere to store the logs I will have to stop selling and that is my main income for the next ambulance.
“I know storage is very hard to find, but it’s worth a try if anyone reading has an empty garage to help me store my logs.”
Mr Shackleton is hoping to leave for Georgia in the next two weeks and is urgently encouraging those that are interested in joining him on the journey to get in touch.
People can register their interest by emailing johnshackleton@aidtoeasterneurope.co.uk or calling 01423 871255.
Click here to find out more about John Shackleton’s previous trips.
Read more:
- Harrogate pensioner appeals for cash to fund ambulance for quake-hit Turkey
- Harrogate’s John Shackleton selling firewood to fund 48th ambulance
John Shackleton, 83, hoping to deliver one final ambulance to Eastern Europe
83-year-old Harrogate legend John Shackleton has a twinkle in his eye when he considers one last trip delivering ambulances to Eastern Europe, something he’s done through his charity Aid to Eastern Europe for over 30 years.
“My daughters say ‘come on, think of everyone else’, but I’ve been kicking my heels for the last two-and-a-half years due to covid. I’m getting older and the years are going by quickly.
“I have enough money to go to Amsterdam to buy an ambulance and I’ll be in Georgia within a week or two, but do I take the chance? It’s a big decision. I really want to do it.”
If you’re not familiar with John’s work, he’s been delivering ambulances to hospices and hospitals in Eastern Europe since 1990. He started after seeing upsetting TV images of orphans in Romania following the death of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu.
He’s since delivered 38 ambulances to an exhaustive list of countries, including Albania, Kazakstan, Armenia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
To raise money to buy the vehicles, John chops down trees, cuts lawns, mends bicycles — anything to raise the £12,000 to £15,000 it costs to purchase an ambulance — which he usually buys from auction in Amsterdam.
John chopping down trees to raise money for an ambulance. Credit – The Ambulance Man (Facebook).
He said:
“I fly into Amsterdam but they sometimes take the stretcher out and make you pay extra. Invariably, when we tell them its a charity we get around that!
“We then bring it to Harrogate, fill it with medical supplies and find two co-drivers. We sleep in it, drive day and night, and deliver it right into the sticks, miles away from civilisation.
“We leave the ambulance, hitch hike to the nearest international airport, come back to Harrogate and do it all over again.”
Harrowing scenes
John is moved to tears when he describes the harrowing scenes of human suffering that he’s witnessed, but is comforted by the knowledge that he has helped people less fortunate than us in Harrogate.
Many of the countries he’s visited have been riddled with poverty after the fall of the Soviet Union.
In Ukraine. Credit – The Ambulance Man (Facebook).
He said:
“When I think back to some of the places I’ve been to it is very hard. I don’t dwell on it but sub-consciously it’s there.
“In the early days, we’d get to know the kids, there’s always one you’d get to know more who might smile a lot or give you a cuddle. You’d ask where he is, and they’d say, ‘oh, he died last night, he’s buried over there’.
“It was a building site and they’d take them out the back and bury them like a dog. They had nothing. You wouldn’t be human if it didn’t affect you.”
Show no fear
John has endured the trials and tribulations of the road and has clocked up tens of thousands of miles. He’s faced bribes, bandits and gunfire.
In Turkey, he said he expected to have to pay a bribe but the police wanted him to cough up the value of his ambulance, so he refused.
He and his co-drivers were thrown in an underground jail cell with a bucket for a toilet.
“They locked us up for 36 hours. I’d already given Turkey two ambulances after they had an earthquake! I was really annoyed they had the audacity to lock us up.”
John said his team was beginning to panic.
“You must show no fear. I got to the boss man, nose to nose, screaming at him, he eventually freed us. That was a little bit scary.”
Read more:
- First look at Harrogate cafe helping disabled people into jobs
- Harrogate Town to sell match-worn shirts tonight to fund defibrillator
The right stuff
Driving through Russia, John was warned of bandits and not to stop during the night. He came across a roadblock with lights flashing so he had to think quickly.
“I thought, I won’t stop here. So I put the foot down and the blues and twos on.
“They jumped out of our way and fired at us. But they must have been firing in the air. A man that can’t hit an ambulance is not worth holding a gun!”
John in Poland. Credit – the Ambulance Man (Facebook).
John has had UK police officers, and his grandkids, as part of his crew, although not every co-driver that has signed up has joined with the right stuff.
He added:
“I advertised for a driver once on eBay. I said the highest bidder can come along. A professor from Cambridge University paid £700.
“But all he wanted do to when we drove through France was go to the vineyards and taste the wines. He got really ansty with me, I said ‘why did you volunteer? We’re humanitarian, this is not a holiday!'”
Helping others
When the Stray Ferret visited John at his house in Harrogate, he had his head under the bonnet putting a new engine in his kit car, which he first built over 50 years ago. He said by spring he’ll have it going again.
John has been a bomb disposable expert, mountaineer, greengrocer, a housing fixer upper and he ran an art studio. His rich life experience has given him a practical and positive outlook.
“I’ll have a go at most things. The Egyptians built the pyramids, if a man can do that, most of us can do anything if we put our minds to it.
“Some people are hesitant when opportunities arrive. I invariably say give it a go, if you have the right mentality, you will succeed.”
Most of all, John is known for putting other people before himself, and as the Stray Ferret left his home, he told us he’s pencilled in September as a possible date to deliver his 39th ambulance to those who desperately need one in Eastern Europe.
To donate and help John buy a new ambulance, email johnshackleton@aidtoeasterneurope.co.uk