5 days Ago By [email protected] (Chris Harby)
A business owner who contributed to the British war effort during the Gulf War is now putting his manufacturing skills to helping Ukrainian troops. Mark Lawrence set up the Side Curtain Company in Spalding eight years ago before moving the business to Colsterworth about two-and-a-half years ago. When not busy creating side curtains for lorry trailers, Mark turns the PVC off-cuts into stretchers for the Ukrainian Army.
“It’s just nice to put something back in,” he said. “We barely cover the costs of the materials now - it just makes you feel happy that you've been able to help somebody.” He became involved through his partner Mandy Chantry and her friend Fiona Parker, a Stamford volunteer with the Helping Our Ukrainian Friends (HOUF) humanitarian aid group.
Initially asked for material for webbing for the stretchers, sewn by a group of Ukrainian ladies at the Unity Centre in Stamford, Mark soon helped with a new design. “Bearing in mind what they will be used for on the battlefield, anything deposited on stretchers would soak into the fabric they were using and there’s a possibility then of cross-contamination,” he explained. “So we came up with a better idea of using PVC fabric which could be easily washed.
” With feedback from Ukrainian army units, Mark further perfected the design, switching from black material to green, for camouflage, and removing all metal parts which could reflect in sunshine and show up to enemy eyes. “We sent over two stretchers as prototypes and then they asked for a stretcher which could be used by either six people carrying a wounded person and also used by one person carrying a casualty. “They don’t always have enough available hands to take the casualty off the battlefield.
” This resulted in the drag stretcher - or ‘stretcher mark four’. “The casualty in the development of this were my daughters,” added Mark, who lives in Great Ponton . “We have family gatherings and I told them what I was doing so they asked me to bring one over.
“So we had a family barbecue and out comes the stretcher, and everybody was having a go at dragging everybody around to see whether it would work or not.” It can also be hung up to provide shelter and laid on the ground, and has been adapted to be rolled up and carried on the back. More than 100 drag stretchers have already been sent to Ukraine via HOUF.
“We’ve done a lot more to be fair, but I’ve no idea how many. “We knock them up as and when we’ve got a few minutes. At the moment I’ve got 20 in various parts of manufacture.
“Sometimes we’re waiting for materials to come in and while we’re waiting we’ll do stretchers. “Once the materials are in we probably won’t then touch the stretchers for another three weeks so it’s an infill job.” The stretchers were initially made by the Ukrainian group in Stamford but the PVC was too thick for their industrial sewing machine, so Mark now does both the manufacture and sewing.
Mark has been in the industry for 50 years, during which time he also helped make helicopter landing pads during the Gulf War, designed specifically for the challenges presented by sand. “If the helicopter came to land on the sand it gets sucked up into the rotors, the helicopters stalls and crashes,” he explained. “Someone came up with the idea of a big square using a special type of fabric which wouldn’t be melted by aviation fuel.
“The downside was it couldn’t be high frequency welded because it had a rubberised coating, but we used hot air welding so we could weld these massive helicopter landing pads for the Ministry of Defence. “Because we were the only company in the country able to weld them, the ministry were talking of a million pound order, but as soon as the Gulf War finished that ended.” Keen to help others, Mark and Mandy also spent five years as first responders volunteering with East Midlands Ambulance Service while in Spalding .
Mark also spent five years volunteering as a gateway assessor for Citizen’s Advice, and is now prepared to continue doing his bit for Ukraine as long as it takes. “One would hope never, never again, but as long as they keep needing them we’ll keep doing them.”.
