Jaggard & Son is the largest supplier of coal and logs in the Cambridgeshire area. Founded by Roger Jaggard, the company is now owned and managed by his son, Brian Jaggard.

The '60s - keeping the saw mills busy

RD Jaggard & Son can trace its roots back to the 1960s when Roger Jaggard started selling logs door-to-door from the back of his lorry by the sackfull. By the 1970s he had built up a successful forestry and road haulage company.

The lorries were kept busy hauling mainly round timber into the many saw mills that were operating in East Anglia at the time. Most of the timber produced by the mills was sawn into 'chocks' for use in the many coal mines operating at the time. These loads were then hauled mainly to the Midlands or Northern England.

The smaller diameter timber was cut into firewood or cut into one meter lengths and hauled down to Bowaters pulp mill in Kent. This was loaded by hand onto artic trailers!

The '70s and '80s - diversifying into forestry products

Elm was probably the most common hardwood timber at the time, but by the '70s, Britain's Elms were being destroyed by Dutch Elm Disease. Within a decade about 20 million Elms out of an estimated UK Elm population of 30 million were dead.

By the 1980s we had moved out of haulage concentrating on the forestry side of the business and much of this time was spent felling timber for local estates and the Forestry Commission. The timber produced was sold on to many markets from fencing and paper pulp to timber and firewood.

The use of Mining timber had declined by the mid '80s due to many coal mines closing after the miners' strike, which in turn freed up more hardwood timber for the firewood market. The miners' strike also caused demand for logs to surge due to shortages of coal.

I joined my father in the business in early 1987, a few months before the great storm of that October. Millions of trees were flattened overnight causing devastation to much of Southern and Eastern England. Nearly five years was spent clearing mature Beech trees in the Newmarket area after the storms of 1987 and 1990.

The '90s - supplying coal and domestic fuels

By the mid '90s we had started selling coal to compliment our firewood and coal business, and today Jaggard & Son are among the largest suppliers of logs and coal in the area.

- Brian Jaggard