In the News

TRUCKING legend Edward Stobart, whose lorry empire is so famous it has a 25,000-strong fan club, has died aged 56.

The haulage magnate, who built up the Eddie Stobart lorry business and ran it for more than 30 years, was taken ill with heart problems at his Warwickshire mansion.

Doctors battled to save him but he died in hospital in Coventry yesterday from a suspected heart attack, with his wife Mandy and two of their children at his bedside.

The Cumbria-based ­business was started by his father named Eddie.

But it was Edward who saw it grow from a ­fertiliser delivery firm into one of the biggest haulage companies in the country, employing more than 5,000 workers and running 2,250 distinctive trucks.