YOHT Alliance - October
Digger Man

Digger Man Blog

by Nick Drew  |  Fri 10 Jan 2025

Ollie Kitchin a Tribute

Like so many in our industry, I was deeply shocked and saddened to hear the tragic news of the passing of our dear friend and well-respected industry colleague Ollie Kitchin at the young age of 48.

Ollie Kitchin a Tribute

I feel it is fitting to put my thoughts and feelings into words as a tribute to the man himself.

Ollie had been a long-term follower of this blog from way back when it was hosted on the Construction Index platform and it was from those early days, when Ollie shared photos of his machine and his innovative ideas for me to post on the blog, that we became good industry friends.

By his very nature Ollie was always a friendly face, full of life and enthusiasm and just a great bloke to have the crack with at industry shows, both here and in Sweden.

A great admirer of the Swedes, he had long adopted the Scandinavian approach to excavation work and was something of a trailblazer with his original Komatsu wheeled excavator, and trailer combo, not forgetting his little touches like installing cameras at the top of the dipper so he could see the bucket easily when working on deep excavation jobs.

I recall a time when he was visiting the MaskinExpo show in Sweden with his pal and fellow tiltrotator trailblazer Eddie Warrener, and they had visited the local Hitachi dealer, Delvator AB’s facility, once again Ollie, who was so passionate about the Swedish approach to construction machinery, shared his images and information for a series of blog posts.

In 2016 Ollie took his love for all things Swedish to another level with the arrival of his new Komatsu PW148 wheeled excavator, which made its head-turning debut at Hillhead in stunning Swedish blue livery with a silver Engcon tiltrotator.

In more recent years Ollie had taken a different path branching out, quite literally, into the forestry and agricultural market with Kitchin Tree Services taking all his long-acquired skills into the sector.

On a personal level, I would often receive a phone call from Ollie, completely out of the blue, and he would ask me how things were going, what I had been doing and talk about any future plans, we could often be on the phone for over an hour, that epitomises how the man was, always had time for people, always pleasant and respectful, and he was a great support for me at times, especially when I felt like throwing the towel in on the blog myself, I will never forget that!

I’m sure you will all join me in passing on our deepest condolences to Ollie’s family and friends and his partner Amie, you are all in our thoughts and prayers.

Rest now Ollie, hopefully you and I will meet up again one day, and have that pint we always talked about having, but never got around to sharing, thanks for being you, RIP.

 

 

 



 

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