"I helped a member – then a snowplough"

"The winter just gone was a very busy one for myself and the rest of the AA Special Operations Response Team – or SORT to use our acronym.

"When it wasn’t flood-related incidents that we were called out to, it was heavy snow problems. But these are exactly the kind of conditions our team was set up to deal with.

"On 26 January I was on the A6 heading back to our base in Lancaster. It was nearly midnight and it had been a long, hard day. There were six or seven inches of snow on the ground with compacted ice underneath, which made it heavy going even for our special Land Rovers.

"When I got the call to go and help a member stuck in the snow a way down the road in Chorley I was half expecting something like that happening.

"When I arrived, the member wasn’t the only one experiencing difficulties – there were several other cars stuck on that stretch of road.

"I had just finished getting the member safely on their way, when a snowplough came up behind us. Problem was, there were still four cars blocking the road, which meant that it couldn’t get through to clear the road ahead and get the traffic moving again.

"With help from the guys in the snowplough, and the car owners, we managed to move them to the side of the road so the snowplough could get through and we could all get home.

"That day I clocked up 18 hours and 30 minutes on my shift. It was a real hard day’s night."

Richard Bolton, AA Special Operations Response Team