Hauliers around the Ashton in Makerfield area

I subbed off Pritchett’s a fair bit in the early seventies.I had two yellow Mastiffs and brother Andy drove the other one. The business was run by a fearsome lady from the West London depot, whose name I can’t remember, but it wasn’t Pritchett. Her son ran the maintenance garage and I can remember his embarassment when a black lad who worked there called him ‘pinky’. Well he was wearing a pink shirt. I met him again when he became fleet engineer at Crescent/Sealand in Dammam. The night security guard was called Ted. Everyone called him ‘Fried Tucky’ Ted because of his resemblance to a certain Colonel Sanders. Ted would try and keep you talking late into the night for company if you were sleeping in the yard.

Bill Spragg was the boss at Ashton in Makerfield at the time. I didn’t have much to do with the warehousing side, except to load Cadbury’s chocolate sometimes. I understand that Pritchetts had stored oranges and chocolate next to each other and were a long time paying off the claim against them for orange flavoured chocolate.

My dad always amused Andy and me because he always called Bill Spragg ‘John Snagg’, after the wartime radio announcer. ‘That John Snagg’s been on the phone, can you call him back.’ No Dad, Bill Spragg! Now I annoy my daughter in the same way by getting names wrong or not remembering them. Such is life!

Bill had a Mercedes diesel which sounded like a tank. He also allegedly had an affair with his secretary and was allegedly dismissed for fiddling the warehouse contents. I wouldn’t know if either things were true.

I remember a total of four guys in the traffic office, but names are harder to remember. A big pleasant bloke, another lad with glasses, who left to join North West Freighters. Another guy who I think was called Fred and finally (I think) Arthur Wilson, who had been a driver. I thought Arthur had a Big J, Eddie? I was following him up the A702 when he jacknifed on black ice just before Biggar. I think he pulled his thumb out of joint on the spinning wheel. Arthur wouldn’t go on strike for higher pay when the other lads did, and was rewarded with the job in the traffic office. I have to say, there was no resentment from the drivers towards Andy and me, they knew I’d go bust if we didn’t carry on working.

There was a very pretty ■■■■■■■ reception, only about 17. Very naive. Arthur almost had her convinced that part of the job was to go to bed with the traffic manager.

I have an image of you in my mind Eddie, but it may be the wrong one. Did you have a couple of young children at the time? You need to find someone to scan the photos for you. Once they are digitalised, they’re pretty easy to upload here. I’m sorry, I don’t have a single photo from those days.

I think I would have to see photos to remember Bob Horrocks. I remember one of the lads who had a Foden - he’s the one who said ‘get thissen a Fodden lad’ to me, his would be an S40, with the comfortable seat with armrests. I think it had a ■■■■■■■ 220 in it? He also told me the tale of doing a flier home unit only on an earlier job, but forgetting that it was market day, and going for his unit at 7.00am to find it in the centre of the now erected stalls! Difficult phone call, end of job.

He had a memory of playing in the street where he lived as a kid. it was a steep hill with traffic lights at the top. fooling around with his friends, he fell into the road, right under the rear wheels of an eight wheeler, his pullover got caught and he was staring up at the tyre tread. He said he was lucky the driver was a professional and didn’t roll back slightly when he set off again. But I can’t remember his name!

Another lad had one of the Mercs. Again, can’t remember his name. He kept the Merc shining like new, was always smartly dressed and would f*** anything that moved. He wouldn’t swear though!

I’d forgotten the Ratcliffes, Barry. They also started building 40’ box vans which they leased to Pritchetts. One of them was constructed from 2 single axle 20’ vans, and looked very odd with old signwriting that of course didn’t match. I seem to remember it was christened ‘the Charlie Cairoli’ trailer.

Other local hauliers were NMT (they’re mentioned on a thread here somewhere) and a firm with red and white trucks who were unusual in that they had a fleet of tautliners which were rare at the time. I was friends with one of their drivers. He was quite ‘hippy’ like with very long hair. He was a chum of Roy Woods from the Move.

John

Hi John , Bill Ratcliff ,ran a few lorrys on Cromptons , Sanky Sugar ,he bought a lot of Property ,around Ashton and area ,he had some land in an old Colliery ,and let it out to a firm building Trailors ,we had one they built on our old running gear ,a 40 ft flat done a fine job they were called Blue line , John Mckenna had some the yard ,havent been over for many years,last i heard Trevor had fallen out with his Dad and gone on his own with a firm from Skem, and Alan was still dealing in there old yard , would like to know how they all got on ,like your site John ,keep it up , Cheers Barry

Brilliant John, you said you’d do it and you did. Where to start? First off, Spoke to Bob Horrocks this morning. Question. Remember a subbie by the name of John West? Answer. Westy? From Barrow? Course I do, went off to do the middle east didn’t he ? Second off, apolologies to Mr Wadsworth, I fully intended to respond to your query re: the Rac’s et al. but being reluctant to hitchhike on Mr West’s thread I set about trying to find a thread that was more fitting and ended up getting locked out of the forum completely. It’s taken me 24 hours to get back in. I only have an I-pad, but you need a degree in quantum physics to use one evidently, whereas I only have a degree in pulling my tripe out for forty odd years. Now to the meat of the issue. Christ John, you’ve given me a lot to go at there but I’ll do it in stages. Ma Butcher, that was the name of the lady that ruled over the Pritchett empire. She appeared to be fearsome but in reality was actually quite friendly. That’s not to say she wasn’t ruthless. She liked to be called Ma, and she called all the drivers by their Christian names. Nice touch really. Barry Butcher, that was her son’s name, I believe he was a very good friend of Trevor Ratcliffe, (hardly surprising really) but again, on the very rare occasions that we came into contact I found him to be down to earth and friendly, a very nice guy. I only met the black fitter once, ( if it’s the same bloke ) ,and that was down at Chiswick one night when he and Barry solder/moulded a new terminal on one of my batteries. Anyway, I’m off to bed now, have you seen the time? But stay tuned. More to follow.

You’re correct about Arthur Wilson John. He was already transport manager when I started there but I was told by the other lads that he got the job by running through the driver’s strike. It could well be that I ended up with his motor, but I wouldn’t really know. You’re also correct about the biscuit contamination issue, the place got the nickname of ’ The Orange Free State’ for a while afterwards. I understand that Pritchett’s were obliged to carry UB products for free for quite some time afterwards to cover the cost of compensation. When you consider that Jacobs produced a chocolate biscuit called ‘club orange’, it makes you wonder where they got the idea from. The other blokes in the office during my time there were a nice lad called Ron from St Helen’s and another fella called Ted who I knew from Geest at Sutton manor and who I believe died quite young. The driver who kept his motor clean would have been Johnny McQuillan, AKA ‘Mack’, he reckoned to have umpteen kids up and down the country. He’s still knocking around, I bump into him from time. A few of the driver’s names that you may recall… Jimmy Swift, Johnny Thompson, Harold Mather, Ray Hughes, Billy Whitwell, Garvin Graves. Garvin came to his senses quite early on and sacked the driving to become a chiropodist. There are others who’s names I can’t recall and even more who came and went, but the above mentioned were the ■■■■■■■■ of the trampers for the few years that I was there. You’ll no doubt remember the changeovers at Tubby’s with the London lads and the loads out of Van den Berghs with the blocks of dry ice on top of the pallets. These loads were normally destined for SPD depots at South Shields, Durham or Leith. The guy that tipped you at Leith was an ex driver who’s eyesight was failing. He could get the first 6 or 8 pallets off ok but as he got further in and it became darker he kept missing the pallets and ramming the electric hand truck into the trailer sides whilst quietly chortling to himself. In the end, in order to get tipped before midnight and leave with the trailer still in one piece you would unload the thing for him then it would be off up to Wilkie and Paull or Burtons for a backload. Failing that it would be sleeping bags from Rutherglen , biscuits from Carrs at Carlisle, crisps from Billingham or the dreaded crappy tyres from Glasgow. There was a bakery we delivered to in Seaham Harbour that always used to give the driver a bag of hot meat pies. Anyway, I’m rambling now and I’ve three dogs that need walking so I’ll sign off now. Back later. Eddie.

Thanks, Eddie and Barry.

Thanks for the memory jog of Ma and Barry Butcher. I think the first traffic manager was called Bill (as well as Bill Spragg) but I could be wrong. He’d obviously long gone if Arthur was in charge when you started. I don’t remember Ted, but I think the guy I called Fred was actually Ron. slim bloke, probably only in his forties, but looked old - as everyone over 30 does when you’re in your twenties!

Arthur had a Liverpool accent and if you phoned in tipped from the East Kilbride area and it was after 12 O’clock, he would always say ‘what’s up, was she sleepin’ on your shairt. Get across to Wilkie and Paul quick.’ or as you say, the sleeping bags from Rutherglen, or Burtons. I only loaded tyres once, never again, the India factory at Inchinnan was practically medieval - as was the attitude of the people who worked there!

I never did changeovers with the London lads. In fact, I always seemed to get the Scotch, perhaps because everyone else preferred going south. There was plenty of it too, SPD, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen. I didn’t drink much in those days and certainly wouldn’t go in a pub on my own, so tended to just read in the cab or go to the cinema. I preferred the cab hotel to digs. I liked Edinburgh. I was a sophisticated soul - my idea of a perfect night out there was to go to the Wimpy then the cinema and park up for the night just off Lothian road. The adverts before the movies were always good value, the voice overs were always posh English accents and you were waiting for the hoots of derision when they pronounced Dalry road as dollree instead of dall rye.

Glasgow was somewhat harder to love. I’d left the trailer at wherever I was tipping and gone unit only into the city centre. When I came out of the cinema some kind soul had spraypainted ‘Tongs ya Bass’ - whatever that means, in red on the door. Not a happy camper!

Burtons was great. You could load in Edinburgh for Llantarnam, they would load you for London, then back to Blackpool and so on. As long as you helped unload and load, which we did anyway in those days, they would give you a big bag of biscuits. By the end of the week you were giving them away to anyone! One lad said ‘Even the dog won’t eat biscuits in our house!’

Sadly the drivers’ names don’t evoke mental images, although I recognise some of them. I’m sure they’d jump out at me from photos, but you’re right about Mack, that’s who I mean. Give him my best if you see him.

John

Were you subbing for Pritchett’s when ■■■■ Stafford was there John? He’d left to start up North West Freighters by the time I started there in about 1974. He took the Kraft work with him when he went by all accounts. How about the Jolodas in the trailers? How useful were they? Fine if you had a perfect load, useless otherwise. Don’t know if the company still exists but I doubt it somehow. I personally have never come across Joloda tracks in a trailer in 40 years. You could open a new thread on Jolodas John, it would be interesting to see how many drivers still remember them. With regards to staying at the cab hotel, I’m with you on that one. After an early initiation into the delights of staying in digs such as Jack Bray’s in Islington or the Portnastorm cafe in Dalwhinnie, where the beds were arranged in lines of what appeared to be toilet cubicles but with the toilets removed, sleeping across the bonnet of a Big J, with pages from the daily mirror stuck to the windows with spit was absolute bliss. At least if you didn’t sleep it wasn’t because of some hairy arsed driver clanging and banging about and rattling the windows loose with his snoring. And the bonus was, it was free. I’d forgotten about the Wimpey bars but I thought they were great. I used to use them all the time. They were all over the place and the quality was consistently good (usually). They had a plastic coated menu featuring pictures of the meaIs available and I think the meal that I usually had was called the International grill. The grub was certainly better than the garbage that McDonalds churn out. Anyway all this talk about food is making me hungry so I’m just off to put the chip pan on. Back soon. Eddie.

Hope the chips were good!

Oh yes, Jolodas. Plenty to say on them. Will start a new thread - probably tomorrow.

Please add Racs et Al on here - after all it is local hauliers…

I was familiar with the Wigan area before Pritchett’s. Andy and I hauled many hundreds of tons of timber from Coed y Brenin, near Dolgellau, to Riding and Anderton’s in Wigan.

If you know where Asda is - Riding & Andertons were next door. Haven’t a clue what’s on their site now. Mr Anderton ran the company. His son ran the transport. They had a couple of trucks with the Perkins V8. I was horrified to find out that he didn’t change the oil. ‘Change the filters every 3,000 miles, but don’t change the oil. Proof off pudding’s in th’eating, these have done 100,000 miles!’ Sounded impressive at the time, but I couldn’t do it.

If you were late, you’d be looking for the crane jib as soon as you got off the motorway. If it was still up you were ok, they’d unload you. Once it went down - no chance!

The slinger was a huge swarthy chap. Accents have always interested me. His was old fashioned wigan. If you were there at lunchtime he would ask ‘Art thou having chips and fish for thy dinner?’

Archaic even in 1969!

I fancied the girl who worked in the office and weighbridge. I bought a pink shirt at Asda next door and she admired it. So, as you do, I bought one for her and blushingly presented it. She went bright red and said thank you. Visits to the weighbridge thereafter were accompanied by ‘noises off’ in the office. I never did work up the courage to actually ask her out!

John

J.W.Ratcliffe & Sons Ltd. Motor dealers and dismantlers. I think this was the official title of the company which also included Trevalan Transport as the haulage arm of the business. I’m not sure of the exact date when the company was formed, I suspect just after WW2 but it could have been earlier. I do know that the company is still trading in 2015 albeit in somewhat different format. Considering the amount of wagons that passed through the gates of the premises in Low Bank Road over the years, there must still be a few people out there that either bought or sold a wagon here. I know Mr Wadsworth was one of these people. Having worked there on more than one occasion, I know that some of the wagons on the yard were absolute sheds, whereas others were diamonds but I suspect they would have been priced accordingly as I knew the Ratcliffes to be fair and honest. (I’ll be round for my bung tomorrow Alan). Also, there must be someone out there that drove for Trevalan, surely I can’t be the sole survivor. Remember the red and green S21 Fodens pulling bananas out of Preston, Barrow and Barry docks? ( Liverpool as well occasionally, providing it wasn’t spitting for rain) By the way Barry, in response to your previous question, You’re quite right, John McKenna does live down by Oulton park. He drives an 8 legger tipper now, or at least he was doing the last time I saw him about 18 months ago when he pulled into Low Bank Road to fuel up. Alan is still running the show at the old premises and as far as I’m aware Trevor is residing in the I o M. If my information is up to date. Anyroad, bacon butty for tea tonight. Back in a bit. Eddie.

Hi, Eddie , thanks for that info,The Ratcliffes always did us a good deal we bought many lorrys and a few S liecenes from them over many years ,we carried a lot of stone / sand and gravel for the farm Trevor bought ,i think that was the start of the break up with his dad ,Cheers Barry

Back to your earlier question Eddie. I think ■■■■ Stafford had left just before I started on Pritchett’s. We still loaded out of Kraft, so he didn’t take it all. I remember loading and delivering alongside North West freighters a fair bit. His modus operandi seemed to be to have new trailers with older units - usually Big J’s with Gardner engines.

Back to Mack’s Merc. I presume it was a 1418. The cabs looked good at that time. Brother Andy drove a 1923 to the Middle East and said that they were actually small, you had to tilt the seats forward to fold the top bunk down. He also said the engine was underpowered, so I guess the 1418 was even worse, but of course, it was ‘of its time’ and 180 was the norm then. Oh, and he said the handbrake was a ratchet and the instructions in the manual were ‘pull as hard as you can to secure the handbrake’.

John

HI, Folks iirc , there was tipper firm and plant hire called Jack Case ? in Ashton , i think Gaskells were from Golborne ? J pickervance from ,St Helens ,? and Bennetts ,from Warrington ? Barry

Hi Barry, Jack Case was located at Ram pit yard in Haydock initially then latterly at Ashton cross at the traffic lights near junction 24 of the M6. He lived in a big house at the side of the westbound east lancs road not far from the Huntsman pub. His house was demolished shortly after he died about 25 years ago, it could be even longer. I’m not sure what’s there now, probably more houses. His yard up at Ashton cross also had houses built on it at about the same time. He has nephews that are still ( as far as I’m aware ) engaged in plant and haulage in a modest way. Gaskells operated from Bryn road in Ashton. There were two companies, Wm.& C Gaskell., who are still based, as far as I’m aware in Bryn road and S&A Gaskell, (Stan&Alan) who are now defunct. Their premises were located side by side and they are cousins. Wm& C ran brown and cream Sedacs in the 80’s whilst S&A ran a fleet of about 10 mkII Atki 8 legger tippers painted red and grey.Their father ran a fleet of ex m.o.d. QL Bedfords back in the 50’s and 60’s. I drove for them for about 10 months back in the 80’s while I was waiting for a decent job to come up. We were carting pit dirt out of Parkside colliery to Borrow pit at junction 22 of the M6 ( about 14 loads a day ) and sand out of Borrow pit to various sites in the area. Eavesway coaches now occupy S&A Gaskell’s old yard. Pickavance moved from St Helen’s to somewhere up Horwich way and changed their name to Santime. I’m not sure when or why , but I haven’t seen them around for a while so I assume they also have gone down the same route as the dinosaurs. The only Bennetts that I knew were based up at Coppull moor, but that was back in the 70’s. I don’t remember much about them other than the cabs of their motors were painted red and black. ( I think). It may not be the same outfit that you’re thinking of Barry. Anyway it’s past my bedtime. Back soon. Eddie.

You wouldn’t be thinking of Buckleys from Warrington by any chance would you Barry? Their yard was in Latchford not far from the Cheshire Cheese pub, but we’re going back a bit there mate. I’m not sure what happened to them unless they were bought out by TDG or someone similar.

Hi, Eddie , thats spot on Bennetts ,were Red had. a lot of T,KS,and Traders i think they had a sand pit ,they carried a lot of sand stone Cheers Barry

All the Mercs that we had at Pritchett’s were 1418s John, some were painted up in the company colours whilst others, like mine, we’re left in the ex factory blue same as Andy’s. Like Andy’s, they were under powered, as are all Mercs, in my experience. The brakes were ■■■■ poor as well and the exhaust brake was about as much use as ■■■■ on a bull, but they were reliable. They were also comfortable to drive, reasonably quiet (after the Gardners) and had a heater that actually kept you warm. But best of all, they had a bunk that wasn’t fashioned from bits of scrap timber and for the first time it was possible to get a good night’s kip without spending half an hour going through a yoga routine in order to get your head down and hoping that you didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night. I can’t for the life of me remember where the handbrake was situated. We also got a Saviem and a M.A.N. but you were long gone by then. Mack ended up with the M.A.N. The Saviem was fast, I had it up to 75 mph one time on the M1 but I didn’t care much for the column change. I stayed with the Merc until I left Pritchett’s about 12 months before the depot closed. Most of the long term drivers went working for Terry Armstrong, another local haulier. They were driving Scanias with tipping trailers, collecting offal overnight from the Heathrow area and tipping at Granox in Widnes. Mack left his motor running with the box going up one night while he went off to the coffee machine and when he came back the entire rig was at the bottom of the river Mersey. I’ve got some photos of when we went to pull it out. I’ll put them on here once I figure out how it’s done. Anyway more later. Eddie.

Joe Pickavance is now called Kealshore Ltd, Sherdley Rd, St Helens.
I worked for NWF from 1982 'til they closed in 1990.
I did a bit of work for Dickie Pennington after Freighters closed.

Had NWF upgraded the tractor fleet by the time you got there Viking? They mainly seemed to be old Big J’s in the early seventies, with decent trailers.

I didn’t do anything for Pritchetts after 1974 and started on Middle East in 1976, so didn’t know what happened to them.

John.

I don’t remember seeing any BigJs at NWF. The only motors that I remember when he first started off were the old Atkis which I used to knock off when I was doing the flyer for CabMont. I started in 82 on KED 505P an Atki borderer with a coach built sleeper. They had quite a few decent motors then.

Viking:
I don’t remember seeing any BigJs at NWF. The only motors that I remember when he first started off were the old Atkis which I used to knock off when I was doing the flyer for CabMont. I started in 82 on KED 505P an Atki borderer with a coach built sleeper. They had quite a few decent motors then.

Not surprised the Big J’s had gone by 1982. I think they were mainly G & H reg, and possibly even earlier, usually with the legendary 180 Gardner.

John

Do you remember Bob Horrocks Viking? He drove for Northwest Freighters for about 17 years, he’s got a chippy in Wigan now. Also Cables Montague, I’d completely forgotten about that outfit. My mate Tony Burrows used to drive for them. Don’t know if you ever met him or not. We used to work together at Heaton’s in Merton Bank road and before that Trevalan. I drove for ■■■■ Pennington around about 1980. I had an S40 with a 210 ■■■■■■■ in it. The bulk of the fleet (about five wagons) at that time, were Fodens, then they moved on to ERFs then Volvos. ■■■■ was a decent bloke to work for. I never saw him dressed in anything other than greasy overalls all the time I knew him. He died about six or seven years ago unfortunately.