Hi, I don’t know if this has been asked before.I started driving back in 1976 after 4 years in the office routing vehicles phoning customers etc. When I turned 21 the company put me through my class one.I passed my test and on the Monday after passing one of the drivers called in sick. I was sent out to cover his shift and have been driving fuel tankers ever since. I used to love going out to work ,I was young enthusiastic And up for anything. We used to leave in the morning after a few cuppas went and delivered what we could,if we had any problems we contacted the office from the delivery point. As usual in Scotland we were delayed by weather but no one worried you. Called the office explained you were delayed with weather etc , no problem Just get back when you can. No phones no trackers etc just drivers using common sense. Now in 2016. The vehicle I drive has a front camera ,phone, tracker digi tachometer,I reckon the old days were better where a driver used a bit common sense. This is me in 1976 and present day. I retire next March after 41 years on fuel. So were the old days better,(only a bit of fun nothing too serious please).
Ill try to stick with your "light touch" request. As a youngster in the late seventies I didnt seem to be too worried about owt to do with the job. Or anything else really. But maybe that was just youthful enthusiasm and pure ignorance, some of that I have kept. And some of the enthusiasm. Moving into euro work in the late eighties renewed my flagging interest in the job. And even now I still find enough new to keep my interest up.
I remember the times before cab phones when finding a working red box that actually worked was a real pain, and most of them smelt of …well, bad. Some things are better.
Guess Im lucky having a job where the drivers are given a list of collections then were pretty much left to get on with it. Weve trackers fitted but mostly theyre for insurance, not snooping on us. Sure we can ■■■■ up, but then its our own fault. Having some control of ones own work does wonders for job satisfaction. Sadly missing from many other places now it seems. Whoops! almost serious there.
Not a driver but a lad of 11 to 15 rattling around in cattle wagons from 1975 to 1979, sometimes sat on the bonnet in the middle of an ERF cab, chugging up the M6 - Lord knows what would’ve happened to me if we’d had an accident …
I also remember my uncle with his ‘log book’ drawing straight lines with a ruler and taking quite a while to complete it - the tacho does all this now (I think■■?)
Freezing in the cab in winter waiting for the old girl to fire up on cold start / de icing the wagon from outside on real cold days (1967 Bedford / 1970 Commer / early 70s ERFs)
Roasting in the summer - especially 1976!
Don’t get me wrong, as a 51 year old I often look back and think some things were better and I’m also glad I was a child, when I was a child (my era) but also that a lot of stuff today (even some H & S) is a lot better than back then … Mixed bag I suppose
When we changed from the old log books, hand written “from & to” places and times, to the new “draw a line” ones, one old hand moaned about never getting anywhere__ “Gotta stop evry quarter our n draw another chuffin line”. Friday afternoons normally had half dozen blokes in the tea room smoking and filling in books trying to remember what they were doing the coupla days previously. Ah, age of innocence.
matt watson:
This is the motor I started driving at 21 years old.
You were spoiled!!!
Sorry tanker drivers , not your run of the mill knock your nutt s out job, all ways more money why I never knew,. all you needed was a pair of gloves. got dirty if you fell over , 1979/80 did not support the drivers strike.
Coming down the M1 passed the turn where BUNSFIELD tanker depot was ,Hemel Hempstead turn you would see the tankers coming over the bridge and you knew once they straighten up as you were approaching there coming on slip road they would speed up and try to push you over, and if you were going for the M10 you needed to keep in the inside lane because the turn come up quick, as the tankers all ways wanted to get to the M1as it went to 2lanes left, 2 lanes right on for London ,AND WE WERE TRAMPING ON going down hill maxed out then 32 tons sometimes out of cog ,feet lifted up ,sailing.no radios then.
.I used to think they have just got on the motorway, not even on it yet, I have been on for the last 3 hours, my left flasher going, would they ease up, but no, over I would go and let them on, after time you get talking to others and it seemd it happened to most south bound drivers at the hemel tankers turn. so in the end, I just stopped where I was, near side lane, and they either braked or kept on the hard shoulder, that is so long ago however I have never forgot it so tanker drivers and me never mixed…
peggydeckboy:
Sorry tanker drivers , not your run of the mill knock your nutt s out job, all ways more money why I never knew,. all you needed was a pair of gloves. got dirty if you fell over , 1979/80 did not support the drivers strike.Coming down the M1 passed the turn where BUNSFIELD tanker depot was ,Hemel Hempstead turn you would see the tankers coming over the bridge and you knew once they straighten up as you were approaching there coming on slip road they would speed up and try to push you over, and if you were going for the M10 you needed to keep in the inside lane because the turn come up quick, as the tankers all ways wanted to get to the M1as it went to 2lanes left, 2 lanes right on for London ,AND WE WERE TRAMPING ON going down hill maxed out then 32 tons sometimes out of cog ,feet lifted up ,sailing.no radios then.
.I used to think they have just got on the motorway, not even on it yet, I have been on for the last 3 hours, my left flasher going, would they ease up, but no, over I would go and let them on, after time you get talking to others and it seemd it happened to most south bound drivers at the hemel tankers turn. so in the end, I just stopped where I was, near side lane, and they either braked or kept on the hard shoulder, that is so long ago however I have never forgot it so tanker drivers and me never mixed…
PDB It is obvious from your reply that you know very little about tankers and tanker driving as you say on fuel tankers you need common sense and personal protection pretty straight forward but there is a lot of very dangerous substances carried in tankers as well and some will kill you with a small plash ( around the size of your hand ) within a few minutes and then you have substances which are highly toxic and highly flammable were full protection and breathing apparatus must be worn when loading and unloading. There is some substances which have to have the air purged out of the ullage and nitrogen in to be safely transported. There is some substances which you have to carry an antidote in a special first aid kit in case of poisoning and a lot more courses to attend to so that you are capable of dealing with emergency situations should they arise as you are often driving a mobile bomb capable of taking a large area out.
I have left the names out deliberately as it is better not to know what is being transported as we could only use freight only ferries and then you would be deck cargo so your wagon could be ditched over board in an emergency at sea.
cheers Johnnie
Sammyopisite,
Yes ok, I should have just mentioned fuel tankers, and it was late 1970s and I do know about the dangerous stuff being carried ,although never had to do any courses back then, [as you know]. only company…Also I have /had been using every week ferries from all the east coast ports ,so do know about the haz chem .we used to carry the same dry freight haz chem before all the stickers came in.
Your tanker industry was made elite! by the “unions” , air fuel tankers, domestic petrol etc all the big companies, so the job got specialised, however you were still and were LORRY DRIVERS and it was not hard work!.. and perhaps rightly so, however it was who you knew, not what you knew to get into any of the big tanker distribution companies .plus you had clothing supplied and gloves ,before any other driving firms, not very many companies had pensions in fact very few but the tanker drivers did. did you have to strike for £5 an hour.?
This thread seems to have lost the light hearted touch the op was afte
Yes Franglais the title had the potential to become a great thread and it’s a shame that the O.P. didn’t put more of his photos on here and share his driving experiences with us. 
peggydeckboy:
Sorry tanker drivers , not your run of the mill knock your nutt s out job, all ways more money why I never knew,. all you needed was a pair of gloves. got dirty if you fell over , 1979/80 did not support the drivers strike. Your tanker industry was made elite! by the “unions” , air fuel tankers, domestic petrol etc all the big companies, so the job got specialised, however you were still and were LORRY DRIVERS and it was not hard work!.. and perhaps rightly so, however it was who you knew, not what you knew to get into any of the big tanker distribution companies .plus you had clothing supplied and gloves ,before any other driving firms, not very many companies had pensions in fact very few but the tanker drivers did. did you have to strike for £5 an hour.?
AND WE WERE TRAMPING ON going down hill maxed out then 32 tons sometimes out of cog ,feet lifted up ,sailing.no radios then.
I don’t think that’s recommended if your pulling a full load of Sulphuric or NitroBenzine Peggy. 
If you worked for a firm like B.R.S. and you made a big mistake then the company would use hundreds of pounds to rectify it and because of the unions you would still keep your job.
When you work in the Petro Chemical Industry and somebody makes a little mistake the results could be another Flixborough, Buncefield, or Piper Alpha disaster. The point that I am trying to make is that all the tanker drivers that I can remember working with all took safety very seriously. A company pension was something that a lot of us took into consideration when applying for a job as opposed to air horns, wheel trims and a chrome stack pipe.
Thanks for the replies, What I was trying to get at was driving easier back in the 70s 80s.I thought it was. Just two weeks into my driving career I was asked to drive an AEC Mandator to Dumfries make a delivery and then do a change over at Penrith. I had never delivered further than Glasgow up til now. This was the middle of winter, I delivered the fuel and finally got to Penrith after a bit of bother with fuel waxing,Remember the small glass bowl at the top of the fuel tank, I had to remove the small filter disc and clean it twice. I arrived at Penrith and was met by a mechanic who was taking the mandator to Scunthorpe for mot. The vehicle I was to take back to Grangemouth was a foden 8 wheeler with the foden 12 speed box. The fitter explained roughly how to use the box and off I went fully loaded with diesel , As a young 21 year old lets just say it was an experience getting the hang of that box with the splitter on the right hand side of the dash. I drove this foden many times after that and I got to like it.Here are a couple more motors I used to drive.Erf. This one had a ■■■■■■■ engine and the twin splitter,another very good vehicle , you’ve probably heard it before but I loved the twin splitter.
Here is the old mandator,
The Bison I drove for a few years, This had the fuller 9 speed road ranger box a good motor to drive.
Good posts.
I know what you mean about things seeming easier then. But much less crowded roads then, more room for error maybe.
Before getting my HGV I was let loose on an old (1958) Austin, that was an HGV III until the end of the bed was cut off, dropping its unladen wt below 3ton. With a load the steering was a tad heavy! Early units included ERF & Atkinson Borderers, some with power steering some not, fitted with 180Gardners, 220 ■■■■■■■■ 5 or 6 speed David Brown boxes, and 2speed axles, or 10 speed Fuller RoadRangers; plus the obligatory Foden twin split too. And the Seddon Atkis & "B" series with similar but mirror image range change boxes; fun n games swopping tween `em!
Getting on petrol tankers out of our local refinery was the target for many of us. (ESSO Fawley). I never got a perm job there, and neither did some colleagues whose father was already there. Rare vacancies!
Hi Franglais ,you’re right about the roads being quieter but you still had to have your eye on the ball. Remember when we were allowed 60mph on motorways. I remember a wheel bearing smoking one Saturday morning on the A977 Kinross road,I was on my way to Aberdeen.Luckely there was no fire and I had to walk about 2miles to the old NCB mine and use a phone so in that respect the job is easier with trackers mobiles etc the company knows exactly where you are.You said you never got full time on the fuel, I was lucky I spent a few years in the office got my class one and was driving 2days later. I don’t know how. It worked with insurance etc as I was only 21 no experience. I got my son a start on the fuel a few years ago.(not what you know but who you know) He is now driving fuel tankers in New Zealand. I have some other photos to look out and will post them.
mushroomman:
Yes Franglais the title had the potential to become a great thread and it’s a shame that the O.P. didn’t put more of his photos on here and share his driving experiences with us.peggydeckboy:
Sorry tanker drivers , not your run of the mill knock your nutt s out job, all ways more money why I never knew,. all you needed was a pair of gloves. got dirty if you fell over , 1979/80 did not support the drivers strike. Your tanker industry was made elite! by the “unions” , air fuel tankers, domestic petrol etc all the big companies, so the job got specialised, however you were still and were LORRY DRIVERS and it was not hard work!.. and perhaps rightly so, however it was who you knew, not what you knew to get into any of the big tanker distribution companies .plus you had clothing supplied and gloves ,before any other driving firms, not very many companies had pensions in fact very few but the tanker drivers did. did you have to strike for £5 an hour.?
AND WE WERE TRAMPING ON going down hill maxed out then 32 tons sometimes out of cog ,feet lifted up ,sailing.no radios then.**I don’t think that’s recommended if your pulling a full load of Sulphuric or NitroBenzine Peggy. :**roll:
If you worked for a firm like B.R.S. and you made a big mistake then the company would use hundreds of pounds to rectify it and because of the unions you would still keep your job.
When you work in the Petro Chemical Industry and somebody makes a little mistake the results could be another Flixborough, Buncefield, or Piper Alpha disaster. The point that I am trying to make is that all the tanker drivers that I can remember working with all took safety very seriously. A company pension was something that a lot of us took into consideration when applying for a job as opposed to air horns, wheel trims and a chrome stack pipe.
In all my years “tankering” I don’t think I ever used the silent gear, no, no, The stuff sitting behind you swilling about tended the “concentrate the mind” a bit
Phenol needed respect and 4/5000 gallon of unleaded didn’t allow for mistakes. Some of the stuff transported was VERY dodgy indeed.
I once picked some stuff up in Beauvais in France, all the hazard label on, Hazard note printed in French 
, I got to the Dartford Tunnel, pulled over for an ■■■■■■, he looked in “the book” to check what it was…“not through our tunnel, not even with an ■■■■■■, bugga off”. To this day I don’t know what it was.
But, we should thank Deckboypeggy for his contribution. There’s an old saying, “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it”. And I can rope and sheet. 
Oh, just remembered…I’ve still got some gloves…we’ll actually they’re gauntlet type, they stopped getting your shirt cuffs too dirty. 
matt watson:
One more up to date, That’s me delivering in Stirling with Brogan fuels.
Aaah, you’ve got it easy these days, all bottom loading and delivery, no running up and down ladders that has a decent coating of ice in the winter,tank top walkways that were lethal, no dipsticks, no loading arms that just wouldn’t reach the last pot (very naughty, DO NOT splash load 
) It’s all a far cry from the job when I woz a lad.
And where’s your hard hat? you’ll have Elf and Safety after you