Staying at the “new” style digs at Penkridge was a bit different in the mid 60’s as there was a Bar and “caberet” on the premises along with the Café and single rooms, I think Silvertown Motel in East London tried to do a similar job but without the “entertainment” , you got that in the Queen of Denmark next door ! 
. Anyway, on the way up the “new” M5 we would pass various Welshmen in their new 180 LXB Atkis hauling the similar 20ton of steel we had on board, just kept them in “their place” 
they were no match for the 680 Power Plus once it got rolling and it was higher geared so it had the “legs” and in modern day parlence it was kept “lit”. I recall one snow covered winter evening, on our way to Penkridge, we pulled up outside the Police Station on Birmingham New Road going in towards Wolverhampton with the Power Plus boiling it’s bollox off, it had been using a bit of water for a while. Anyhow Eric says “off you go into the Nick and get some warm water”. 
So in I go’s to the desk and explained to the Sarge what our predicament was and he directed me through a door to the side and down the corridor to a utility room where there was a mop bucket which I filled with warm water. However, I had to pass the “secure accommodation rooms” on the way and a couple of them had inmates. Well they started shouting " got any ciggies mate" and “what have you been up to” etc. I’d never been exposed to that sort of “craic” so it was a new experience I can tell you ! Anyway after two visits I thanked the Sarge and we cracked on ! Do you know the 680 hardly ever used another drop of coolant for the rest of the time I mated on it so it must have cleaned it’s pipes out with that boil up. We sometimes stayed at Durose’s Café at Newcastle-U-Lymme which was a dig some Drivers either loved or hated ! I always reckoned it as it was clean, a bit noisy sometimes when drunken Scotsmen staggered in at midnight but once I got me head down I was “dead”. The other dig we used was Kelmscot Café on the A6 near Chorley now that is where Eric would get into a card school with the manger Harry and other drivers, this resulted in an “all nighter” so the following mornings were interesting sometimes if we were just shooting back to Barrow empty after tipping tin plate at MB West Houghton. This is where Eric would let me take the wheel, “nice and steady like Brother we don’t want locking up”! talk about a “dog with two tails” ! We’d swap back again before we got near Barrow ! I recall once when we were tipping at MB in Aintree ( Breeze Lane I think it was) well it was the other drop where the trailer couldn’t be reversed in so it had to go on “the nose” well as I was dropping the drawbar which was on the scue so had a bit of tension it came off the hook and nipped the Sovreign ring I had on my right hand, ( $%^=!! 'ell). It took me two days to get the ■■■■■■■ thing off my finger ! Well previous to this happening “Harry The Plonk” at Kelmscot had been pestering me to sell him this curved Sov ring which I always refused and he was only offering a fiver and it had cost me £6 10s ! So the next time we stayed at Kelmscot the next week or it may have been a couple of weeks I had the ring in my pocket and said “Right H get yer fiver out you can have the poxy ring” he went straight to the till and got the fiver !! Dangerous things rings ! and I had blown £1 10s. 
Just an excerpt from the travails of a Trailer Mate in those far off days in the 60’s but I can recall some of them like it was yesterday ! If I can syc myself up for the next episode I have an interesting tale about loading ex ship on Liverpool docks with the load being split between us and a Pickfords outfit, Highwayman and four-in-line lowloader, what a bunch of wallies ! Enough until next time! Cheers Bewick.