Forders of Cullingworth

Forders of Cullingworth

Anyone remember this company?

Yorkshire based , they used to have a varied fleet ERF A or B series and some Bedford TK / KM trucks. They carried British Leyland parts and other stuff.

Sorry cannot remember the fleet colours, just so far back in time

cheers and a merry xmas & hapy new year to all

Obviously everybody’s memory is as good as yours Diplabo .

I remember the name but that’s as far as it goes.

Salut, David.

nope sorry must’ve been before my time - we used to keep our wagons in molly’s yard at cullingworth (D&M Bebb) in the late 80s but don’t remember the firm you mentioned

Cheers folks

Early 70,s last time I worked for them as a lad, was a small company at the time but full of folk with a passion for the industry.

Maybe swallowed up by the big boys or just went to the wall.

Don’t know about the rest of the older folk on here, but does anyone think modern trucking changed for the better? I can remember the company above
gutting out a flat bed for mot prep, body off and chassis painted etc.

Not like the modern day 2 hour prep and chance it brigade

i think it’s swings & roundabouts depablo. one thing i hate about the way the job has gone is totally more dog eat dog than it was when i first started, and in part, i blame the tacho for that. it was allways gonna be the spy in the cab regardless of what they said, and did bugger all to stop accidents in my opinion.

the job was physically rougher wernt it, but i felt it was more relaxed, you could tell the gaffer ■■■■■■■■ and it didnt seem to turn into a grudge, but then again maybe it’s just me with the old rose tinted specs on

Usually the gaffer was an old hand who had come up through the ranks. At the time you would have modelled yourself on a few of them and how they went about their job.

Now its retail garages and the haulage workshop is a thing of the past, its all down to money now. There wern’t many jobs that own account workshops never tackled. Just for the record I have worked in the retail sector as a mechanic and don’t agree with the train of thought that mechanics nowadays are super intelligent and the own account breed could never handle the new technology.

Training is what it’s all about, if you don’t show someone they’ll never learn the new technology, I honestly believe someday it will go full circle, you just don’t get a quality repair if you dont own the workshop or the owner don’t get to know the mechanics on a first name basis.

depablo:
Usually the gaffer was an old hand who had come up through the ranks. At the time you would have modelled yourself on a few of them and how they went about their job.

yes they were a model some were, they knew the job from experience, and although some of them would spin a yarn about how hard they worked that would be revealed by somebody as worked with them as ■■■■■■■■, at least they did do some!

I remember helping out in the workshop, we had one full time fitter who drove the forktruck, swept the yard and answered the phone. If he got a big job he would get the help of one of the more technical drivers.

An MOT would take a week to prepare the unit, repaint it and do any running repairs. A brake reline would be done on a saturday morning while the driver greased his truck.

Where I worked he always had a spare engine & gearbox ready to drop in the volvos as the company ran more of them than anything

and usually you could allways get a cuppa in the garage malc! when broke dow, it was good if the firm had their own garage, i’d allways hang about having the crack, maybe help out, get the samwiches ect ect, instead these day s you end up sat in some poxy waiting area at a commercials place!

Sorry about the delay from the first post but I am a new member and I’m enjoying the forum so much that I have gone back to the start.
Forders of Cullingworth ran light green motors as I remember. I can’t remember any ERF’s but I remember them running Guy Big J’s. They also ran some in Unipart colours.
As peterq 5422 said they ran out of Cullingworth. I believe it was the old railway goods shed and EK Foods took it over when they finished.
I think they did get taken over by Fredrick Rays. They also had a small yard and workshop in the middle of Bingley by the Queens Head traffic lights. This was all around the 70’s although I can’t remember when they finished working out of Cullingworth.

Young Tony:
Sorry about the delay from the first post but I am a new member and I’m enjoying the forum so much that I have gone back to the start.
Forders of Cullingworth ran light green motors as I remember. I can’t remember any ERF’s but I remember them running Guy Big J’s. They also ran some in Unipart colours.
As peterq 5422 said they ran out of Cullingworth. I believe it was the old railway goods shed and EK Foods took it over when they finished.
I think they did get taken over by Fredrick Rays. They also had a small yard and workshop in the middle of Bingley by the Queens Head traffic lights. This was all around the 70’s although I can’t remember when they finished working out of Cullingworth.

Did Marchnight take those premises over , black black wagons i think

Hi Ramone
I thought Marchnight were down on the Castlefields Ind Estate but I can’t be sure. I remember Webbs being up where Forders were in the early 80’s but I can’t remember who was in their yard in the late 70’s or when Forders packed in.

Young Tony:
Hi Ramone
I thought Marchnight were down on the Castlefields Ind Estate but I can’t be sure. I remember Webbs being up where Forders were in the early 80’s but I can’t remember who was in their yard in the late 70’s or when Forders packed in.

Apparently Appleyards and maybe John M Youngs who took over Cyril Whitelys were in there

Forders ! Think they stopped in the late 70s/early 80s and the yard stood empty for a few years. You could hear the sound of the stillages being tipped & reloaded all night long! Leyland Marathon and Marathon 2s are my memory of them… white in Unipart livery. In day cabbed version they looked stupidly tall. Talking of tall - they were forever giving Halifax Rd / Manywells Brow bridge a scraping with the stillage loads during the night … somethings never change, eh ?!

I remember Bebb’s too… F88s… then early F10s. Their yard is houses now.

And Marchnight at Crossflats - a proper blast from the past !

As rightly said Forders ran out of Cullingworth station yard in the 70s with mainley green motors ,Big Js,KMs and Leylands,and Fredrick Rays of |Leighton Buzzard took over
Forders and the car part distribution for a while. Station yard has been emty for years since the dog food E & K finished, and was fired up !!

Does anybody remember D & M Bebb out of Manywells who hauled casting out of Bingley foundry to Fords of Dag.
David and Molly went ther seperate ways and David ran a blue F12 on suby work for Pandoro in Leeds.
Davids driver was a great old boy out of Keighley called Leny Barlow worked together for years happy day, sadly Lens long gone.

forders yard was taken over by ek animal foods a new venture by the webbs poultry family and i think forders got taken over i seem to remember frederik ray trucks appearing towards the end of them using the yard

First thing I did when starting with a new firm was take a box of tea bags in for the fitters, never mind the bloke in the office, they were the blokes you needed on your side

Different story now though in the days of Hi-viz & latex gloves

I don’t think it’s rose coloured specs, the job was different in them days, I myself started off as a small boy, out with my dad as soon as I was out of nappies, it gets in the blood. Nowadays health & safety has put a stop to that & lorry driving is offered to the long term unemployed as a route back into working Unbelievable

give em a sheet and a couple of ropes and that will stop their gallop

Ropes & sheets, they’d have a blue fit

Can you imagine it if they saw us doing our best spiderman impression up the side of a 15ft load to roll out the sheets

On another note I used to run a 143, one of the last on a P plate, sent a driver out in it & it was the 1st lorry he’d ever driven without cruise control he moaned like a ■■■■■ about it, it was a 143 for god sake, probably one of the best lorries ever made