In Mal’s “Zoo” Thread, someone mentioned the AEC badge, which led me to remember where I got mine from nearly 40 years ago.
It came from a lorry scrapyard in Hertfordshire, on the back road from Hitchin down to Welwyn, at Rush Green. The place is still there and thriving, nowadays it has a website,
There is a large number of old and interesting vehicles there and worth a visit, although be aware that tourists are not welcome, so it’s better to be apparently after something…
I last went there in 1978, to pickup a 40’ spread axle trailer, which my boss had bought from them. Which model of AEC the badge came off of, I cannot recall, it may have been this Mercury,
but I think it was something older.
Having photographed the battered badge, I can now screw it back on my workshop wall.
This link is to a book about The London Brick Company and it’s fleet of vehicles.
I remember, even back in Fifties, they used Mammoth Majors and Mercurys. Before the introduction of bricks in packs, the whole lot were handballed on and off.
that would be ahrd work day in day out. ive handballed a few 20ton loasd of bricks, and tiles off, but that was just when a mix up sent a flat lorry to a crane lorry site! the packs made the hanballing even harder, i have a couple of old mates that worked in the game when it was all handballed. and they said the set up made it easier than the packs we handballed off.
Here you are Mal, as an ex-handballer of bricks, this link to a interview with an old boy who drove for Marston Valley Brick Co. I can remember them using some Mammoth Majors.
Marky,
Without being offencive to you on a personal note, I must say that you like you digs, just a slip of the Techinical side on my part of the name. I find all the sites that relate to our industry with plenty of folk gobbing off that they have done this or that, but when I get home at the end of the week these BIG WHEELERS have been posting every night, so is that a real lorry driver today stuck in his cab with his laptop(■■■■■■■■), my view is what a load of ■■■■, the sooner I could go back to the mid sixties when I came into this game the better, but it will never happen. And by the way the M6 stopped at Carnforth and south bound it stopped at the A5 and I still go into the Hollies today
Sorry Taskman, but you told a little fib there didn’t you?
You did mean it as a personal dig, even though you said it wasn’t. Why people say that when they clearly mean the opposite I will never fathom.
My posts on here are intended to be as transparent as possible and they stand as they are seen - if you don’t like that, there’s not much I can do about it.
I have been corrected plenty of times and I am always thankful for it - that way I learn things I didn’t already know. The acronym YDKWYDK springs to mind;
You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know…
No matter how many times you’ve been up the the road, you will always learn something new - this is a great forum for learning and I enjoy participating on it for that very reason.
Where it falls apart every now & again is when people take exception to being corrected. As I am sure you will be aware, I never make any claims about what I’ve done or where I’ve been because I have never been a driver. I have, however, got a very keen and deep rooted interest that goes back many, many years and I can’t see it ever diminishing. It is a great pity (and something I often reflect on with not a little regret) that I don’t seem to have the same interest in my own profession - I can only wonder where I might be now if I had.
Thank you Taskman, the truth never hurt anyone did it?
I get up and down the road quite enough doing my existing job thanks all the same.
I know from experience that driving on the roads of the UK is not the same as it once was - sadly what some of us remember as some sort of driving ‘Utopia’ in the sixties will never return.
I’ve heard it called the ‘Golden Age of British Road Transport’, and if the truth be told I can remember tiny chinks of it from my formative years. There never was a ‘Golden Age’ because it’s an industry undergoing constant evolution.
With regard to the use of technology in the workplace (your apparent dislike of laptops in cabs), I can quote at least one driver of your genre who swaers by his, as do plenty of his colleagues who revel in the slideshows of yesteryear that he gives them. Technology has it’s place and can be a great tool if utilised (even slightly) well; remember - YDKWYDK.
Marky,
I must say that your reply is excellent like the rest of your posts, me I’m fiftyeight in two weeks time and the only reason I’m still in this job is that I’m to old for a paper round and to young for a pension, I’m back at work on the 3rd, I’ll be putting all mi kit back in the motor and just waiting for Friday when I can climb out the cab go home and have a decent ■■■■, shower and shave, what are you doing for the coming year?.
Taskman:
Marky,
I must say that your reply is excellent like the rest of your posts, me I’m fiftyeight in two weeks time and the only reason I’m still in this job is that I’m to old for a paper round and to young for a pension, I’m back at work on the 3rd, I’ll be putting all mi kit back in the motor and just waiting for Friday when I can climb out the cab go home and have a decent [zb], shower and shave, what are you doing for the coming year?.
Look out for the Gilbraith Tankers DAF CF Space Cab with the Knights Head on the grille. He’s your senior and is ‘up to speed’ with the technological revolution’. He’s out 4 nights every week and still rallies an old Borderer during the summer, as well as helping out with events as a member of a caravanning club.
If only I could’ve stopped him putting his knee through the screen…
I’m all around the North West sizing up jobs for Royal Mail in my role as a Project Manager. I sometimes even get as far afield as ■■■■■■■■ Yorkshire, Derbyshire and the banks of the Humber.
I was told (after the careers officer at school grassed me up) that if I even contemplated going after a job in haulage I would be looking for somewhere else to live when I left school. It’s not the sort of thing a reserved fifteen year old expects to hear, so it was to college I went. Two years later I emerged with the equivelent of a couple of A levels in the form of a Diploma in Computer Studies which secured employment in the (as was then) burgeoning IT market.
Since then I have been a techie at a couple of colleges, a National hardware engineer, a National Technical Support Manager, a Technical Services Manager, a Technical Assessment Engineer, a Technical Site Lead and now I am an IT Project Manager.
Cab happy eh?
Join the club, I still am and I’ve been doing it on and off for over 40 years.
I too was severely frowned upon for ‘wasting’ my Grammar School education, and even more so when I later influenced my younger brother to give up his rep job and become a waggoneer also.
Mind you he was open to influence, when he got married his wife persuaded him to become a bus driver .
re. AEC. I didn’t notice the mistake because I had forgotten that ‘engineering’ was not correct .
BTW I have been corrected by Marky many times, mainly to do with Scammells, and am happy to be so
.