Just reviving an old thread.
Hilton Transport Services is in the same category of haulage firms such as John Dee that achieved rapid and spectacular growth but had no financial stability and collapsed. They were a large company but by no means the biggest in the country even at their peak.
Wouldn’t Mitchell Cotts have been just about the largest British transport company at that time? Even though not many vehicles carried that name there were a fair few firms owned by them as I recall. This would have been in the days before Transport Development Group, let alone Stobies.
Retired Old ■■■■:
Wouldn’t Mitchell Cotts have been just about the largest British transport company at that time? Even though not many vehicles carried that name there were a fair few firms owned by them as I recall. This would have been in the days before Transport Development Group, let alone Stobies.
Maybe I will stand corrected ROF,but TDG started as purely as a Holding Co in the mid 50’s under the very capable guidence of Sir James Duncan and he proceeded to buy up many companies,mainly transport related and many in Scotland,but the TDG M.O. was to allow each subsiduary to rise or fall by it’s own endeavours and usually there was little or no mention of the Holding Cos. involvement,however,Sir James never hesitated to close a subsiduary if it continuosly failed to perform ( re.Peter McCullum as an example) It was only after Sir James “let go of the reins”(late 80’s IIRC) and the men in “suits” who suceeded him and Lockart the FD, decided that the brand name TDG should rise to prominence 
,Look what happened at Ridings after Tom retired,they couldn’t re-brand the old firm fast enough into that ■■■■■■ green colour and re-name it TDG “Bollox” or whatever.I’m not to sure of Mitchell Cotts pedigree but when we came in contact with them via our contract with Ross Youngs they appeared to operate,and act,like a right bunch of areosols.Cheers Bewick.
Thanks, Dennis. As you assume, a lot of us were not aware of TDG until quite late on. Mitchell Cotts had rather a poor reputation for such a large concern as I recall- most independents stayed well clear!
Retired Old ■■■■:
Thanks, Dennis. As you assume, a lot of us were not aware of TDG until quite late on. Mitchell Cotts had rather a poor reputation for such a large concern as I recall- most independents stayed well clear!
Glad to be of help ROF,I know I’m a sad ■■■■■■■ but I can still re-call this kind of nonsense from years ago, but I knew Sir James personally and he was,believe me,a very shrewed operator, after he retired and left TDG to it’s own devices he “popped up” later as Chairman of Bo-Alloy and I enjoyed his company on a couple occaisions at big “do’s” on Park Lane.Cheers Dennis.
The mention of Mitchell Cotts reminded me of the times we came into contact with both them and Transfleet Services at Grimsby and I well remember asking our night man,Edward Airey,who ran to and from Grimsby on nights as to where did those two big contractors run to and from 
Edward’s reply was " I have no idea,but wherever it is they are always in a hurry" 
His reply was priceless as he was so diligent checking his trailers over with meticulous care,everytime ! Those two large co’s were always “in lumber”,trailer lights,fridge motors,tyres you name it those ■■■■■■■ could find it.Cheers Dennis.
Bewick:
Retired Old ■■■■:
Wouldn’t Mitchell Cotts have been just about the largest British transport company at that time? Even though not many vehicles carried that name there were a fair few firms owned by them as I recall. This would have been in the days before Transport Development Group, let alone Stobies.Maybe I will stand corrected ROF,but TDG started as purely as a Holding Co in the mid 50’s under the very capable guidence of Sir James Duncan and he proceeded to buy up many companies,mainly transport related and many in Scotland,but the TDG M.O. was to allow each subsiduary to rise or fall by it’s own endeavours and usually there was little or no mention of the Holding Cos. involvement,however,Sir James never hesitated to close a subsiduary if it continuosly failed to perform ( re.Peter McCullum as an example) It was only after Sir James “let go of the reins”(late 80’s IIRC) and the men in “suits” who suceeded him and Lockart the FD, decided that the brand name TDG should rise to prominence
i can’t agree more Dennis I worked for J Stirlands of Nottingham Jack Stirland sold out to TDG in 1964 but remained MD until the late 70s the only time TDG was ever mentioned is when some investment was needed I.e new warehousing if the job or depot didn’t pay it was closed we all ran in our colours and seperate identities we did go into other group depots for back loads diesel and sometimes to park up but then in 1990 like you say some clown ( I don’t know whether I’m allowed to print his name on this forum ) decided to have us all painted in the same colours we were changed to blue because one of our biggest customers asked us to but we had many good customers and some brilliant traffic we were one of the last general haulage fleets within TDG then in 1993 our own depot had a change of management by then we were the second biggest earning company within the group our so called leader gave away nearly all our work and decided to put all his eggs in one basket he lasted about 3 years by then we were starting to struggle and he got given permanent holiday relief but 2002 our yard at Nottingham had shut and we only had about 30 lorries then about 70 trailers at our peak in the late 80s and early 90s we had over a
100 lorries and 400 trailers so called progress we moved to the massive TDG depot in West Hallam Derbyshire it was previously known as Midland Storage I myself left in 2003 after getting a job with one of our customers Imperial Tobacco that’s one customer our so called leader didn’t let go we had worked for them for over 50 years so now I’m finishing my working career hopefully as a yard Shunter there all the best Gary
There you go,straight from “the horses mouth”,thanks for that Gary but it must have been heartbreaking to see a great firm go “down the pan”,we did a lot of work via Western Transport Bristol when Mike Timms and Maggsy were in charge and they gave me an in-sight into how the TDG group operated (when Sir James was in charge),their bank account got “cleaned” out to London head office every night (more or less) only leaving them enough working capital for their immediate needs,but if they needed,say,10 new motors for a new contract,the funds required to buy the new kit would be transferred to their account from London for the outright purchase.So really the M.D.'s of the various operating subsiduaries never had to worry about capital finance only operating problems,unlike the likes of poor old me at Bewick Transport 
I remember Harris’ still operating in their own livery with just one or two vehicles from their depot at Lostock, Nr Northwich into the early '90s.
And somebody will remind me of the name of the village 
zippy155:
WOODY R:
Zippy, Interesting bit of history on the power boats. I think the two pubs you mention, one was The Anchor & Hope and i think the other one was The AntigalaganYes certainly the Antigalagan but not 100% about the other one called the Anchor and Hope, I thought that was the other end of Anchor & Hope lane? I’ll try and find out.
I guess the boats must be around somewhere!!
Z
The two pubs at the top of anchor and hope lane, The Antigallican, this is still there and the other was the Watermans Arms, this was demolished prior to the widening of Woolwich road/Anchor and hope lane junction.
Bewick:
There you go,straight from “the horses mouth”,thanks for that Gary but it must have been heartbreaking to see a great firm go “down the pan”,we did a lot of work via Western Transport Bristol when Mike Timms and Maggsy were in charge and they gave me an in-sight into how the TDG group operated (when Sir James was in charge),their bank account got “cleaned” out to London head office every night (more or less) only leaving them enough working capital for their immediate needs,but if they needed,say,10 new motors for a new contract,the funds required to buy the new kit would be transferred to their account from London for the outright purchase.So really the M.D.'s of the various operating subsiduaries never had to worry about capital finance only operating problems,unlike the likes of poor old me at Bewick Transport
Yes it was a shame to see it going downhill especially when most of the people who worked there had been long servers a lot of them had been there for 30 years plus we had quite a lot of 40 years plus when this clown came in 1993 he looked at the service record and said there must something wrong with this place for people to work here for so long ( no joke) but anyway a lot of old established company names went when TDG decided to go under one name and judging by today’s standard of driving and how these so called transport firms are run I think your best well away from transport I know I wouldn’t go back driving for a living so I’ve got my own lorry which I’ve restored in Stirlands colours I can drive it when I like and leave the others to the rat race
Just one thing ROF some of the group lorries did still have there old names on it was just a matter of time for them to get resprayed and reliveried it was all down to time and accountants [SMILING FACE WITH OPEN MOUTH AND SMILING EYES]
Mitchell Cotts were originally huge in mining and shipping, especially in Africa. They came to Britain quite late and I seem to remember they were more of an early finance house than a road haulier.
I have just googled them and found they were taken over by Grindrod Shipping but still trade as M/C in parts of East Africa. The founder is in Burkes Peerage and Who’s who.
Saving up for another gallon of that green paint, Gaz? 
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there ROF
I used to work for WBS (Hiltons) in the late 70s. Mainly running up to Ford’s parts depot in Daventry with empty stillages and returning with crates of spare parts for the Ford dealers in the South East. It was a fairly cushy job and the lads were OK. Everyone helped out.
Then I transferred to the night trunk service doing two trips a night to Toddington Services and back. Mostly with containers and driving a Leyland Marathon. I would meet two owner-drivers from Manchester, one at 9pm and one at 1am and swap trailers on the south-bound lorry park. I enjoyed the job as I was the only night flyer driver at the time and I had a fairly free hand,
The Marathon was ideally suited for the cross-London traffic and would fly like the wind on clear roads. The Tower Bridge was closed to trucks at the time so the route was Elephant & Castle, Vauxhall Bridge, St John’s Wood, Swiss Cottage, North Circular and pick up the end of the M1. Return down Kilburn High Road.
I don’t remember the day driver’s name but he kept the Marathon immaculate and in good running order so it was a pleasure to come to work every night.
I only had one problem one night when I was bringing back a container full of whiskey on the last run. I stopped at the lights in Grosvenor Place when a motorcycle drew up along side and the rider told me that my number plate had fallen off and I should pull up round the corner and get out to investigate. I noticed that two cars were also close behind. I knew the rider was lying because I always used a safety clip on the number plate and it couldn’t possibly fall off. The area that he wanted me to stop was fairly dark and very quiet (next to the Queen’s garden) so I wound up the Marathon and drove at top speed through all the red lights until I got back to the depot at Surrey Docks. Luckily, the security guard was at his post and and he let me in straight away. Of course, the number plate was still in its place so I think that I had a close shave with some South London villains. I was careful after that to vary my routes and not to stop at red lights if there was no traffic about.
Didn’t Hiltons have one of the three 6 x 4 trial twin engined D-Series along with B.R.S. and E.C.C.
Tony
rastone:
Didn’t Hiltons have one of the three 6 x 4 trial twin engined D-Series along with B.R.S. and E.C.C.Tony
I think that was when they were HTS and before they changed the name to WBS with bottle green livery.
zippy155:
WOODY R:
I was wondering what ever happened to Hiltons transport, as before Stobarts came along, i think Hiltons must have been the biggest transport firm in the country.
I loaded out of Hiltons yard in Charlton hundreds of times, i can always remember they had a huge workshop/ hanger where they had one of the Hitons power boats, i seem to remember one of them was the brtish power boat champion, was it Johnny ?They had two powerboats one called “858” as per the telephone code fro charlton 01 858 and the the other 585 (for some reason!) They had leyland engines in them originally and then threw them out in favor of Sabre diesels. if you call sabre’s workshop now (see address on google) there are some guys there that worked on the boats even to this day. The boat won the London to Monte Carlo race and Charlton was never the same after that LOL!!! The cast for the Brothers TV series used to drink at the two pubs at the top of anchor and hope lane !
Went spectacularly bust in 1976 which was a shame but it happens. I guess you cannot make enough money in transport to race powerboats as well something had to give
Z
The power boats are still aorund one just about to fall apart 585 and 858 alive and well in Cornwall