Well like most of us I could put pages and pages on this subject, here are a few that spring to mind.
Started work for Hayter Mowers, first week going down the A4 I looked in the mirror and saw a rope trailing so pulled over to sort it, couple of minutes later a lorry stopped and the driver said “you dropped a mower back there so I chucked it on mine for you” thanks said I. Went on to the stockist where the mower in question was part of the delivery and drove into his yard knocking one of his gate posts down, then had to tell him that one of the mowers was damaged. Got back to the yard and reported the gate post and explained that the damaged mower was the fault of a driver coming down a road on my side and I had to avoid her by going up the bank causing a rope to snap and the mower came off the side. Not proud of that one.
At Hayters we had Scammel couplings on the old Albions and one day got in the yard and was told to drop the trailer on the loading bay, gets out disconnects the light cable, pulls the brake across and drops the trailer, drives round the back to collect my loaded trailer for the following day, walks back to the loading bay and lo and behold no trailer, who has moved that trailer I asked the loader, no idea he said so I goes looking for it, well it seems that when I dropped the trailer the brake jumped off and trailer trundled of on its own across the yard through a 10ft high wall and into a garden, I was pulled into the office and told that I had not put the brake on, well when we pulled the trailer out of the garden I hitched it back up and went through the same procedure as before but left Albion in front of trailer and sure enough as I dropped the trailer the brake jumped off and trailer hitched itself up again.
Again Hayters, in the wild of Lincs late one evening am coming down a country lane and over the brow of a hill comes to a halt sign, slams brakes on trailer jacknifes and hits a road sign, flattening the pipe the sign was on against the house but also putting a kink in the trailer, drives back to the yard and came clean on what had happened and old Mr Hayter said we will soon straighten that and hit it full tilt with a fork lift, trailer did not move, fork lift came off worst, scrap trailer.
Again Hayters, called into office and told the old man wanted some bricks to build a wall in his garden but they had to be Norfolk Reds and the transport manager Peter Ansell said that he had arranged for me to pick up a load at this farm house that the builder was salvaging the bricks from, was told to collect 8 ton (had an 8ton trailer on) which would be x amount of bricks, so off I goes, delivers in Lodden (our Norfolk depot) and collects these bricks, driving back to Bishops Stortford thinking the old girl is pulling a bit rough will have a word with Mike the fitter and see if it needs a new air filter or something, gets in the yard gets a cup of coffee and am walking back to motor when Peter shouts get those bl**dy tyres pumped up, did it yesterday said I, anyway looking at the tyres they did look a bit down so I got the gauge and they were a little high if anything, went into office and asked Peter how he worked out how many bricks I needed for 8 ton, I weighed one how do you think, so he picks up this brick from beside his desk, Peter that is a flitton, one of the lightest bricks around with a frog in it the ones I have are sand and solid, turns out that I had nearly 12 ton on the back of my poor Albion, unload half them pallets before the old man sees them and drive the rest round to his house. Lesson learned.
When I was a van boy working for Tesco’s 1958ish all the van boys used to connect unit to trailer before the driver came in (we were cab happy), anyway one morning one of the boys (not me) connects up ready for his driver to come in and gets notes and everything ready, driver jumps in cab starts up and starts driving out of the yard and yes you guessed it the trailer parted company with the unit in the gateway, we are all killing ourselves laughing as we cannot get out of the yard with the trailer on its knees in the gateway, we never had a fork lift big enough to lift the front of the trailer so had to wait for a brake down truck to sling a wire round kingpin and lift it enough to get the wheels to come down.
Now for stupid me, On tankers for Biss Bros, called round home on the way back to yard and wifes niece was there (very nice young lady) who said she would like to drive a big lorry, jump in and you can drive it down to Spellbrook round to Sawbridgeworth and back here before I take it to the yard, (this was loaded with 6500 gal petrol by the way) anyway tells her what to do and off we go, to be honest she handled it very well for a first time, we was very very lucky not to get caught. She always talked about that night, I always remember the short skirt she was wearing!!!
That will do for now.
Balloonie.