Way back in early 1966 our smallest vehicle was a Morris J2 with a luton body built by Bluebell caravans of Southampton (sadly I have no photo). I drove it quite a lot and one memory comes to mind was a Friday night about 5-00PM when I was delivering groceries in East Howle near Ferryhill which was a row of terraced houses (Long since been demolished & now a Travellers Caravan site) with rough unmade roads & the exhaust broke. I had a date with a young lady who worked in the accounts department at Woodhouses Furniture shop in Bishop Auckland and not wanting to be late for my date I tied it up with string from the Cardboard boxes carrying the groceries & got a great laugh when I returned to Spennymoor being told the heat could have burnt the string,But in my eyes the last laugh was on me as I quickly got back & it held.
The J2 reg NUPxxxD (Cannot remember the numbers) was continual trouble which really is not surprising as it was often overloaded, but we didn’t see it that way calling it all sorts of unrepeatable names. However on another occasion it set on fire with me driving in the centre of Gateshead (Before the flyover was built) whilst early one morning I was heading into Newcastle with a load of multi drops including Grundig radios & tape recorders & Brillo pads (of all things)
I exited the cab quickly jumping over a wall next to a block of flats for safety & the fire brigade travelled down the pavement to put it out (As the road was jammed packed with traffic.
Buists were the Morris agents on the Coast Road Newcastle those days & we were hoping the insurers would write it off & so we could get rid & get something that might be better, but sadly they didn’t and about 8 weeks later we finally got it back.
Whether we got used to it or it got better as it aged we decided to buy a JU with a similar sized body in 1970 (H reg) and they ran together for many years the J2 lasting till it was about 10 years old. Again I have no photo of the JU but below is an artistic impression done for me by Eddie Worthington. Young Eric Nelson,born & bred in Ferryhill, had joined us more or less from school and as soon as he had a driving licence had been driving a small 30 cwt Bedford J model petrol with a sort of walk through body built by Hawson (Again I have no photo, but it had a long bonnet to accommodate the 6 cylinder Bedford Petrol engine so it was all cab with an equal sized body. He had (and did over all the years he worked for us) proved himself to be a very hard, good worker so he was given the JU when it was new. I cannot remember it so well as the J2 probably as I can hardly remember ever driving it, but I seem to recall collecting it new from Harpenden, however I remember been told it was no better than the J2.
Eddie was just about 18-19 years old when we got a load of mostly chairs & tables to be delivered to a new shoe shop in The Champs elysees in Paris. It was going to be The British Shoe Corporations flagship French store. Eddie had never travelled far out of County Durham at the time and had no passport and as it was his van , The Morris JU that was the right size to carry the load we sent him to Liverpool to go to the Passport Office (Before they opened one in Durham) to get a passport which we paid for.
In those days there was no such thing as a Sat Nav and Eddie certainly spoke no French but was determined he would managed which he did successfully. I was in Paris a few years ago walking down the from the Arch De Triumph and how a young 18 year old with so little experience on his own managed is unbelievable.
I wonder how many youngsters would get a chance like that today & how many would have the ability to do it?