sandway:
lawrence2765:
pathfinder48:
Lovely photo of the old bull nosed Comet.
Ray Smyth emailed me about this (thanks Ray) and thought I might have recognised the gent in the cab but I think this was taken before Reece’s opened up their operation in Horsmonden.
When Reece’s moved to Horsmonden during the early 60’s they brought down a lovely fleet of both the bull nosed and flat fronted Comets.
What a wonderful hum as they were idling.
My dad John Freeman, had a beautiful flat nosed Comet TXV 105.
I remember also TLN 104 and TLN 105.
The names for those two, Dennis Tickner and Joe Jupp from London ring a bell.
I think Ted Stanley also had another flat nosed Comet.
John Spicer (Cheyenne) and his brother drove the bull nosed models.
I was about 10 at the time (70 now) and dad took me all over the country in his pride of the fleet.
Happy Days!!
I think there must be more of these great photos around…John Spicer now theres a name from the past he was one of my shunters on Henleys proper old school and a good old boy .
He would tip out A night trunk from Rochdale depot then reload in the afternoon for one of our famous overnight market runs he could have 6 or 7 collections which would equate to up to 14 or 16 drops so no easy task getting it right , if I ever gave him loading instructions with 2 spaces going spare on the trailer I would get the comment only half a load then , so I would sort out another 4 pallets to the comment of that’s more like it a challenge as if it wasn’t a challenge enough!
II have heard the Cheyenne mentioned before but we always referred to him as Lofty as that was his preference due to being about 6ft 4 I would say.
I remember one Saturday morning he took a load from Paddock Wood of soap powder to Tescos in Byfleet in one of the Erf E series with a 320 ■■■■■■■ he done it in 55 minutes, the days before speed limiters.Worked with John from late 60’s to about 76 when we both worked for Mitchell and Robertson. Always known as Cheyenne, rarely John. He was a loader, one of the best. I remember on one occasion he had loaded soft fruit in our small Bedford box lorry and I had the job of delivering it. Started off in Spitalfields market then Borough market before heading out to Brentford. All was going well but with soft fruit you often had different size trays plus I had a load of mush in baskets. All very difficult to secure. I then had to complete my deliveries in Covent Garden. I backed into a bay by Central Avenue and opened the sliding door on the back of the lorry. What a mess. It looked like the whole load was shot. I tried to sort out the undamaged fruit but I reckon I lost about forty trays of strawberries and raspberries. I delivered the mush, shut the door on the rest and took the lorry back to the yard. Next day, with great trepidation I went to the yard late afternoon. Cheyenne was there. He gave me a right bolla-king. I made sure I double secured everything in the back of the lorry after that. I didn’t want to fall out with him again. He was a great bloke though and not just in stature.
Just getting away from the thread I had both John Spicer and Norman Horsford (both ex Mitchell and Robertsons) working for me as shunters at Henley Transport.
The senior management would always make sarcastic comments to me about the amount of hours they used to book.
Considering the job they done it wasn’t a case of pull up put a full load on that’s the trunk loaded , it would be 6 0r 8 collections if not more in the Paddock Wood area could be loading for say up to 18 drops all different sorts of produce all different quantities that was quite a task, but never any shortages or damages on trailers either John or Norman loaded and they always liked to get another couple of pallets over the top on the load , so as far as I was concerned they got the job done and were spot on.
I never did tell the senior management about the extra pallets going on the trailers when they made room for them by stacking up which far outweighed the hours that they booked as they would have only expected them to get even more on !