Wirlinmerlin:
Have just been reading these Ancliff posts with nostalgic interest as many remembered names leap out from 30, 40, even 50 years ago! Very spooky!
I worked for Ancliff at Bulwark Road from 1964 as one of Malcolm Harrisons go-fors, moving on in 1967 to their depot in Ellesmere Port and then back to Bulwark Road in perhaps 1978 until 1980 when I left the company to work in Saudi Arabia.
I remember well, Ken Cleaver as well as his close friend and partner in crime, Jock Mac Masters ( whose claim to fame was to have the thickest, scariest, most interesting personal file in the cabinet!)
Other names attached to colourful memories are Albert Sudet ( Have you got ten shillings in your pocket lad? ), Alfie Davies ( “Blimey! Mi tart’s up the tub and she’s 42!!”), Jimmy Goodwin the foreman with the most perfumed Morris Minor 1000 in the world, Alex Reid who introduced me to beer and Bacardi chasers on my 21st birthday in Southampton and of course who could forget the bosses Ken Farron ( married his secretary), Peter Thornton,( " How many “heads” have we got standing in the yard?"), Peter Bottomley ( “Somebody knew I was on holiday and broke into my house!!”)… it goes on and on and on.
I have rooted out the few pictures I have of this era and attach them for your interest. They include me as a nipper, poncing about outside the traffic office with another traffic clerk whose name escapes me for the moment, a couple of pictures of Sunter Brothers of Northallerton heavy haulage trucks in Ancliffs yard with the then Ellesmere Port depot manager, Godfrey Hayden, posing in his bri nylon shirt, as well as two Bulk Liquid Transport pictures, a John Ancliff Atkinson and, for some unknown reason, a picture of a fleet of Gulf Oil Scammels which were parked in our yard waiting, I think, to be scrapped or sold. Finally, my only picture of the depot at Ellesmere Port which is now under B and Q !!( All dated between 1964 and 1967).
Was that the same Peter Bottomley who finished up as MD of Stamp (IFT) at Cardiff after we all became United?
And does anyone from Ancliffs Urmston remember Ned Maguire who transferred over to us at Stamps on the sugar contract, as he lived in Long Eaton? Last I heard of him he was driving a fuel bowser on East Midlands Airport.
Steve