Wirlinmerlin:
Ludvic Zilor was a polish driver. he could hardly speak a word of English…or so he said! Whenever he would be brought into the office for a dressing down, which was quite often, he would always burst into tears. He wriggled out of loads of stuff by claiming not to understand. Yes, I do think he was the lad who painted his unit at home. I also heard that he virtually lived in his cab and that it was full of rubbish, bottles of wee and left over crusts and Polish meat sandwiches. So much so, or so the story goes, that when his truck came into Urmston for some job to be done and a fitter started chucking out his stuff so he could lift up the engine covers, a mouse dived out through the door!!
Do you remember Sammy Allport and Ted Sharples? They once had a set to in the mess room. Ted Sharples was a big, fat bloke with glasses but as hard as nails. There was a older black bloke who worked as a fitter and he rented out some houses as a side line. He used Ted Sharples as his enforcer when tenants wouldn’t pay or wouldn’t get out.
Sammy Allport (yard Forman/Driver)He was married to a German girl she could not speak English and Sammy could not speak a lot of German He allways had a paper in the rule pocket of his pants open at the Horse raceing but no scalp under his hat just a skin Graft due to war wounds . Ted Sharples allways had half a jar of hair cream on his head . The Only old Black guy I remember was Harold foster Brown he got to be service inspecter .
There was a younger black guy started after Foster Brown he had a sports car Triumph TR3A. The story about the mouse was true it was in a eight wheel ATKINSON I think the fleet No was 517 , he was on the Napther run for monsanto chiem to/from Ruaban (I think)Then they changed to a bender .