Hello Ben, I enjoyed reading your post on “Connals”. Such a long time ago,
but sometimes seems like last week. An amusing thing has just entered my
head. Most of the northbound traffic for Scotland on Connals was double deck
Mazola bottles for Brown & Polson in Paisley, However,about once a fortnight,
one of us at Wigan would load 20 pallets of canned salmon and crab at John West
Foods in Liverpool. Most trailer vans with “barn doors” at the rear,would open
offside door first,then the nearside door. One particular trailer,for whatever
reason was built the opposite way. The checker (Knowall) at John West always put a
plastic seal on the offside door,and a heavy steel seal on the same door.
He said it was to prevent any thieving lorry drivers from pinching tins of salmon.
When the above trailer was used for this work, It was usual for my wife to open
“A nice tin of salmon” for Sunday tea. Sometimes the 40ft trailers with double
doors over the tandem axles would be used for the John West load, but the
checker still only put seals on the back doors. Plonker. Fond memories, Ray Smyth.