Lowfield Distribution started up as a Golden Wonder and HP foods joint venture for distribution, the first depot was at St Helens, Lowfield Lane, Lea Green. There was a toss up to see which name to use, Lea Green Distribution or Lowfield Distribution. I drove out of the Barnsley depot for 12 years, when I first started the company was expanding, picking up major contracts to deliver mainly food items to supermarkets, c&c and small shops. We had 8 depots on general distribution and a Sainsbury contract out of Watford I think, so long ago. Then we won the contract to run the Middleton depot for Sainsburys. Things were looking rosy for Lowfield, they used our depot to evaluate several makes of artic units pulling one of our trailers loaded with 18 pallets of HP beans south on the M1 then north on the M18 to A1M and up to J37 A1M then return to Barnsley. ERF with Gardener 230 turbo engine was preferred over Foden, Bedford TM and I think Volvo F7. We had a number of different make of units at our depot, Middleton became a priority for units and we had a new ERF with ■■■■■■■ 250 and the blue interior, I loved that motor, they took it of us and sent it to Middleton A955TBD I am sure, funny how reg numbers stick in your memory for a motor you enjoyed driving. Lowfield seemed to be getting bigger and better, picking up contracts for Asda distribution centre in Bristol, Waitrose in Tring, Togs nappies in Gateshead and HP foods primary distribution from Birmingham. The powers that be split the company into 2 seperate divisions, general distribution and contracts division, we were part of Imperial Foods group, itself part of Imperial Tobacco. Our division tried out chilled distribution called Lowfieldcool, and Lowfieldbws (beers, wines and spirits) they used the same design logo as the original but used different colours, the cool division used a light blue cab and bws used a maroony colour, they weren,t as successful as hoped and the vehicles were repainted in normal colours. Imperial group was taken over by Hanson trust and the decline started for us. No new vehicles for our division as we were not making enough profit, it got so bad eventually the new owners allowed us to buy a few old clapped out ex rental Mercs from Whittakers rental fleet, we got 2x1625s and a1628 they were absolutey clapped out, 1st or maybe 2nd gear up Windy hill on the M62 loaded with Barrs pop, a daily return load for us for onward delivery to supermarkets as Barrs did not want their vehicle waiting for hours at back doors which was normal before central distribution came along. Eventually there was a management buyout and we were led to believe great things were on the horizon, we later learned that at the same time the buyout team were busy talking to Tibbett&Britten who wanted the contracts division and Rockwood distribution who wanted general traffic division, and so we seperated. Rockwood was a fairly new set up backed by Red Adair the firefighter amongst others, they had already got hold of Tate & Lyles distribution, and had a depot at Brighouse so we were working alongside that depot calling in for top up loads as they did when near our depot, St. Helens depot closed and we got their area, the Gateshead depot had closed before that, then reopened near Bishop Auckland, that closed and reopened in Hebburn, Rockwood seemed to be buying up lots of companies Bees of Hinckley was one I remember, then the inevitable happened, our depot was closed not Brighouse. I managed to get set on at Morrisons Wakefield were I remained as a driver for the next 25 years before retiring.