Have only just come across this thread , but better late than never ay ?
my dad worked for Sammy jones for 15 years from about 1968 ( Les Mears ) from Nuneaton & was only a handful of out based drivers at the time , including the two west indian /caribean ? drivers from Leicester area ( Andrew & Vince ? ) . He is still plodding on and was 80 on boxing day . A few of the old timers still have a regular meet up for lunch at a pub on the A5 at Chasetown & reminisce the afternoon away .
I well remember going with him as a young un loading coal from Leicestershire to Dickinsons paper mill at Watford then back loading scrap metal from a yard off Seven sisters rd in Holloway( Smiths ? where he broke his leg once and a bloke called Mason I think fetched us home) .
On scrap work punctures were common place and I remember a line of half a dozen trucks stopping to help change a wheel .
Two other memories are , blocking a salesman with a pile of pennies in a phone box & going off for a cuppa , because he wouldn’t let Les make one call back to base for the next days work …The police were called , but let us finish our tea before Les let him out of the box .
Also the bloke in the foyer of the Blue Boar with a suitcase full of watches …at some point every member of our family had an xmas watch off him 
I’ve been driving hgv’s now for 36 years , so those early days of riding with my dad in a selection of Atki’s & ERF’s must have had some lasting effect on me 