Way back in 1971 we had Marsdens build us a drop frame van trailer on a 35ft chassis built by Taskers. With massive wheelboxes at the rear and a ‘Luton’ equivalent over the 5th wheel that was almost the internal height of many of most of our pantechnicons it was a massive 2,800 cu ft.
At Bill Bennett’s funeral on Monday morning I had a chat with Alan Brown and reminded him on an occasion when he returned from loading a very large removal and on filling the van trailer he still had carpets which he suspended underneath the body fastened to the chassis. He in turn reminded me of the error we made of specifying a single axle trailer with the wheels right at the rear, and what a pig it was to get into the drives of many large houses.
Alan worked for us a lot of years, originally as a class 3 driver and cut his spurs on household removals so that when he said a van was full, it was with no room to even fit a ■■■ packet.
He recounted to his repeat performance of suspending in between the chassis on that trailer on an occasion which I did not witness. Apparently they were loading a removal in Harrogate and getting pretty near the rear they were informed by the home owner he wanted his greenhouse which he had dismantled taking with them. Alan had casually packed the glass on the rear of the van and tied and suspended the aluminium frame between the trailer chassis.
This I might add was after another ex driver who reminded Alan that after we had finished at another employer, he had taught him how to rope & sheet & I had replied ‘You never roped & sheeted for us’