Ken Armstrong & I met at Watford Gap, with me getting into the Scammell and a happy Ken getting into RUP99M my new Triumph Stag, knowing he’d be home in little over 3 hours.
I don’t know how Ken got himself volunteered to collect the Scammell from Southampton as I suspect it was agreed between my father and him. Maybe he had driven one before.
I don’t know how many readers of this know Croxdale Service Station on A167, but it had been the A1 at this time. Originally it had belonged to Heppell’s and been a BMC car & commercial dealership that mostly sold Nuffield tractors, and had been an Esso service Station. We had first come across Ken Armstrong when he worked for Heppells’ I cannot remember what the problem was but our Morris FG 2 tonner pantechnicon DPT100B had a problem that required work done under warranty and we had taken it there and Ken had worked on it.
Step forward a year or two and Heppells had sold Croxdale service Station to Neil Corner son of the founder of NESS Furniture (Then New Equipment Ltd makers of Steel Style Furniture) which was next door on Croxdale Roundabout. It became Citroen agency & where the FastFit building is now behind the then Petrol Pumps there were two semi detached houses, and as part of his job Ken & his wife lived in there. When Corner’s took over Ken got involved working on Neil’s Racing cars & spent many weekends attending Car Racing events & it is possible at that time he had experience of a Scammell.
I cannot remember the full facts but Ken lost his job at Croxdale Service Station and came to work for us. The effect was he had a limited time to leave the house within Croxdale Service Station but being a qualified CV Mechanic, we helped him get to the front of the housing list as a Key Employee in an expanding business. Ken moved into Tees Crescent and lived there until he died two or so years ago.
I was fortunate that not long before I had attended MOTEC (The Road Transport Training Establishment) in High Ercall Shropshire on a two weeks Drivers Assessment Course and one of the vehicles there was a Scammell new but the having the Famous Scammell Gate Gearbox, and I had taken the opportunity to take a drive. A new vehicle, which really would not be out of place in the Science Museum, so I had a clue how to make the thing go.
About 10-00PM that night my parents not hearing from me decided to have a ride down the A1 ‘To see how Carl was going on’ When they got to Catterick there was a contraflow as they were road building. Not the recent work that had it closed several years & just has finally opened., but way back in 1974 they were at it then. In the distance they could see this massive thing slowly coming towards them with a massive line of traffic following. Yes, it was me with the Scammell.
I believer it was just after Midnight when I pulled into Green Lane Industrial Estate, and I parked it at the far end of our warehouse on ■■■■■■■■ between the warehouse and the exterior fence. That is where I took the dreadful photo and I think it stood for several months, never moving & few looking at it.
We thought it would just need alterations to the diff or other tweets to improve the speed. Dad contacted Scammell at Watford who looked up the specification. Marvellous record keeping when they could trace the build of the vehicle. They told him nothing in the world could be done to make it any faster. It wasn’t as though if you were going down a hill you could knock it out of gear, coast a bit & drop it back in again. I think with the Gate box you would need to stop and start again & build up through the gears. I suspect few ever needed to change a scammell gearbox because they were made to a design that was more in Kin with the Victorian age. The strangest thing was while it was parked there & our only breakdown we never had any need for it. Perhaps the fear of driving it made both drivers and fitters more careful to see they never broke down.
In the Removals and Haulage trade you inevitably meet & make friends with others in the same trade, but few could you really trust because deep down many wanted your work & would stab you in the back but one friend we made who was dead straight was Tom Liddle Stanley. I was very young when I first noticed Tom’s vans on the road. He had from my memory three ERF pantechnicons with bodies by Jennings of Sandbach, built between 1947-1949. They were amongst the best removal vans on the road. When in the late 70s Dad was taken on a guided VIP tour of the ERF works at Sandbach amongst the vehicles on the walls was one of these vans which illustrated the pride ERF and their Sister Company Jennings placed on these vans.
One of our customers was Hardy & Co who had furniture shops throughout the North East. We had had dealings with them since the 1920s and in fact Mr Cohen the original owner had given my Grandfather a rather beautiful Art Neuveau wooden mantel clock for his assistance in locating & negotiating their original Spennymoor premises in Cheapside. And I about 6 or so was in the cab of one of our vans when we went to Tom’s warehouse to collect a load of Vono Beds for Hardy’s shops. Tom had bought a considerable holding of Vono shares which safeguarded this work and, it was the backbone of his business.
Tom’s main work was collecting beds from the Vono factory at Tipton storing them in his warehouse at Stanley to draw from stock and delivering to furniture shops throughout Northern England & Scotland. Tom had three identical brick-built buildings about 6,000 sq. feet each all joined together at the side within what must originally have been a quarry. One was his vehicle workshop & the other two warehouses. His massive bungalow with an office adjoined was in the entrance & what impressed me was a line of about 20 -25 Bedford O model tippers all lined up where I was to understand they stayed for over a year. I was told the story that Tom had these tippers working out of a quarry at a fixed rate per load and there was a bridge the needed to cross which was insecure, so the route was detoured by a mile or so. Tom asked for a price increase & was refused so he parked up the tippers. In 1960 he decided to replace his ERFs and bought a steady flow of 16 Bedford TKs with 1700 cu ft body which were built by Northern Assemblies Black Hill Consett. Licencing was no problem as he transferred to B licences off the tippers.
As the TKs came amongst the orders he placed an order for a TK tipper chassis and had Northern assemblies build a purpose-built breakdown truck, which was hardly ever used. Living on the job Tom didn’t use a car much & used a chap called Don Clegg from time to time as his chauffer when he nipped down to Tipton for Vono board meetings. Although not one of the most expensive cars of the day Tom had a Vauxhall Cresta with White wall wheels so it did look quite impressive.
It was a Don Clegg a small removal contractor from Stanley who originally introduced Dad & myself to Tom & his wife. Don had before starting his removal business been an ‘All in wrestler’ who wore a mask in the ring. He was built like a Gorilla with a neck that was almost as big as an average mans back. He had stopped wrestling after during a match he had grabbed a man by the ear, swung him round to find his ear detached in his grip. Although all this history he was in life a Gentle man. He used to never be away from Marmaduke Street, when we were based there & bought two vehicles off us. A 1953 Bedford SB HTH882 and a1957 Bedford CA Luton Van 938KMM. which had been built & we bought off Locomotors Bedford agents of Uxbridge.
Don had bought vans from several local removal contractors & never painted them. I went to his yard in Stanley once & it was a sight to see. He did use HTH & we gave him quite a lot of work as a sub-contractor It was on one of these occasions when Dad called to see Don on a removal he was doing for us as a sub-contractor. Dan & his young porter were carrying a piano out of the house with the piano at waist height in Don’s arms His assistant was struggling a few inches from the ground and was so relieved to put it down as Don stopped to talk to my dad. After a minute or two dad said ‘Don, wouldn’t it be easier to put it down a bit?’ ‘Oh no’ came the reply, ‘Id just have to pick it up again’ The Strangest thing was the Bedford CA luton van he bought of us. He loved it & every time called and asked could he buy it and n 1964 Marsden’s built a pantechnicon on a Morris 2 tonner FG chassis cab & we sold him it. He never used it just every week he used to polish it.
Another occasion Don called at Marmaduke Street saying he was sick of having to tax his vans & he was off to the Vehicle Taxation office at County Hall Durham to get a set of Trade Plates. Dad explained that Trade Plates were not to be used on vehicles whilst working doing removals etc. and, they were not give out willy nilly. The police had to come & inspect your premises & see you were a dealer or repairer etc.’ Oh, I recon I’ll get them alright’ replied Don pulling from his pocket a wad of notes. I think I have the paperwork here. About an hour or two later Don came back happily with his trade plates & I recon a government employee behind the counter was happily taking home his tax-free bonus that night.
A week or two later he called at Marmaduke Street loaded on his way to Darlington. Dad notices a trade plate displayed on the front but none on the rear. ‘I think your back trade plate has dropped off, Don’ dad told him. ‘Oh no its on another van doing a removal in Stanley’ came the reply
I’ve waffled on enough & will have to make an extra chapter 4 to explain how we bought the Bedford Breakdown off Tom Liddle & how I sold the Scammell
To be continued
