mushroomman:
Hi Chris, these are the only two Bowker photos that I took some time around 1982 ish going up Mont Blanc so you might of seen them somewhere on here before. I was running with one of our drivers called Jim Smethurst who had married a girl from Accrington. Jim used to work with one of these Bowker drivers at Bradley’s who he called Jag Joe.We had all shared a table the night before at The Bakehouse and when I asked Jim why he had called him Jag Joe he told me that Joe used to have a Jaguar which he had managed to put a diesel engine in. It must have been very economical to run being a lorry driver so I just wondered Chris if Jag Joe worked at Hollin Bridge Street while you were there.
I have been trying to find the exact location on Google Earth of where I took those photos but the road has changed, I certainly don’t remember going through any tunnels around the Cerdon area although I bet that all the lads that went over The Blanc on their way to Italy will remember The Monument To The French Resistance.
Thanks very much for those, and yes, I think you have posted them before. Always worth seeing again, though!
I’m afraid “Jag Joe” doesn’t ring any bells, although there were certainly a couple of ex-Jack Bradley drivers on the books. It was October 1982 when I joined, so perhaps it was someone who’d departed before I got there, although those motors were probably still on the fleet.