Old livestock hauliers shropshire

There is a cracking photo of a Jukes’ AEC 6 wheeler earlier on here at Woodside, Birkenhead Docks which brought back memories for me. In the early and mid 70s Haydons were there a lot, picking up cattle from Ireland. I went once in the 6 legged beast & drawbar with my cousin Dave Haydon (who tragically died suddenly last year). We sat in the queue of about 15 wagons and when it came to it, you had to drive down, swing round and reverse into a tight pen. Now Dave wasn’t the usual driver of the drawbar and as it had a steering front axle, it was a pig if you weren’t used to it. Anyway, we drew down and could he reverse it in? Could he hell! We must have had 10 or 12 attempts with all the drivers watching and the scouser on the pen. They gave all sorts of advice like “left hand down now mate” and “you don’t want to do it like that” and I learned lots of new words in the cab that an 11 year old probably shouldn’t have known :smiley:

My thanks again to Topline143 for the superb photo of 6 Legs :wink:

In the cab were oil cans, old rope and big sticks (cow persuaders) and it was lovely and warm on the bonnet in winter. Long way down at 11 & 12 though and stood on the hubcap to pull yourself in - having just had knee surgery at the weekend it looks a little daunting from here!