IMHO I would think that sleeper cabs did contribute to the deterioration of the industry but by no means the sole reason by any means. “Cabbing it” as it was referred to in the early 60’s/ 70’s gathered pace even before Sleeper cabs proper became prevalent and I’ve got to honest it wasn’t my idea of being a Driver. Speaking personally the use of digs was an integral part of the job as far as I was concerned, you parked up had a bite, wash and shave , then a couple of pints and a craic then “head down” in the pit as my long gone mate Eric Postlethwaite used to refer to turning in ! having said all this I have got to say that as a little O/D from 1968 I worked some horrendous hours and wasn’t averse to getting my head down for an hour when I was on a grueller in the middle of the night ! Either on the way down to the “Smoke” to get an early morning tip at say Sainsbury’s in Stamford St. then I had the day to do various collections around London and back to Markyate and park up at the Three Sisters. Sometimes I had a “double” grueller if I was on Covent Garden to A.E. Docker at Barrow-in Furness. It worked sometimes if I was parked up m/t the night before in London and J & W Watt’s manager at L. Colney said “on the stones” at C/Garden for you in the morning ! But if I had run down during the night and he gave me the job straight after I’d tipped now that meant getting loaded at C/Garden by early afternoon then I had to be outside Dockers warehouse by 4 am next morning ! So I would get going up the way as far as “me eyes” would allow then I’d have a couple of hours, no more, then do another spell say up to Forton and maybe a quick half hour shut eye. Then last leg down to Barrow and I was always there waiting for them to arrive at 4 ! Pull the sheets off and back in then Albert Docker would arrive with a basket containing a “Full English” and I would sit in his office noshing while the lads unloaded the D1000. Sometimes they would put back onto the motor some gear for their Kendal warehouse and I would be back in Kendal ■■■■■■■ knackered at about 8 or 9 o’clock. They always gave be a “lucky box” for home, tatties, cabbage, onions, carrots etc etc. Mam thought it was great ! Then I’d get to bed and sleep the sleep of the dead ! But on a couple of occasions I recall Libbys would ring looking for me and Mam would knock me at sometimes only a couple of hours later, “can you go in and load now for London” Aye OK ! I’ve been in Libbys warehouse sometimes asleep on my feet. You’d get locked up today if you tried to operate like that but that was in the good old days or not maybe ! But I never parked up and dossed in the cab all night ! Motors were for working in and digs were for kipping in ! Cheers Bewick.
Hey,
Maybe you can say it was or looks beter in Europe, but as I read that you could spend nights out in a hotel, and even with a sleepercab once cab once hotel. It looks for me that English drivers were gentleman drivers, as we could sleep on the engine without sleepercab, we were already happy to driver a bonneted cab, so we could sleep a bit more comfortable. Lots without nightheaters till de mid '80’s. only good things was where the boss Always drove the new ones first, these had mostly a nightheater and later first got airsuspension, very nice for pulling ferry roro trailers at that time.
Eric,
I stopped driving for a living around a year ago when I retired at the age of 55. I have to say a profession which I loved when I first started and hated by the time I finished. I think a combination of most of the things people have previously posted on here are the reasons for me.
As a kid I went out with my dads mate in a London Brick lorry, absolutely loved it! My dads mate also loved his job, what’s not to love, leave the yard in the morning, stop when you want at any number of cafes that were around then, stop for as long as you wanted to, no one would know or even be bothered, get your delivery done then decide which way to come home taking in something of interest if possible. No tachogragh, no mobile phones, no trackers, no traffic compared to today, the vast majority of drivers were of similar minds, no one ‘carved ‘ the job up or they would be quickly spoken to.
On leaving school I did a four year apprenticeship in engineering but always pined to get out on the road. The company I worked for had four of its own lorries. One of the drivers was coming up for retirement so I put in for the job and persuaded my employer to put me through my HGV. It was a great job, not fantastic lorries but paid well and no one bothered you. If we did a scotch we would be away for four days, occasionally five. Thirty five years ago, believe it or not we were getting £30 a night night out money and that was without a receipt, with a receipt they would pay whatever it cost.
£7 evening meal allowance and £2.50 breakfast money. Coupled with dodgy lorry park tickets, toll bridges etc, our allowance was sometimes as much as some people’s wages.
Sadly this company was taken over by NEI. Was never the same after that, they asset stripped the company. The transport department was closed down, luckily for me I was given a job in the office organising the transport on third party hauliers. This lasted around another two years during which time I went to night school and passed my cpc in transport management. I decided it was time to get out as a company which employed around 2000 people when I started was now down to around 700 with talk of closure.
I got a job as a transport manager in Bedford, not a particularly nice company to work for but it paid well and I got on well with all the drivers, probably as I had driven myself and did the odd run there if we were a driver short. Two years later I was parking three lorries a day up with no work so was no surprise when I, three drivers and a couple of girls from the office were made redundant.
Back to driving! Agency work which I actually quite liked as if you went to somewhere you didn’t like you just said don’t send me there again. After a year I got a job driving for waste company collecting hazardous waste in roll on off containers from all over the country. The hours were long but the money was the best I had ever worked for. This was however the first time I had ever encountered being checked up, we also had a very basic kind of telephone later to be changed to proper mobile phones. There was also the added problem of a foreman driver who not only carved every job we had up but would rat on you at every opportunity. We had an incentive scheme, bonus by another name which of course was illegal. The more you did the more you earned. It didn’t really matter as you were more or less forced to do what you had been given anyway and were instantly told the foreman has done it so you can too! It was nothing to do run down to Pontypool from Bedford, load, back to Bedford then do two runs down to Luton. We then had trackers fitted and boy did the transport office love them!
I had 11 years there until they closed down. It served a purpose as the excellent wages enabled me to pay off the mortgage ten years early. Went back to agency driving and did some work for a couple of local companies, one of which was delivering foam. A great job, nice transport manager, ex driver. Really enjoyed it but sadly it was only covering someone who had been off sick. Did a lot of work for Argos on a wagon and drag trunking to satellite depots with demountable bodies. Good job, no one bothered you, good bunch of drivers but long hours, to long for me in all honesty.
Went back to using my engineering skills and packed up driving for a job with regular hours. Have to say I was bored stupid being stuck in one place all day so left and went back to driving. Delivering medication predominately to hospitals and also picking up loads to take back to our depot. Now I drove for this company around ten years prior to this via an agency on the odd couple of weeks so knew the job was ok. Not anymore! Trackers, cameras on the lorries, tearing about like a lunatic, it was like hell! They would phone you to go somewhere to pick up a pallet and if you said I’m no longer in that area they would say we know exactly where you are and then describe exactly what I was seeing out of the windscreen. So back you would have to go. This became daily, you never had a minutes peace, never knew you were finished until you were finished. They treated the staff like ■■■■■■ no respect whatsoever for there employees. I lasted a year before finally saying enough is enough. Some of their other drivers in order to make time up would imput the delivery details into their epod whilst driving, something I wasn’t prepared to do. They would speed everywhere they went, go through weight limits, anything they could to save a few minutes here and there. They didn’t have the brains to work out that they would only be given more work to do and this would become their normal working day. We now seem to have a different breed of driver, maybe the influx of Eastern European drivers hasn’t helped but sadly the introduction of technology and this different breed of drivers means it’s no longer an enjoyable profession and i’m Glad to be out of it.
I look on here at all the old lorries and companies that no longer exist and think how sad these times have gone. Afraid I’m a bit of a dinosaur in today’s world but I know which era I preferred.