hi larry.
yes i remember that scammell, i made a right pigs ear of the gearchange first time i drove it but soon got the hang of it lol,i remember that i had to fit a new steering box on it , i went to scammells factory in watford to get it, then they invoiced it to united dairys instead of united carriers lol, i think it was based at howden dept when i worked on it .
cheers diesel
Great pics them Wheel Nut - seeing all those Bedfords lined up in Howden takes me back to being a nipper!
Nice to see the JEM Merc too, seems like a lifetime ago that I worked there…
kevchalluk:
Great pics them Wheel Nut - seeing all those Bedfords lined up in Howden takes me back to being a nipper!Nice to see the JEM Merc too, seems like a lifetime ago that I worked there…
Show old Jock those Willmott motors, that will bring a tear to his eye.
Susan Butler(nee Watson) is using those in her next book about Howden History
Worked at Norwich for 30 years this was the first new Geodis trailer we had, used to do cd work and trunking and trailer changes
Sorry not worked out how to post pictures yet
Worked in the garage at National Carriers in Preston for a while on nights with a bloke called Lol Black.
A driver call Mick Dixon came in one night and asked if I could do a “bit” of welding on his old Austin Cambridge.I parked it over the pit and asked him where it wanted welding.Then came a muffled reply so Im looking round for him and he shouts open the bloody door.I opens the car door and his head is stuck up through the drivers footwell. Laugh I nearly bloody died.
Precious precious memories.
Also used to work on British rail “chip boilers” (fg crew buses) there and one night a crew came in complaining the lights were too dim inside.That night I wired in some headlight bulb holders as thats all we had.Next night they came back.They all rolled up in “blues brothers” sunglasses.I asked whats to do?
The driver said "Them lights are no fin good we cant play cards.I asked why he said "they are that fin bright we can see through the cards and know what every buggers hand is.Priceless.
Bking:
Worked in the garage at National Carriers in Preston for a while on nights with a bloke called Lol Black.A driver call Mick Dixon came in one night and asked if I could do a “bit” of welding on his old Austin Cambridge.I parked it over the pit and asked him where it wanted welding.Then came a muffled reply so Im looking round for him and he shouts open the bloody door.I opens the car door and his head is stuck up through the drivers footwell. Laugh I nearly bloody died.
Precious precious memories.
Also used to work on British rail “chip boilers” (fg crew buses) there and one night a crew came in complaining the lights were too dim inside.That night I wired in some headlight bulb holders as thats all we had.Next night they came back.They all rolled up in “blues brothers” sunglasses.I asked whats to do?
The driver said "Them lights are no fin good we cant play cards.I asked why he said "they are that fin bright we can see through the cards and know what every buggers hand is.Priceless.
What a fantastic story - I am still laughing as i write this - brilliant !!
This brings back so memories from the good old days at United Carriers, If you could work and survive there you are ready for anywere!! It still amazes me now how many people I came accross that had worked there over years
edwardj:
This brings back so memories from the good old days at United Carriers, If you could work and survive there you are ready for anywere!! It still amazes me now how many people I came accross that had worked there over years
Looking back it was probably the best job I ever had, you got paid for exactly what you did, if you brought anything back, you had it to do the next day as well as your new stuff. It was a reasonable wage for 40 hours and you could play darts or dominoes every school night.
I think a lot of the new drivers need a couple of years on C&D work, you learn the routes, you learn how to deal with awkward customers and you learn that those big boxes are not necessarily heavy or those little ones may hurt you if they fall on your head 
Malc,when I was on trunk in the early 80s I used to see two ERF artics every night on the A1 northbound with cabs lettered Coats Patons.Were they U C or London Carriers do you know?
I worked at the Brandleshome depot in the 70`s and it was not my favourite place.
Chris Webb:
Malc,when I was on trunk in the early 80s I used to see two ERF artics every night on the A1 northbound with cabs lettered Coats Patons.Were they U C or London Carriers do you know?
I don’t recall Howden UC having any liveried motors at that time apart from a Brintons trailer. I do remember doing Coats Paton parcels though.
Wheel Nut:
edwardj:
This brings back so memories from the good old days at United Carriers, If you could work and survive there you are ready for anywere!! It still amazes me now how many people I came accross that had worked there over yearsLooking back it was probably the best job I ever had, you got paid for exactly what you did, if you brought anything back, you had it to do the next day as well as your new stuff. It was a reasonable wage for 40 hours and you could play darts or dominoes every school night.
I think a lot of the new drivers need a couple of years on C&D work, you learn the routes, you learn how to deal with awkward customers and you learn that those big boxes are not necessarily heavy or those little ones may hurt you if they fall on your head
Was chatting to one of my old drivers who started his driving career at united at the depot I was at , and he said the same thing and he actually said he misses the old days ,50 drops on a scabby old leyland freighter or even a merc drop body with a 27ft box on it, and hes now on 1 drop supermarket work now and says the old days were better!!
It also couldnt have been a too bad Job, My dad did 40 years there starting as a deck hand then onto C&Ds then class1 days and night then back into warehouse as a deck supervisor (he was there at the end even moving from Walsall wood when it Closed to Birmingham hub ) think our longest serving member of staff was 2 months short of 50 years there when Walsall Wood closed, Me I got out 2 years before the end and was sad to see it go when it did.
hi edwardj
i must know your dad as i spent many years off and on trunking into wally wood dept,oh the joys of reversing on the end bay around the back of the bank lol didnt the night shunter end up at birmingham hub in the security hut?i retired years ago but if carriers were still going i think i would have been there until i dropped dead lol great days 
Hi
My dads name was Ivor, Trying to think who the night shunter was will ask my dad as he can remember most things about the company and who worked were from the 1960s up to it closing in 2002!! Those bays on the school wall side were tight, its a bloody wonder the wall didnt end up in the school field (it was leaning badly!), in the end we stopped using the bottom 4 and used them for MOD storage only (now thats a different story 
we had the mod come in rapidly once to “check a load!!” the bloody thing was mildy radioactive!!) when they knocked it down I wanted to buy the house they built in that bottom corner as that was our smoking patio and a good sun trap good days and I learnt transport the hard and fast way there , Used to go out with my dad on night trunks to Tebay mainly (although did do the “rhyl” depot shed on a rhyl seafront quite often in the summer, also the original depot at huddersfield sticks out from memory as well, Can remember one saturday morning when I was about 8 or 9 having to go around the midlands picking up stranded night trunk drivers due to snow this was real snow 3ft deep in places picked about 10 drivers up from various depots and they all got put up for the weekend in a local 5 star hotel!!
hi edwardj
the name ivor dont ring a bell ,but there again im an old git now and have a job to remember names, 
the only name i can think off was barry ,he was the union shop stewerd, used to meet him at enfield hub every night, i did that tebay trunk from wellingborough ,blimey never thought id get there ,could just do it in the drivers hours . i bet those residents in those houses next to the dept were glad to see that go .
cheers diesel
Some of the houses objected to the planning permission for the houses that were built on the old depot!!, Trying to remember barrys second name (memory like a seive and im only 38!!) my dad was the other shop steward at walsall wood, what stands out from united was the ingenuity of some of the workshops ours used to build shunters for various depots out of cut down shortened scrap rigids everything fabricated themselves, , we had 2 puddle jumpers that had 2 seperate accidents within a week of each other both serious cab damage one on the left one on the right , one got recabbed the other got the 2 damaged cabs cut in half and welded together 
hi edwardj
when i started driving at carriers i had to fetch my unit from your garage , those days it was down the side street next to the dept, it had been overhauled and repainted at wally wood, i was like a cat with two tails to have that lol it looked like new ,it had probely done a million miles by then lol, there is a hero on this site under the name of WHEELNUT he used to reverse trailers on the school side of the b
ank with a six wheel unit, might have been him who pushed the fence over lol lol, only kidding malc. lol
cheers diesel
.
diesel dan:
hi edwardj
when i started driving at carriers i had to fetch my unit from your garage , those days it was down the side street next to the dept, it had been overhauled and repainted at wally wood, i was like a cat with two tails to have that lol it looked like new ,it had probely done a million miles by then lol, there is a hero on this site under the name of WHEELNUT he used to reverse trailers on the school side of the b
ank with a six wheel unit, might have been him who pushed the fence over lol lol, only kidding malc. lol
cheers diesel
.
Less of the Hero It wasn’t that often, only when they were very busy or desperate. I was too expensive for them and it wasn’t worth my while to do the local work for them. Someone has just started a Howden facebook group up and it is amazing how many people worked there at some point in their life.
Kevchall has posted a lot of the UCL stuff on here as his dad was there for many years and still lives next door to John (Jock) McLeod.