W.H.WILLIAMS (spennymoor)

[carl_williams]

John West:
Hi Carl, your posts are always interesting, usually with social history value too. Thanks.

Your mention of the warning whistle reminded me of an odd thing that happened at our Amtrak parcels depot. I’ll preface it by saying that I don’t believe in ghosts or life after death.

One of our lads owned his own van and worked as a subby. He also had a second van for which he employed a driver. That driver, Joe, was a chirpy Liverpudlian who had worked locally for some years. This particular morning, we were loading his van when he poked my arm and said ‘ey John, I had a funny phone call this morning from a mate of mine. He told me to drive carefully today, he’d had a nightmare and woke up sweating. He dreamed I died in a crash.’

Bearing in mind that we started early his friend must have phoned him about 5.30 am. I said something about that and that his friend must have been scared for him to phone him at that time.

‘Yeah, well he said that he’d had a similar dream a couple of years ago about his Granddad dying and he did die later that day.’

I told him to drive carefully and forgot about it.

He rolled the van about lunchtime, not wearing his seatbelt and was killed. A weird coincidence.

John.

Yes John that was weird,

Just like the whistle that quite probably saved my life.

There was a comment that it might have been a train, but I don’t know if you ever drove one of these BMC/Leyland FGs with the 4 cylinder 3.8 diesel. They were really a loud drum drum sound worse than any CV I’ve ever traveled in. They were popular as bread vans & urban delivery so if you kept hopping in & out I suppose you didn’t suffer ear damage & not designed for long distance journeys that we used them for. (I took one to Naples & back) In those days no radios and if there had been you certainly would not have been able to hear anything.

Like you we had a couple of Leyland Mastiffs reminded me of the Thames 4D that we like most Removal contractors operated in the mid 50s. Cheap answer to a problem of the time.

Sad about your work mate but glad at least you like me are still here.

[carl_williams]

Merry Christmas everyone, with a memory when Bus Companies cared for their passengers & provided a service with one of our Ford Transit-Marsden luton vans in the background

[parkroyal2100]

Carl Williams:
Merry Christmas everyone, with a memory when Bus Companies cared for their passengers & provided a service with one of our Ford Transit-Marsden luton vans in the background

Same to you Carl. An AEC Renown is not a bad Christmas card, but I’ll pass on the luton Transit if it’s all the same.

[parkroyal2100]

Carl Williams:

jmc jnr:

paulycats:
Hi Carl, Have you ever thought to write a book? You could end up with a best seller. Your anecdote’s are great reading mate, they really are

I will second that idea and it would be wonderfull to have the history of Williams to hand. Put me down for a copy if it comes to fruit. Jim.

Thanks both of you for your kind thoughts, but I know my capabilities. I would need a Ghost writer, and would have gladly provided all the information, and not taken any proceeds from the project. One person did approach me, but wanted several thousands fees from me for his services, and then I would have to self publish. In my opinion it would be a con.

If a book were published I would want it to be a professional publication, of good quality as we did run a good quality business, priding ourselves on top quality maintenance of our vehicles. Sadly this is not possible, which is a shame because I do believe the information I would have provided would have been of interest to all Commercial vehicle & haulage enthusiasts and also interest to many people who live in County Durham & North East England. We certainly made mistakes but did a lot of things that many would be entrepreneurs could benefit from reading which would do them more good than a university degree in business studies.

So although I think there would be a market out there that would make it a viable proposition for a young writer & a speculative publisher, sadly I think it never will happen.

If you can’t bring yourself to write a book Carl (and I’m with those preceding who implore you to do so), then at least get all your posts and photos on here and flickr (and elsewhere) and collate them, and then archive them somewhere. As I age (and at 57 I’m still a young bloke here compared to some) I realise more and more how important it is for older blokes to save their stories somewhere that following generations can read. My old man died a few years ago, and I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d got him to write more stuff down.

As a reference, one chap I follow in flickr is Stephen Dowle aka Fray Bentos) who’s published one book and is writing another: see flickr.com/photos/fray_bentos/

Don’t let a (false?) sense of modesty stop you.

[paulycats]

ParkRoyal2100:

Carl Williams:

jmc jnr:

paulycats:
Hi Carl, Have you ever thought to write a book? You could end up with a best seller. Your anecdote’s are great reading mate, they really are

I will second that idea and it would be wonderfull to have the history of Williams to hand. Put me down for a copy if it comes to fruit. Jim.

Thanks both of you for your kind thoughts, but I know my capabilities. I would need a Ghost writer, and would have gladly provided all the information, and not taken any proceeds from the project. One person did approach me, but wanted several thousands fees from me for his services, and then I would have to self publish. In my opinion it would be a con.

If a book were published I would want it to be a professional publication, of good quality as we did run a good quality business, priding ourselves on top quality maintenance of our vehicles. Sadly this is not possible, which is a shame because I do believe the information I would have provided would have been of interest to all Commercial vehicle & haulage enthusiasts and also interest to many people who live in County Durham & North East England. We certainly made mistakes but did a lot of things that many would be entrepreneurs could benefit from reading which would do them more good than a university degree in business studies.

So although I think there would be a market out there that would make it a viable proposition for a young writer & a speculative publisher, sadly I think it never will happen.

If you can’t bring yourself to write a book Carl (and I’m with those preceding who implore you to do so), then at least get all your posts and photos on here and flickr (and elsewhere) and collate them, and then archive them somewhere. As I age (and at 57 I’m still a young bloke here compared to some) I realise more and more how important it is for older blokes to save their stories somewhere that following generations can read. My old man died a few years ago, and I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d got him to write more stuff down.

As a reference, one chap I follow in flickr is Stephen Dowle aka Fray Bentos) who’s published one book and is writing another: see flickr.com/photos/fray_bentos/

Don’t let a (false?) sense of modesty stop you.

Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip…Just like the Chinese water torture ParkRoyal, Carl will give in eventually …hopefully

[carl_williams]

Well someone certainly must have been sticking pins in a wax effigy as I’ve had a fortnights play of my greatest Flue-Cold hits. just as it seems to starts to go anther one comes along & along & I can hear myself saying I remember you. It must be 10 years since you last visited.but whilst feeling weak & sad for myself something comes along & links Bandag Truckers. Taffy Davies, The Flue a book and it was via a telephone call from an ex driver George Sykes yesterday afternoon.

Until you put the book on I never realised it was written by Chris Foote-Wood, the elder brother of Victoria Wood the recently deceased TV comedienne.

I came across Christopher Wood as he was calling himself way back in early 1960s. He was producing a free newspaper in Bishop Auckland area and in those days before we employed the services of advertising agents one of my many bits of jobs was dealing with our advertising. I cannot remember what happened as it was so long ago but I was in discussion with him of putting regular advertising in his paper & in return he would do a one off feature on our business. We did not get on & no deal was reached. However in life often you need to work with people you don’t particularly like so about 5 years ago I approached him to see if he’d write my book. I would provide all information photos etc help promote it and didn’t want a penny so all profit was his. He was interested but I had to pay him a retainer of aprox £10,000 with obviously no hope of one penny back. Needless to see why it never went ahead.

Then back to George sykes call. We had drivers that were very good, in fact excellent but they did everything correctly as perhaps you would except but occasionally you needed those who would give that bit extra, which again we had a few, but they tended to have been there years & were gradually getting older. Then there was George who was relatively young but totally mad & we had great hopes that if we could chanell his enthusiasm the right way we could have a very handy assett.

Taffy Davies used to send his vehicles in to be washed & always tales came back of their exploits of the Middle East Runs. I thought the drivers were mad often driving though war zones. However the excitement this had to offer finally caught up on George & he left us to drive for Taffy 22 years until eventually Taffys business ended when he died.

But it wasn’t this that George rang about but an accident he had earlier this year with his present Employer David Fox. Travelling past whetherby northbound in a DAF with 24 tons of slabs on his trailer he had gone into intermittant loss of concienceness. He had a dash cam film him as he left the A! at the Harrogate interchange & plowed down the embankment to eventially hit a pllar. The engine gearbox were detatched and the 24 ton of slabs coming forward smashed the cab off. Miraculously George was still inside sat in his seat seatbelt on whe it came to rest.
George rang to ask did I watch it on Helicopter rescue & I had forgotten feeling sorry for myself with flue.
George is now 71 waiting to get his licence retuned in Feb. Are you not frightenedit might happen again I asked No he said It had been caused by the flue jab & I wont be having that again

[windrush]

The flu jab can cause problems Carl, I have it now as I’m my wife’s carer (unpaid of course) and it is insisted upon. Infact I recently went to our surgery to have my ears syringed and while I was ‘in the chair’ I felt a needle going into my arm, “Might as well do this while you are here sir” and that was it, no choice!! However around 17 years ago, when I was still working, I took the misses to have her jab in November (she has had MS for 20+ years) and they asked me if I wanted mine. Now I didn’t feel ‘right’ if you know what I mean, slightly heady and I told them so. So the Nurse stuck a thermometer in my ear, confirmed my temperature was OK and jabbed me! And that one jab resulted in me being off work for a month. On monday I could barely walk and it got worse, Doctor came and checked me over “You have got a double dose of flu, there was some in your system and the vaccine has given you an extra amount, nothing we can do apart from total rest”. “Great, how long will it take to clear” I asked, “Work on February or March” was the reply! I did improve slowly and returned to work a couple of weeks before the Christmas break, money was running short by then, but it was many weeks before I got my strength back. It was several years before I risked having the jab again, infact I had finished work by then I believe.

Pete.

[rigsby]

When I was diagnosed with heart problems at 62 I became eligible for the flu jab , first two years I was fine but the wife caught flu off me . I explained to the nurse why I didn’t want it again and she just said to bring her in for one with you . Dave

[paulycats]

[carl_williams]

paulycats:

Thanks Paulycats for adding that line drawing of a Ford D series. I suppose its a good excuse to tell of our Ford Experience and how if anything the D series redeemed them.

My Grandfather’s first vehicle was a 1920 Ford T 1 tonner Left hand drive with solid tyres Reg No J9629. It was exported from America and came just in chassis form. Herbert Raine founder of H. Raine & sons Spennymoor, built the cab (If that’s what you can describe it with half doors & no windows) and a platform body & painted & signwrote it.
I don’t know how many Model Ts he had but I think there might have been quite a few which is not surprising as they only seemed to last 3 or 4 years. However they were evolving quite quickly as in 1921 his second was Right hand drive with what were described as balloon tyres & I suspect by that time it was probably built in England. His 3rd 1922 had regular tyres more like we have today. He never would have anything said about the T models. However eventually along came (I think it was) the A model, which was a bit bigger and it was troublesome. He may have had one or two of these ad one or two Morris Commercials which again were very troublesome till he got his first Chev, and things then changed.
He and his drivers fell in love with these pre Bedford imports and then it was Chev & Bedford all the way.
In 1956 diesel was becoming popular in the smaller commercials and Ford introduced their Thames 4D 5 tonner, and with fuel consumption of around 24 mpg against 10mpg we were achieving with our Bedfords & such a cheap vehicle to buy who could resist. There is a photo of our 4D below (Not a very good one but all that has survived. I think most removal contractors jumped onto the diesel band wagon with the Ford 4D I do know that Hoults Newcastle, Hayward & Robertson Darlington and Tom Liddle at Stanley all succumbed like my dad. I know on many occasions when they met up they exchanged notes on the problems these vehicles gave. The biggest problem was head gaskets with some lasting less than 100 miles. So we decided NEVER AGAIN FORD.
We broke the mould to buy a Ford Thames 15cwt panel van but that wasn’t really a commercial vehicle.
In 1969 Courtaulds opened their Spennymoor factory & we got the transport and we needed lots of extra vehicles and at that time we never used finance and were looking for good used vehicles as well as saving costs we could not get new delivered quick enough. We saw advertised a 6 months old Ford D series Box van with just 4,000 miles on the clock so we bought our 1st Ford D800. FPT721G and it was driven for several years by one of our drivers Brian Sheldon, who certainly gave it no mercy and it stood the test of time
Shortly afterwards we were told regulations demanded with the number of drivers we employed we had to have a Driver assessor so it was decided I should take the course at MOTEC High Ercall & so I took a holiday & spent most of the 2 weeks sitting in & driving a Ford D series & I was converted. When I came back we bought a new D series 20 ton Gross Tractor unit, We bought a new Ford Passenger chassis pantechnicon but inherited a lot of D Series Tractor units which certainly were better than the Bedford TK.
I don’t know how many D Series we operated but quite a few. In rigid form they were not as good as Bedford TKs in our use but as tractors they certainly were better

[paulycats]

Yet again Carl, here we have another great story, full of information and character’s going back to the 1920’s!!! At the risk of becoming a “groupie” here it would be a great loss if all this history were not recorded safely for posterity. Your stories of a North East family transport company and it’s history would sit well in a venue such as Beamish museum.
Regards Ian.

[leylandlover]

Carl, You have just spoiled Bewick/Dennis,s day,You used the word Motec,High Ercall.lol

[carl_williams]

Keith Winter put the following notice on Facebook

I’d just like to let that you Bill Bennett past away this morning 21st Jan I don’t know when the funeral will be but will post date when I find out

I’ll notify when the Funeral is to be held

[carl_williams]

leylandlover:
Carl, You have just spoiled Bewick/Dennis,s day,You used the word Motec,High Ercall.lol

Hi Leylandlover, I recon my view the Training Levy was very similar to Denis’ Another tax that we could ill afford that could only come from reduced capital spending, buying about two less new vehicles a year & employing less drivers.

However reluctantly I decided banging my head against a brick wall served no purpose and if you cannot beat them join them.

The Levy was very much like what we pay the EU and the figures put on the BREXIT bus. If we played the ball with them we go a 50% Block grant which meant we only had to pay half, and stupid as it seems to get that we just had to fill pages and pages of childish papers.

I cannot remember now what exactly happened but after shouting and swearing on the phone at the RTITB I was told of the block grant and got the application forms sent. Taking a look at them I thought ‘If they think I have time to read this rubbish, never mind fill it in they have another thing coming’ So they were placed on a heap at the side of my desk. Things that should be done that I will ignore. Usually these stayed there for about 6 months & if no one reminded me they were put in a big box & sent to a room we had built in our warehouse as an Archive store. All HMRC letters went into this pile and I never dealt with anything unless it was sent recorded delivery, & had been signed for as every time they rang me to complain I had not completed childish forms they sent such as monthly statistics I denied receiving.

Then fate took a hand and a representative of RTITB called and said there was nothing to get a Block grant that we were not already doing & offered free of charge to complete them for me. bringing them back I signed & we got an award of a block grant saving 50% of the levy.

Traditionally from my grandfathers time we had started school leavers as van lads. When they reached 17plus provided they had proved themselves we got them a car licence & they drove small vans. In the days before the HGV licence the only obstruction they had to driving larger vans was age & again if they had proved themselves by the time they reached 21 we put them on larger vans. Most of our drivers were home grown.

When the HGV licence came in we were in for a bit of a shock. One driver we had Ray Hornby was an excellent driver but during the qualifying period for the HGV licence he had had a three year spell driving buses, and needed to take the HGV test and failed, through all his bad habits. Just at that time we had been offered to be founder members of Darlington driver training school an organisation started up by RTITB but set up as a private company by haulier members. We joined for a small token share price, Ray Hornby went for a week & passed his test.

We had a few who were in similar situations as Ray, most of who were just 21+ and could not get Grandfather rights as they were too young to claim they had been driving during the relevant time. I found something else then that we got a grant for every driver we taught be it car licence & HGV. We came to an agreement with Darlington Driver Training School we would train 2 per month 24 per year, and put this offer of training/employment with the employment exchange.

As with our mechanics we had always had an apprentice scheme. In those days the youngters & their parents had to sign an indemnity scheme to agree they would follow through the training & go on day release to local colleges. In those days before the minimum wage apprentices cost us peanuts and we could afford the traditional first year sweeping up making the tea etc. Again we found that we were well rewarded by RTITB for training apprentices. On average we always had about 9 apprentices and all these years later I’m proud when I hear what jobs they have ended in after this start.

All in all the block grant gave us an immediate 50% saving and we made a profit out of our driver training scheme and technician training scheme and at the same time got quite a lot of cheap labour filling in jobs as removal porters or jobs in our warehouse.

As I said I was roped in to taking two weeks holiday to go to Motec. In 20 years I think I only took about 8 weeks as I always took the view I enjoyed every day of my work & didn’t want to ruin my life with holidays. The experience at MOTEC was relaxing and to an extent enjoyable and must say they had recruited some good trainers & standard of training was good. That is not an endorsement of a view that I thought either MOTEC should have existed or been funded in the way they were in the first instant because personally I thought the levy was robbery.

[bewick]

leylandlover:
Carl, You have just spoiled Bewick/Dennis,s day,You used the word Motec,High Ercall.lol

OK rub the salt into the still gaping wound !

[transporter_man]

Carl Williams:

paulycats:
2

Carl I also did a driver instructors course at HIgh A, my father enrolled me when I was recovering after falling off the top deck of a transporter, did two weeks then had to do a follow up a few months later. I ended up with a 4 wheeler BMC box van. There was some BSM instructors on the course they had no exsperience driving heavies one was alocated an AEC V8 artic he was ■■■■■■■■ himself I offered a swap but they would not agree. One day we were returning to HA & passed the AEC on its side in a ditch.

Thanks Paulycats for adding that line drawing of a Ford D series. I suppose its a good excuse to tell of our Ford Experience and how if anything the D series redeemed them.

My Grandfather’s first vehicle was a 1920 Ford T 1 tonner Left hand drive with solid tyres Reg No J9629. It was exported from America and came just in chassis form. Herbert Raine founder of H. Raine & sons Spennymoor, built the cab (If that’s what you can describe it with half doors & no windows) and a platform body & painted & signwrote it.
I don’t know how many Model Ts he had but I think there might have been quite a few which is not surprising as they only seemed to last 3 or 4 years. However they were evolving quite quickly as in 1921 his second was Right hand drive with what were described as balloon tyres & I suspect by that time it was probably built in England. His 3rd 1922 had regular tyres more like we have today. He never would have anything said about the T models. However eventually along came (I think it was) the A model, which was a bit bigger and it was troublesome. He may have had one or two of these ad one or two Morris Commercials which again were very troublesome till he got his first Chev, and things then changed.
He and his drivers fell in love with these pre Bedford imports and then it was Chev & Bedford all the way.
In 1956 diesel was becoming popular in the smaller commercials and Ford introduced their Thames 4D 5 tonner, and with fuel consumption of around 24 mpg against 10mpg we were achieving with our Bedfords & such a cheap vehicle to buy who could resist. There is a photo of our 4D below (Not a very good one but all that has survived. I think most removal contractors jumped onto the diesel band wagon with the Ford 4D I do know that Hoults Newcastle, Hayward & Robertson Darlington and Tom Liddle at Stanley all succumbed like my dad. I know on many occasions when they met up they exchanged notes on the problems these vehicles gave. The biggest problem was head gaskets with some lasting less than 100 miles. So we decided NEVER AGAIN FORD.
We broke the mould to buy a Ford Thames 15cwt panel van but that wasn’t really a commercial vehicle.
In 1969 Courtaulds opened their Spennymoor factory & we got the transport and we needed lots of extra vehicles and at that time we never used finance and were looking for good used vehicles as well as saving costs we could not get new delivered quick enough. We saw advertised a 6 months old Ford D series Box van with just 4,000 miles on the clock so we bought our 1st Ford D800. FPT721G and it was driven for several years by one of our drivers Brian Sheldon, who certainly gave it no mercy and it stood the test of time
Shortly afterwards we were told regulations demanded with the number of drivers we employed we had to have a Driver assessor so it was decided I should take the course at MOTEC High Ercall & so I took a holiday & spent most of the 2 weeks sitting in & driving a Ford D series & I was converted. When I came back we bought a new D series 20 ton Gross Tractor unit, We bought a new Ford Passenger chassis pantechnicon but inherited a lot of D Series Tractor units which certainly were better than the Bedford TK.
I don’t know how many D Series we operated but quite a few. In rigid form they were not as good as Bedford TKs in our use but as tractors they certainly were better

[carl_williams]

transporter man:

Carl Williams:

paulycats:
2

Carl I also did a driver instructors course at HIgh A, my father enrolled me when I was recovering after falling off the top deck of a transporter, did two weeks then had to do a follow up a few months later. I ended up with a 4 wheeler BMC box van. There was some BSM instructors on the course they had no exsperience driving heavies one was alocated an AEC V8 artic he was ■■■■■■■■ himself I offered a swap but they would not agree. One day we were returning to HA & passed the AEC on its side in a ditch.

Thanks Paulycats for adding that line drawing of a Ford D series. I suppose its a good excuse to tell of our Ford Experience and how if anything the D series redeemed them.

My Grandfather’s first vehicle was a 1920 Ford T 1 tonner Left hand drive with solid tyres Reg No J9629. It was exported from America and came just in chassis form. Herbert Raine founder of H. Raine & sons Spennymoor, built the cab (If that’s what you can describe it with half doors & no windows) and a platform body & painted & signwrote it.
I don’t know how many Model Ts he had but I think there might have been quite a few which is not surprising as they only seemed to last 3 or 4 years. However they were evolving quite quickly as in 1921 his second was Right hand drive with what were described as balloon tyres & I suspect by that time it was probably built in England. His 3rd 1922 had regular tyres more like we have today. He never would have anything said about the T models. However eventually along came (I think it was) the A model, which was a bit bigger and it was troublesome. He may have had one or two of these ad one or two Morris Commercials which again were very troublesome till he got his first Chev, and things then changed.
He and his drivers fell in love with these pre Bedford imports and then it was Chev & Bedford all the way.
In 1956 diesel was becoming popular in the smaller commercials and Ford introduced their Thames 4D 5 tonner, and with fuel consumption of around 24 mpg against 10mpg we were achieving with our Bedfords & such a cheap vehicle to buy who could resist. There is a photo of our 4D below (Not a very good one but all that has survived. I think most removal contractors jumped onto the diesel band wagon with the Ford 4D I do know that Hoults Newcastle, Hayward & Robertson Darlington and Tom Liddle at Stanley all succumbed like my dad. I know on many occasions when they met up they exchanged notes on the problems these vehicles gave. The biggest problem was head gaskets with some lasting less than 100 miles. So we decided NEVER AGAIN FORD.
We broke the mould to buy a Ford Thames 15cwt panel van but that wasn’t really a commercial vehicle.
In 1969 Courtaulds opened their Spennymoor factory & we got the transport and we needed lots of extra vehicles and at that time we never used finance and were looking for good used vehicles as well as saving costs we could not get new delivered quick enough. We saw advertised a 6 months old Ford D series Box van with just 4,000 miles on the clock so we bought our 1st Ford D800. FPT721G and it was driven for several years by one of our drivers Brian Sheldon, who certainly gave it no mercy and it stood the test of time
Shortly afterwards we were told regulations demanded with the number of drivers we employed we had to have a Driver assessor so it was decided I should take the course at MOTEC High Ercall & so I took a holiday & spent most of the 2 weeks sitting in & driving a Ford D series & I was converted. When I came back we bought a new D series 20 ton Gross Tractor unit, We bought a new Ford Passenger chassis pantechnicon but inherited a lot of D Series Tractor units which certainly were better than the Bedford TK.
I don’t know how many D Series we operated but quite a few. In rigid form they were not as good as Bedford TKs in our use but as tractors they certainly were better

Hi Transporterman,

My Experience at MOTEC probably was completely the reverse of yours.

Although as I have often said I have one of the longest apprentices ever my actual HGV driving experience was very limited.

One of my first memories was sitting on my dads knee hands on steering ‘driving’ up Marmaduke Street Spennymoor in a Bedford ‘O’ model artic with a drop frame removal van trailer about 1950. He’d have been locked up today if he’d been caught.
When I was 7 or 8 I was on a removal carrying cardboard boxes off a van when the wind blew round one of the rear doors & knocked me half the length of the van resulting in a great lump on my head after the woman we were moving put butter on it. My mother went mad with my dad for ‘Exploiting child labour’ when he took me home that evening.
I was adding up accounts as long as I can remember, which I have no doubt helped me being very good at maths.
As soon as I passed my driving test at 17 whilst still at school I spent all my spare time driving our small none HGV vans.
On leaving school my father took the view that I should be able to do everything we employed others to do so even though I had no aptitude I even had to have a go at taking a gearbox out.
My 21st Birthday came along and there was a new Bedford SB pantechnicon VPT828F standing in our garage after being sign written the day before I actually had painted it.Not the writing of course(I never was asked to do another) It was there for our driver Colin Watson to take over when he returned that evening. I was there, no-one else when one of our customersfrom Bishop Auckland requested about 3.00PM we sent a van along to load for the following day. I was now 21 (That morning) so I told the office I was taking VPT to load.
They were based the far side of Bishop Auckland so off I went down South Church through the bridge which was offset and you had to get dead central to get through with 13ft high van (The road is so narrow its has traffic lights & is one way now) I later found out many of our experienced drivers would miss that route & go through the centre of Bishop Auckland.
But between then & going to Motec the only HGVs I drove was when I went to our bodybuilders Marsdens of warrington to pay for & collect new vans, One occasion when I collected from MET police in London a van that had been stolen A van from Birmingham when the driver had broken his leg & moving vans from our depot to Courtaulds or Thorn in Spennymoor. I had of course got my HGV licence by Grandfather rights never having taken an HGV test.
So innocently I went to MOTEC to be told within a minute of arriving that to asset drivers we need to see you can drive & there I was with drivers mostly in their 50s many who had worked for 20 years plus at BRS.
I had never seen the manouvering area, and took my usual approach when I was out of my comfort zone to keep out of the way & hope they run out of time before they came to me. Fortunately it gave me time to watch others & when my time came I did it OK to my surprise.

[carl_williams]

Keith Winter has sent the following message on facebook

Bill Bennett funeral will be at coundon crematorium on Monday 5th February at 10am

As I have told him, All being well I’ll be there

[carl_williams]

Way back in 1971 we had Marsdens build us a drop frame van trailer on a 35ft chassis built by Taskers. With massive wheelboxes at the rear and a ‘Luton’ equivalent over the 5th wheel that was almost the internal height of many of most of our pantechnicons it was a massive 2,800 cu ft.

At Bill Bennett’s funeral on Monday morning I had a chat with Alan Brown and reminded him on an occasion when he returned from loading a very large removal and on filling the van trailer he still had carpets which he suspended underneath the body fastened to the chassis. He in turn reminded me of the error we made of specifying a single axle trailer with the wheels right at the rear, and what a pig it was to get into the drives of many large houses.

Alan worked for us a lot of years, originally as a class 3 driver and cut his spurs on household removals so that when he said a van was full, it was with no room to even fit a ■■■ packet.

He recounted to his repeat performance of suspending in between the chassis on that trailer on an occasion which I did not witness. Apparently they were loading a removal in Harrogate and getting pretty near the rear they were informed by the home owner he wanted his greenhouse which he had dismantled taking with them. Alan had casually packed the glass on the rear of the van and tied and suspended the aluminium frame between the trailer chassis.

This I might add was after another ex driver who reminded Alan that after we had finished at another employer, he had taught him how to rope & sheet & I had replied ‘You never roped & sheeted for us’

[carl_williams]

One of our Bedford-Marsden pantechnicons built on the SB passenger chassis with 330 cu in diesel engine, first registered 1966. As at that time we had applied and been granted a few extra vans on our A licence, we decided not to push our luck and added this one on Contact A licence, which meant that we could only deliver goods manufactured by that company. After about 12 months we applied to the Northern Traffic Commissioners to add it to our normal A licence arguing that it was returning to Spennymoor empty & being on the A licence it could carry items back to North East for other manuufacturers & household removals. Our original A licence number was A2215 meaning it was the 2,215 licence issued in UK. MPT was repainted into our cream/brown livery when it was about 4 years old. Way back in the 1960s A licences were selling for £250 per ton (Unladen weight of all vehicles specified on it) so the value of the licence on that van would be £1000. This showed in haulage companies accounts as good will. When the Operators licence replaced the A licences they were no transferable & had no vale so the value of haulage business’ were greatly reduced