load of steel coils from folkestone to newport wales in a leyland roadtrain, managed to bunny hop from the harbour to the M20.
Wheel Nut:
M&C Steve. That was a fantastic introduction to the Eastern Bloc. I felt for you every word as my own initiation was somewhat similar. I had been to Greece on the ferry but decided it was too expensive and I opted for the overland route from then on. I never went to Brindisi again. But I spent many memorable nights in and around Plzen, Brno and PragueThe log cabin in one hit was a fair days work for a new beginning
This is a picture of Dave Mackies and features the log cabin in between Plzen and Prague, it was an aiming point for many of us as the food was good and the parking safe. I would like to see if it still exists. My last memory of it is with John Roberts (RIP Jogger) and someone walked past and pinched a chip off his plate, you would have thought they had grabbed his knackers by his reaction. He was livid. 
Hi all, first load was load of waste paper for Meachers Transport Southampton take empty 40’ flat from yard to do trailer change so the first few miles was an easy drive, then trailer change pull out loaded trailer rope and sheet ( after weigh bridge )
Then to Rochester ! Tractor was a Scammell Handyman. Spent first week in yard roping and sheeting. Ain’t roped and sheeted for over 30 years but would love to do a trailer today !! Bet I’d still get it tight as a drum !! 
Regards Jimski
Passed my class 1 on Monday morning in a 5 speed cargo + 31st flat, went out (with another driver) in the afternoon in a 2 week old DAF 95-310 to get some tyres changed on a 40 ft, 15ft 6in tautliner at national tyres in Batley.
Next day was sent out with a 12 year old DAF 2300 with 8sp range change and same tautliner to load a 15ft long wash plant in Robberttown on the front and 10 pallets of dye behind the plant. 1st drop was the dye in Catford, sth London, 2nd drop was wash plant at a bakery in Reading.
1st day managed to load and get as far as Woolwich ferry, overnight in ferry park.
2nd day tipped in Catford 08.00, got lost in sth London trying to avoid low bridges and managed to get to Reading just inside my 9 hrs. 
Talk about baptism of fire, I hadn’t been to London since I was 8 yr old, cars, buses, bikes, vans, taxis, lorries were coming at me from all angles.
But managed and got home in 1 piece with no incidents.
Patrick
Passed my HGV1 in 1981 at the Kilmarnock test centre, on my return to the driving school there was a message for me to ring the company, i was told to attend a breakdown at the SAI works in Ayr, to repair a rear hub reduction failure on a B series ERF, this vehicle (GOS744N if irc) was fitted with a 150 gardner & a David Brown gear box, the owners son Alan was going to meet me there with parts & help with the repair, half way through the job the driver said he had run out of time and was taken the son’s car and heading home to Stranraer, we completed the job and I said to the Alan I will follow you back, he then informed me that he did not have a HGV licence & I was told it was down to me to get it back, All I can say it was an experience grinding the teeth on that gearbox with a full load on its back, it was so different to the Bedford TM that I had spent the previous week on learning to pass the test…
I pestered my boss to gimme a break on the artics after I’d been on rigids for months. So he sent me to Asda at Dartford with 24 tonne of CAT LITTER saying "There’s plenty of room to reverse here as there is only bays… no actual loading docks as such.
I done a perfect first time reverse into the bay, and was feeling quite smug… only to miss the step when exiting the cab and land in a crumpled heap on the floor in full view of dozens of old hand’s sitting there drinking there coffee and sniggering!! 
Spent a good few years after that hauling trailer loads of sugar out of ‘Tate & Lyle’ at Silvertown… Happy days!
ian1964:
Passed my test on Monday, Weds morning, Driver wont be in, C series ERF artic + flat full load of welsh roofing slate from Ffestiniog slate quarry back to Clitheroe.
Roads were a bit of a bugger from Betws Coed down to Blaenau but managed with no damage .!!
Those place names ring a bell mate… I once tried to get to the Toyota dealership in Harlech, Wales many moons ago and I must have chosen the worst road as it was narrow & bloody scary watching the nearside road crumbling away beneath my trailer wheels as I rounded a hairpin bend!! ■■■■ knows what road I was on but it was obviously the wrong one! Lol 
My first run after passing my test was, like so many other drivers, a delivery by a regular driver while I sat in the passenger seat, followed by me driving the wagon home empty. In my case, this was a 1972 Scania 80 artic with an A&RJ Wood (of Teynham) Tautliner 'fridge trailer in the service of Colin Bolton Transport of Faversham. It was a London delivery (Sainsbury’s RDC at Charlton). I even have a picture (below), taken at Wakely Brothers in Gillingham at a slightly later date! Not a nice lorry to drive. I was then given a Detroit V8 D-series artic (gutless!), followed swiftly by a Volvo F88. The Ford Transcontinental units they gave me to drive afterwards were MUCH nicer, having ■■■■■■■ 290s with 9-speed Fullers! Boy, did they fly. Robert
I picked up a loaded trailer(with an F7 Volvo with less than 2000km’s on the clock) in Nuneaton (where i was based) with 3 drops to unload in Bedfordshire (Biggleswade, Sandy & Bedford).
Reloaded in Bedford for Glasgow, but had to drop the trailer back in Nuneaton.
I’d passed my test on the Friday( 3 days after my 21st birthday) & this was my trip on the Monday. I’d worked for the company (Carryfast) already 3 year’s prior to this driving a 7.5t Bedford.
Didn’t really pass it as such because when the invented the HGV, 1968 wasn’t it?, they gave them to people who were already drivers so I don’t really remember the first load but it would have been either liquid fertiliser from Ham Hill or bagged dry stuff from Portland.
I do remember those first HGVs were really smart, a black hard-back affair with gold printing. Made you proud!
David
I passed my class one on a Friday January 1976, I worked in the office of a petrol company. I had been out with the drivers a few times when I was learning. On the Monday after my test one of our drivers failed to come to work so I was sent out in a mammoth major loaded with petrol to deliver into Glasgow, I did the deliveries ok and have been on fuel tankers since.(40 years now).
I was working in the warehouse doing a bit of shunting loading trailers for the night drivers when things were quiet and I decided to take my class 1 along with my older brother in 1996, Having passed I took the certificate into the manager at the start of my shift but I had to wait a couple of days as I was only 23 and he needed to check the companies insurance would cover me.
The first load was 22 pallets of dry dog food of a pedigree variety from Peterborough to Melton Mobray in a Scania 213M? Registration M482FJF I still remeber the way I felt when I got on the open road thinking that I had really made it, there were a few first in the next couple of years such as the first trip to Felixstowe and Lowerstoft docks and some RDC work but most of our work was local.
Technically I only had my provisional licence, but went with my mate one Saturday morning from Teesside to Hull with a DAF 2800 fully loaded with a liquid Bulkhaul container with no baffles. Got to other side of York and mate pulled over and said do you fancy a go?
I was a fitter at the time and my dad and uncles were all drivers so I had driven quite a few lorries , in fact first lorry I had ever driven was an Atki 150 Gardner in BSC Lackenby about 14 year old when my dad worked in the trailer scheme loading for various hauliers.
Anyway back to the Daf it had the ZF 16 speed and off I went drove all the way to Hull docks could not believe the sloshing effect when braking for lights coming into Hull learnt pretty quickly about being smooth.
After passing my class 1 did some holiday work for a local farmer F10 and a 35ft tipper fully loaded from Teesside to North Wales tip and reloaded coal from Clitheroe and that was that.
Remember it well. It was an A series ERF, 220 ■■■■■■■ with fuller roadranger 4over 4 with splitter.
Load of concrete blocks from mono concrete in Sandy ( now marshals I believe) to sunbury on Thames.
Felt well chuffed after that first load. That was my first job on bigguns, for Jays of Dunstable, also done bricks, all handball, 10000 of the buggers out of stewartby, and roof tiles out of Redlands at Leighton buzzard, plus some traction only for Freddie Ray’s at Leighton buzzard, mostly to bullhead wharf in London.
I have posted elsewhere on here to see if anyone had any pics of the truck.
Tim
Groupage load from burton on trent to Hendaye (irun) tilt trailer 142 scania my dream had finally come true
What test, was driving an Albion CH artic when the transport manager came up to me and told me to fill in this form for a class 1, you have been driving artic’s for the last six months so you get a licence on grandfather rights, I would have been around 28 at the time, first load was a load of Hayter mowers, god knows where to as we went all over the UK.
After a couple of years Hayter’s decided to get shot of the artic’s and get Seddon flatbed’s, I was offered the first one to be delivered but declined the offer as I did for the other 3, but when the last one came in the yard I was told in no uncertain terms to get my stuff out of that bloody Albion and into that Seddon , my Albion went to Stansted Airport on shunting, could have cried the last time I saw her, I used to polish that motor in the evening at Stoke cattle yard or Carlisle down by the river. Anyone remember Jenny the ■■■■ who used to work Carlisle lorry park? She would come (wrong turn of phrase there) and sit in my lorry waiting for her regulars to turn up, usually a firm from south wales, Gregs or something like that, she used to charge 2/6, I was no saint but she would only go with drivers who had a box motor.
Went in there after a few weeks working Cornwall and asked the attendant about Jenny and he was telling me that a couple of weeks before a driver had crawled into his office holding his balls and said that him and his mate had decided that Jenny was going to have it proper like and had tried bending her over the spare wheel and she had swung her handbag (full of half crowns) and hit him in the nuts, the attendant said that he wondered why this bloke was talking a bit funny. He also said that one night she flagged down a police car and told the officer to follow a lorry as the driver had gone off without paying her.!!! I wonder what Mr Plod said to her■■?
Last time I was in Carlisle I looked for the old lorry park but there is no trace, no point of looking for Jenny as I was told she moved up to Aberdeen.
Final story. When Jenny moved up to Aberdeen she was going into a picture house and saw one of her old customers coming out with his wife and went up to him and started talking to him as old friends do, wonder what the outcome of that was.
Balloonie
balloonie:
What test, was driving an Albion CH artic when the transport manager came up to me and told me to fill in this form for a class 1, you have been driving artic’s for the last six months so you get a licence on grandfather rights, I would have been around 28 at the time, first load was a load of Hayter mowers, god knows where to as we went all over the UK.After a couple of years Hayter’s decided to get shot of the artic’s and get Seddon flatbed’s, I was offered the first one to be delivered but declined the offer as I did for the other 3, but when the last one came in the yard I was told in no uncertain terms to get my stuff out of that bloody Albion and into that Seddon , my Albion went to Stansted Airport on shunting, could have cried the last time I saw her, I used to polish that motor in the evening at Stoke cattle yard or Carlisle down by the river. Anyone remember Jenny the [zb] who used to work Carlisle lorry park? She would come (wrong turn of phrase there) and sit in my lorry waiting for her regulars to turn up, usually a firm from south wales, Gregs or something like that, she used to charge 2/6, I was no saint but she would only go with drivers who had a box motor.
Went in there after a few weeks working Cornwall and asked the attendant about Jenny and he was telling me that a couple of weeks before a driver had crawled into his office holding his balls and said that him and his mate had decided that Jenny was going to have it proper like and had tried bending her over the spare wheel and she had swung her handbag (full of half crowns) and hit him in the nuts, the attendant said that he wondered why this bloke was talking a bit funny. He also said that one night she flagged down a police car and told the officer to follow a lorry as the driver had gone off without paying her.!!! I wonder what Mr Plod said to her■■?
Last time I was in Carlisle I looked for the old lorry park but there is no trace, no point of looking for Jenny as I was told she moved up to Aberdeen.
Final story. When Jenny moved up to Aberdeen she was going into a picture house and saw one of her old customers coming out with his wife and went up to him and started talking to him as old friends do, wonder what the outcome of that was.
Balloonie
Was that the old sort who got stuck in every model of cab from a TK Bedford to an A Series [emoji23]
It’s always someone’s mate as well [emoji12]
passed livingston mid morn in a d series with 20 foot flat.
back home to glasgow and straight onto a scrapper old guy.180 gardner,no power steering,5 speed box,no heater,mirrors from a budgies cage,no alternator,just 3 or 4 batteries in the pit,and the passenger door welded shut as it had previusly fallen off with rust.
loaded 6 drops around south coast for timber merchants for the next morn,hadnt a clue how to tie a dolly but got someone to show me,and it was instant mad for tar with some close calls for soiling me skiddies.
a complete lamb to the slaughter.
passed livingston mid morn in a d series with 20 foot flat.
back home to glasgow and straight onto a scrapper old guy.180 gardner,no power steering,5 speed box,no heater,mirrors from a budgies cage,no alternator,just 3 or 4 batteries in the pit,and the passenger door welded shut as it had previusly fallen off with rust.
loaded 6 drops around south coast for timber merchants for the next morn,hadnt a clue how to tie a dolly but got someone to show me,and it was instant mad for tar with some close calls for soiling me skiddies.
a complete lamb to the slaughter.