Spardo:
tyneside:
Form Facebook NMP TYnesideBefore I had passed my driving test, probably about 1960, I had a job as a clerk in the offices of Weddel Meat in Nottingham and then was transferred to the Bedford depot. I lodged with the driver of their delivery van, just like that Morris, and, as I hitched hiked home to Nottingham each weekend and knew every inch of the route, A6 Kettering, Leicester, A 46 A 606 to Nottingham, whenever Ernie was not driving the van and I had a spare moment, I could be found sitting in the cab ‘driving’ the whole route back home. I longed to be a lorry driver and hung on every word when the meat drivers of Union Cartage (like Weddel and Blue Star Line, a Vestey company) visited to deliver from Smithfield.
And it was Vestey who ran large cattle stations in the Northern Territory and used the Rotinoffs for their road trains. I was never fortunate enough to see one though.
And while on the subject of cranes, does anyone remember Scott’s of Beeston, Nottingham? Their yard is now houses I think and had very restricted access to the main road. I believe they were taken over and the name disappeared.
And tanks, I am on a memory roll this morning. I lived on the old A 52 not far from Chilwell depot and often saw them at speed on the road outside, you could hear the steel tracks from way off.
“Spardo” Re the Rotinoff Roadtrains will pop some stuff on the heavy haulage thread later.