Eddie Heaton:
Nice to see a Heaton’s motor . Don’t get to see that many of them on here , although Heaton’s did have a considerable fleet back in the 70s , the vast majority being ERFs with a few Leyland Comet stragglers in the mix dating from the 60s which were normally held back and used mainly on local work .
Being based in St Helens , I would estimate that 80% of Heaton’s work was glass related . Aside from bits and pieces from the likes of Cadbury’s at Moreton , and one or two others , the bulk of the traffic consisted of either glass bottles from Rockware , before Robson’s took over , sheet glass on stillages from Pilks , or containerised fibreglass for export , again from Pilks .
In fact , it was the loading of fibreglass into shipping containers within the confines of Heaton’s premises on Merton Bank road that sparked the inter-union conflict between dockers and drivers in the early 70s , which split the T&GWU and ultimately resulted in the end of the closed shop system .This motor presumably is making his way back to Pilks at St Helens with the m/t
plate glass stillage . It’s possible that I could have been the driver , although I recognise neither the location nor the fleet number on the wagon so probably not , but as we were allocated a different motor practically every other day , who’s to say ?One thing I forgot to mention is that every one of Heaton’s motors had one of those odometers fitted to the hub of the drive axle , although they must have been fitted to the offside hub as it isn’t evident in this shot . I’m fairly sure that Alf Sutton had them fitted to his fleet as well .
Hello Eddie, glad you like the pic. The location is the County Ground lorry park in Swindon and it looks like the fleet no is 95