Seeing Keith’s post about LAD Leylands prompted me to drag out some photos of the trucks I drove over my fifteen years as a full time driver. Looking at the quality I wish I had the cameras I use now for T&D as I’d love to have taken some better pics, but that’s life. Hope they’re of interest.
Here are the first trucks I ever drove for a living when I got my license back in 1986. The 1969 Albion was already a bit of an oldie even then, and was dead slow, thanks to its 120hp Leyland 401 motor. Years previously my dad had thought about putting the more powerful 410 turbo motor in her but decided that the brakes weren’t up to it - he was probably right! The Dodge Commando was bought secondhand as a chassis cab, having been a skip loader with Mowlem. I think my old man bought it outright for £1800, and then spent another couple of grand putting a new steel tipper body and Edbro tipping gear on it. It was fairly slow on the hills, thanks to a Perkins 6354 motor (about 140hp) but the gearing was superb with an Eaton two speed rear axle giving it 12 gears in total. Would go as fast as you wanted, but considering we stuck to local work that didn’t really matter too much. You can see another Dodge to the right: that ended up being robbed for parts to keep GAF going until the late 90’s.
During my time with my dad I became a real pain in the neck as I’d see a lot of drivers I knew with newer trucks than we had, and they were doing distance work while I was stuck on muddy building sites most of the time. I got my license at 18 through the Young Drivers Scheme but once I reached 21 I left the family business (much to dad’s relief) and got a job on plant and portacabin movement with Selwood Plant. The Merc 1617 was one of the most comfortable trucks I’ve ever driven for a living, even if the motor would have struggled to pull granny off the proverbial chamber pot! To make things worse we used a low loader drawbar trailer when I had to make trips up to Eastleigh to collect new machines or cabins - then it became painfully slow. The only other drawback with the 1617 was the day cab as I started doing one or two nights away each week. Ended up with three settee cushions across the seat and engine tunnel at night as I usually couldn’t be bothered hunting round for digs. The management wasn’t too keen on all the decoration but during the 80s that was the kind of thing drivers did - now they get murals and alloy wheels.
The job itself was brilliant, always different, and often very challenging as the HMF crane brought us a lot of machinery movements. Eventually we had to buy a second truck to cover the plant deliveries while I stuck with cabin and machinery transport. Would probably still be there now if the men in suits hadn’t turned up one morning to lay us all off …
When Selwood suddenly pulled out of Cornwall I had to do the rounds of the local firms, briefly working for Westfield as a relief driver. This was an eye opener as until that moment I’d been used to one lorry one driver but at Westfield we were constantly changing trucks, usually at New Covent Garden or Portishead. At this time the firm had just two artics, with lift axle six wheeler rigids being the most popular set up. I think this pic was taken outside of a Chase Web printers factory which was the main work at that period. I’m looking pretty knackered, which wasn’t unusual during my time there.
Strensham services in the early nineties. This was, and probably still is, a popular stop with the boys from West Cornwall as it’s four and a bit hours from home - Michaelwood services was normally a bit of a stretch for those of us from Redruth.
This was taken en route to Berrymans glass recycling in South Kirby, Yorks, on a typical Sunday afternoon when I worked for Robert Barnard who had been a mate of my father since the early 60s. We’d do two trips to Berrymans a week, with a load of coal back home each time and then Friday spent running tin ore from South Crofty mine. My truck is on the left, while the freshly painted 376 SCV had yet to be signwritten. In the background you can see an F10, a P113, and a MAN F90; typical trucks of the period.
Another pic of the 113, this time tipping through the grain hatch on a building site somewhere near London I believe.
Another pic from the early to mid nineties. I drove this F12 Globey to Germany on a couple of occasions, taking china clay out and backloading for a well known freight forwarder out that way (working for a diesel money rate). The old Volvo had seen its best days with its previous owners - recognise the colours? - and was fairly rattly by the time my boss got hold of it. It was a short wheelbase and a real handfull on wet autoroutes. Thankfully I only drove it a couple of weeks while my regular truck, a newer MAN 370, was being MOT’d. Missed the big cab though when I went back into the standard height MAN.
One of several MANs I drove on continental work for Carn Distribution, another Redruth based firm. I hated driving plain white trucks but the boss preferred them as you could work for anyone. The truck was parked in Hamburg in this shot, backloading there after being weekended at Rostock (the glamour of distance work!) If you look closely you can see the St Piran flag inside the cab which at least told those in the know where the truck was from even if we had nothing on the outside.
I moved up to London in the mid-nineties and ended up working for Merlin Distribution at Hoddesdon on the Sainsburys contract. Some people run down supermarket work but it really honed my manoeuvring skills thanks to the narrow London shop accesses and plenty of time shunting trailers into the Pindar Rd warehouse where we used to put them side by side for loading at night (if you’ve been there you’ll know that this isn’t an easy task). When I started we had Daf 2500 units, then ERF EC10s and finally the beloved Foden 4000 with the Cat C10 rated at 325hp. Unusually these units had Fuller Roadranger boxes which I really enjoyed using, even if most of the clutch brakes were worn out and they grated when you engaged a gear from standstill. T&D editor Dave Young also worked at Hoddesdon, but that was well before I arrived.
After four years living in London I had the urge to move back home to Cornwall at the end of the last millennium, and wound up getting a job with general haulage firm R&R. I’d spent a fortnight with them a few years earlier, driving a flat top F12 when the company was still called Rowe and Co. and had tilts. Anyone who’s done Italian work will recognise their colours but luckily for me I stayed in the UK with this FL10. The missus took the photo, at Windy Ridge truckstop on the way back homewards. With her usual French priorities she remembers that the food was very good - hope it’s still the same today.
Another pic from my time on R&R with an FH12. Had to go to the Reading Festival to collect this load of plastic portaloos. They were a swine to tie down as there were no lashing eyes anywhere. The straps were a ‘just in case’ measure, didn’t look very smart but they all stayed put. Would have probably been quicker to throw a flysheet over them but after a three day festival some were filthy so didn’t want to mess up my sheets. A mate of mine bought the firm last year and from what I see he still uses flats so that he rarely has to turn down a load.
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Anyway this Mk 1 they gave me was from the PS fleet. The 2 firms were run as seperate concerns from the same office, the 2 TMs facing each other. I went for the interview and it proceeded with me facing Frank Parker, unbeknownst to me the PS TM. When he asked if I was fit and strong enough to handle these heavy boiler sections a look of horror must have spread across my face as the truth dawned and Frank said to Tony Whatsisname ‘I think this is one for you’. Whereupon I turned my chair through 45 degrees and was then interviewed for the container job. A Lucky escape 
