Just thought of this one. How to ■■■■ of the wife.
Got a job driving a dust cart on contract to Saffron Walden council back in the late 60s, young lad living in the same village as me was my mate, anyway always drove in to work but one morning car would not start so got a lift to work then asked if I could take dust cart home for a few days until I sorted out my car, no problem, what I never thought of was that over the weekend the dust cart started to stink the road out even though it was empty, the wife went mad, shift that motor off the drive it stinks something chronic, had to have a word with a local farmer and park it in the middle of the field next to our house, never brought it home again. In fact thinking about it the job I had before that was at a chicken farm and that was bad enough, you could never get rid of the smell of the chicken manure. (Wonder why that marriage did not last to long) That was wife No 2 been and gone. She lasted longer than No 1 though.
Back in the 80’s just got my licence and a job with a Salad Grower on the Isle of Wight. Regular run was 04:00 sailing from Fishborne, drops at Southampton wholesale Market, Tesco at Romesy finally Sainsbury’s in Basingstoke then return typically on 12:00 ferry. One day (early January I think) overslept, alarm did not go off had a mad panic as it was already 4 O’clock, dashed to depot, grabbed unit and trailer, which was always loaded and ready to go (glasshouse lettuce). Went flat out and got to Fishborne terminal in time for 5 O’clock ferry, having spent the whole journey trying to think up excuses/ways of making good my error. When I got there I was surprised how busy it was and chalky at the slipway entrance said you’re early couldn’t you sleep. The penny finally dropped it was not 05:00 on Thursday morning but 17:00 on Wednesday Evening. I had slept for two hours!!! Thank God in those days it was a log book and not tachographs.
Another one comes to mind.
Back in the day I delivered a load to Tesco at Hinckley, by this time I was pulling out of Waltham Cross not the IOW, It was a Friday and in addition to our own stuff. I had a pallet of Strawberries on which was being dropped off for a third party. Jobsworth of a QC rejected this as it had the wrong sell by date (Saturday not Sunday) could not see the problem myself as in those days stores were closed on Sundays. However it was not my place to argue so back on they went. Phoned the grower, who was in Kent. He asked if I could get them back to him by 21:00, this was at 19:00. I said it was impossible (and even if is was I would not have had enough hours left) at which point he asked if I could dispose of them and he would give my £20 for my troubles when I next called in. Needless to say I was more than happy with this. I think he assumed I would dump them in the skip back at our depot. instead of which a friend with a Transit and I were touring the streets of Wimbledon the following day touting Strawberries (and pots of cream we brought from Tesco)/ Luckily it was Wimbledon week and sunny to boot, we cleaned up seem to think it was something like £400 we cleared in the end. Needless to say the £20 was also collected gratefully during the following week.
One of the funny (true!) things that happened to me was about 12 or so years ago, I was approaching a level crossing with warning lights only (no barriers) the lights were flashing red and I stopped, the train was fairly close and it slowed and stopped and the driver waved me across in front of him. To explain matters in a little more detail it was in Immingham docks and a single line, the train was a full sized, full length BR freight train with a load of empties going to the coal loading point in the docks and apparently (I learned later) they could take over 5 mins to go over that crossing so it saved me a bit of a wait. Not sure of the legality of this for him or me but it’s not everyone can say a train waived then out in front of them.
