trevHCS:
The other thing to remember is many companies you work for will ask you when you last worked (any job) and what time you finished. This is a legal declaration to get them off the hook and the agency if you had an accident and you into deep [zb] if not legal.Its a bit of a leap admittedly into this world (took me 6 months), but personally I’d hang around until one of those companies realises that new drivers aren’t all that bad and give you a fulltime job. Some might even give you a bit of weekend work or even as a second driver then take you on. Try smaller companies for this inc ones who aren’t “logistics” companies.
Advantage is you don’t get a call at 2am wanting you to be at some random place at 3am to pickup a truck you never driven when theres no one else around. Agencies will do that to you and its not fun even after gaining experience.
Other things to consider:
You could be doing 15 hours (plus travelling) on a Sunday then going to work Monday on virtually no sleep (24+ hours is horrible!) even though its perfectly legal.
If you got 4 hours sleep after a Sunday job, drive to normal job and get in an accident regardless of who’s fault it is, they could try to use the lack of sleep to land it on you.
Ok this sounds like the doom and gloom scenario but just don’t want anyone thinking that working 5 days then doing something as stressful as HGV driving with no backup on an extra day is remotely easy.
Mind you, its pretty terrifying after 3 years too…but that’s just going by the looks of the other motorists I pass nightly!
Some great advice there Trev, thanks 
. I think I am now swinging towards going all out for full time Class 2 work and forget the agencies, applying for as much as I can until something crops up, then work towards Class 1 after a year or so