When I left school in 86 I worked for a company called Pensnett Vehicle Services who had the contract to service and maintain Alliberts vehicles. They were mainly Scanias artics with one six wheel ridgid and drag however; they also had an old Merc tractor, Volvo F6’s and if I remember rightly an Iveco and Merc 7.5 tonner that they used for the channel isles. The trailers were nearly all tilts. Two drivers spring to mind from that time, one was Graham who I heard had sadly passed away a number of years ago and another by the name of Wayne who last time I saw him was working for a company called A.R Halfpenny from the Bromsgrove area however; that was 20 odd years ago. they were a tight team and had some real characters working for them…happy memories.
Anyone out there remember this company based in Droitwich Worcestershire, very big in the nintes with plastics, containers, garden furniture,ibc boxes,plastic pallets. They also had a factory in Gloucester. They had there own transport until they sold it all to M Pinches & sons transport in the early ninties.
many years ago we used to pick up bread baskets from the factory in gloucester
You maybe remember the loaders then nigel (a bit wild) and an indian fella zooba. Both good lads always made me a coffee when i was on stock transfers from gloucs to droitwich.
I used to deliver the stuff to posh houses in a 40 ft artic all over the UK. Absolute nightmare down small country lanes or otherwise great big gaffs in West London. We did “grosfillex”? furniture too, same stuff really. Sometimes picked it up from Bourge en Bresse somewhere. I remember Pinches doing it in the UK, they also ran Ivecos same as the outfit I drove for. I don’t miss handballing that lot on your own, with some posh tart telling you to unpack it and take the empty packaging away!! Never did coz we had return loads, so the boxes got “forgotten” behind a shed or somewhere.
I never went to the UK factory though, but remeber Pinches well.
Regards
Mark.
No pictures unfortunately,but hadn`t they got Scania wagon and drags(possibly Ryder),with the bubble upstairs,and demountable bodies.Or is the alzheimers kicking in again?
They were known as Sommers Allibert at one time, I remember taking a new scania there, but can’t remember if it was a demonstrator or if they’d bought it.
Based at Berry Hill industrial estaste, IIRC.
Long time ago.
Taken over by Linpac I believe. Not sure whether DS Smith became involved in the plastic side
brookie:
I used to deliver the stuff to posh houses in a 40 ft artic all over the UK. Absolute nightmare down small country lanes or otherwise great big gaffs in West London. We did “grosfillex”? furniture too, same stuff really. Sometimes picked it up from Bourge en Bresse somewhere. I remember Pinches doing it in the UK, they also ran Ivecos same as the outfit I drove for. I don’t miss handballing that lot on your own, with some posh tart telling you to unpack it and take the empty packaging away!! Never did coz we had return loads, so the boxes got “forgotten” behind a shed or somewhere.
I never went to the UK factory though, but remeber Pinches well.Regards
Mark.
Ahh yes we all remember the handball, and the posh tottie …could be a bit of a nightmare at times. I worked for Pinches for over 10 years mainly with Allibert plus general haulage at 21 years old, i started off on the ridged s then the combos w&d, then on to the artics. Manny a good year spent there we were the transport co, but Allibert (sommer-allibert) had there own transport manager to give out the routes… need i say more if your eyes were a nice blue you got the cream ie Devon- Cornwall, s wales, scotch,… if not you got the mancs,london,etc etc. (the crap) still good times and good lads at Pinches then.
Hodge
Wheel Nut:
Taken over by Linpac I believe. Not sure whether DS Smith became involved in the plastic side
Hi it s 10 years since i worked there but ive kept intouch with some of the lads, they said after the boom of the ninties sommer allibert split into sommer (flooring) allibert (containers) seperate company s. The american s bought out allibert but cant remember now what there called. But sommer is still goin strong as far as i know, they have depots all over France,& Luxembourg. I used to load flooring out of Wiltz (lux) & Sedan (France) for the sommer warehouse in Preston, this is all i know at the present time.
Hodge.