Kind of you to say so, when he finished at Ancliff he started up by himself, I did a few jobs to Spondon when I worked with him, sub contract from Felixstowe around 1976. For that 10 years he worked there I really hardly ever sore him, he would collect a tank ex the 100 ton crane in Felixstowe( before the Ro Ro) come home for Sunday dinner and then head off, may be home once during the week or just pop in and back Saturday morning. My job was to book Sunday Night digs, may be Chis Ann’s Trafford Park or where ever he may have gone Best money in Felixstowe at the time.
Camping on Bodmin mood with Ken Clever, Dad had a rather irate women come after him once thinking that he was Ken,
Good evening all,
Here’s a word from abroad: my name is Eric van Beek.
I accidentally fell into this topic whilst Googleing “Ancliff” and enjoyed very much every bit of it. Reason: in the late 60’s and throughout the 70’s I have closely cooperated with your company since I joined the Dutch United Transport company WestFriesland Eurotransport on 1st January 1968.
WestFriesland then were the Continental hauliers providing traction for the Ancliff tanks shipped via Felixstowe and Hull. I was based in Europoort, initially as assistant planner and from 1970 onwards as the Europoort branch manager. Due to a reorganisation of the Dutch United Transport companies in July 1979, the Europoort office was renamed Bos Transport - operations however continued as before.
On a daily basis I spent at least 2 hours on the phone with the Urmston traffic office - first and foremost of course with good old Malcolm Harrison - to make sure everything went according to plan. Or alternatively, to ensure that plans were revised according to reality… And of course I also very well remember both David Francis and Anthony Massey (with his dark brown voice indeed). These three people provided at least 75% of my joy-on-the-job, always ready to find solutions for any problems arising at any point. And it really was a pleasure for me to occasionally (every other year or so) travel to Urmston and meet everyone in person, including Ken Farron and later on Peter Thornton.
Apart from the operational responsibilities, part of our job consisted of commercial contacts with customers all over the Continent. As such, I also had frequent contacts with Harry Liley - in fact we travelled a lot together to visit customers in Holland and Germany.
Also, very nice memories arise from my daily contacts with George Lomax and Paul at Felixstowe depot, keeping one another informed about shipments (or missed shipments). Following their visits to Rotterdam, they were both very fond of good Dutch coffee, so we regularly used to put some packages of “Van Nelle” coffee into the manhole tray of one of the TDI tanks, knowing that customs officers were very reluctant to actually climb onto the trailer. This worked out perfectly, albeit that Paul somehow managed to spoil the drink by using far too much water (as I found out when visiting Fxwe…).
From 1982 onwards I moved away from daily operations following a “transfer” to the Dordrecht headoffice of Bos Transport, where I used to meet Peter Thornton again when he was coming over for our Board Meetings.
At some point Bos Transport was first renamed United Bos, then United Transport Tankers and finally (1997) sold to a very wellknown transport company Den Hartogh Logistics, which today is still a strictly family-owned business.
I myself was “sold along with the furniture”, spending the last 15 years until my retirement in 2011 as Health, Safety, Environment & Quality manager.
To conclude: I really enjoyed reading the whole topic which stirred up my memory, bringing back the faces of so many people with whom I had the privilege to work together. I do hope that those who are still with us are doing well and in the best possible health.
Thank you for your patience reading this far… 
nos1nner:
My late father Stan Rennison worked for Ancliff for a number of years out of Hull, they were based at Lex Tillotsons on Hedon road (now Imperial Commercials) I remember Big Herbert Hemsworth, Freddie Beach, Ernie Allsop, Jack Dillon,Eddie Gorgon.As far as I know only Fred is still with us.
They used to run the John Smiths bulk beer tanks from Tadcaster and always came away from there with a dozen or so pint bottles ofale, also regularly to Urmston, and beyond, I was driving car transporters for Tolemans out of Hull at the time and often used to pick up my dad or one or two of the others up from Barton truckstop or Birch/Hartshead/Woodside on a fiddle home as I did Hull /Widnes/Halewood almost every day, good times indeed!
Happy new Year to All
Canon-Eye:
Good evening all,
Here’s a word from abroad: my name is Eric van Beek.
I accidentally fell into this topic whilst Googleing “Ancliff” and enjoyed very much every bit of it. Reason: in the late 60’s and throughout the 70’s I have closely cooperated with your company since I joined the Dutch United Transport company WestFriesland Eurotransport on 1st January 1968.
WestFriesland then were the Continental hauliers providing traction for the Ancliff tanks shipped via Felixstowe and Hull. I was based in Europoort, initially as assistant planner and from 1970 onwards as the Europoort branch manager. Due to a reorganisation of the Dutch United Transport companies in July 1979, the Europoort office was renamed Bos Transport - operations however continued as before.
On a daily basis I spent at least 2 hours on the phone with the Urmston traffic office - first and foremost of course with good old Malcolm Harrison - to make sure everything went according to plan. Or alternatively, to ensure that plans were revised according to reality… And of course I also very well remember both David Francis and Anthony Massey (with his dark brown voice indeed). These three people provided at least 75% of my joy-on-the-job, always ready to find solutions for any problems arising at any point. And it really was a pleasure for me to occasionally (every other year or so) travel to Urmston and meet everyone in person, including Ken Farron and later on Peter Thornton.
Apart from the operational responsibilities, part of our job consisted of commercial contacts with customers all over the Continent. As such, I also had frequent contacts with Harry Liley - in fact we travelled a lot together to visit customers in Holland and Germany.
Also, very nice memories arise from my daily contacts with George Lomax and Paul at Felixstowe depot, keeping one another informed about shipments (or missed shipments). Following their visits to Rotterdam, they were both very fond of good Dutch coffee, so we regularly used to put some packages of “Van Nelle” coffee into the manhole tray of one of the TDI tanks, knowing that customs officers were very reluctant to actually climb onto the trailer. This worked out perfectly, albeit that Paul somehow managed to spoil the drink by using far too much water (as I found out when visiting Fxwe…).
From 1982 onwards I moved away from daily operations following a “transfer” to the Dordrecht headoffice of Bos Transport, where I used to meet Peter Thornton again when he was coming over for our Board Meetings.
At some point Bos Transport was first renamed United Bos, then United Transport Tankers and finally (1997) sold to a very wellknown transport company Den Hartogh Logistics, which today is still a strictly family-owned business.
I myself was “sold along with the furniture”, spending the last 15 years until my retirement in 2011 as Health, Safety, Environment & Quality manager.
To conclude: I really enjoyed reading the whole topic which stirred up my memory, bringing back the faces of so many people with whom I had the privilege to work together. I do hope that those who are still with us are doing well and in the best possible health.
Thank you for your patience reading this far…
Thank you for your interesting reminiscences.
As a boy , straight from school, Malcolm Harrison guided and schooled me in the various dodgy arts of the making a profit in the hard world of bulk liquid transport…how to recognise an illegal log sheet…how to spot a claim for a dodgy night out…how to lie without blushing…how to construct a believable story, off the cuff, when a customer wanted to know why his truck hadn’t appeared etc etc. Whilst at the same time Jimmy 4 wifes Goodwin was teaching me how to keep two and three balls in the air at the same time starting with always calling a woman… ‘love’ , never by her real name, for reasons that are obvious, and keeping the subterfuge going by referring to her by the town she lived in when conversing with third parties. ie I am going out with Oldham tonight etc.
As a callow youth, I even tried to pull the office cleaner, who was a failed nun apparently. I took her out in the MGTC to a pub at the top of the Mile Road…The rest must remain secret if I am to stand any chance entering into the kingdom of heaven.
In 1979, PeterThornton had the bright idea of me learning to operate the continental board as holiday relief whilst Malcolm was off. How I hated that board!! Having seen what it had done to Malcolm’s health, and not wanting to suffer the same fate, I buggered off to Saudi in April 1980. A baptism of fire, general haulage etc, but it was to be my saving grace in so many ways…and I lived to tell this tale…obviously!
I have a lot to thank Malcolm Harrison for, and the nun, and that board!!
Harry Liley… Years ago I was told he had gone blind.
Do you know if Peter Thornton is still alive?
I did call in to see Anthony Massey 4 or 5 years ago. I must give him a call again.
And Larry Gilsenan, if you are reading this, you promised to ring me back , a year last february as you were busy moving house. I am still waiting!!
Happy days.
Wirlinmerlin:
[…]
Do you know if Peter Thornton is still alive?
Frankly I have no idea. However I do have some earlier memories of him around 1965 when he still was with Harold Wood whilst I spent some time during the summer holiday in the office of their Rotterdam agents (or maybe even subsidiary company) of which my oldest brother was the manager: you could tell it was Peter coming on the telex because of his very slow typing…
And I can also still picture him looking at the Continental board, shaking his head whilst rocking the change in his pocket.
After 1982 I gradually moved away from the operational dept - however I stayed close enough to see things being turned more and more from road barrels to 20ft tankcontainers being shipped. This gave a considerable reduction in paperwork and procedures, also helped by the UK having joined EEC. Therefore, somewhere mid-80’s our Europoort office was closed. No point keeping this open since matters could easily be controlled from our Dordrecht office, at only 50 kms away. Even more so when UTTC (United Transport TankContainers) was formed, merging all UK and Continental tankcontainer activities in a single company. From then on, we in Dordrecht focused mainly on Continental traffic.
My personal contacts with the UK side were from then mainly with those visiting us (or “managing” us) from London Headquarters. Funny aspect: on various occasions I was told that I had a very Northern accent - no wonder, having spent so many hours talking to Malcolm, Anthony and David…
I buggered off to Saudi in April 1980.
1.Trans Arabia/S.Jones of Aldridge: A few pictures.
2 Taseco TMS Saudi Arabia. From 1983.
Links for those interested.
“And I can also still picture him looking at the Continental board, shaking his head whilst rocking the change in his pocket.”
How that made me laugh. Spot on. The faster he rocked the change, the madder he was getting.
You always knew when to get out of his way. The trick was to second guess the rapid fire questions he was formulating whilst change jingling. Bloody nightmare. Unfortunately, I never learned the art of mind reading!
1984 clipping.
Was just wondering if there are any old Ancliff (Manchester) drivers out there?
They were the tankers with the big A on the back? My uncle used to pull them in the seventies from Zeebrugge to DSM in Geleen Holland to load some chemical stuff and then back to Zeebrugge docks. I accompanied him some times, but I don’t have any photos of these journeys.
My brother was a mechanic at the Felixstowe depot of Ancliff’s,from around the early 70’s till the mid-80’s.That’s from when they had the depot next to the ‘Little Ships Hotel’ near the dock basin,until they moved into a new purpose built depot in Byron Avenue.
I can remember they had a couple of Scania 110’s as well as the Seddon’s and Atki Borderer’s.And I remember when the first two sleeper cabbed Seddon-Atki 400’s came home,I went for a trip in one of them,driven by Ken Cleaver (RIP).
Fred Beech was the Union man in Hull. Fred and I had a few runnings in the early days. They thought they were much better than the local carrot growers 
Hi KW
Ken Cleaver,now theirs a name from the past,he came to work for us at Sadlers Oldham depot for a while in the late 80s when Larry Gilsenan was the transport manager.First met Ken down in felixstowe when myself and LG went down there on business and met up with him for a night on the beer(what a night that was) a top bloke Ken R.I.P
Hello,Paul I found this old advert. 
Cheers Bubbs. 
bubbleman:
Hello,Paul I found this old advert.
Cheers Bubbs.
Thanks Bubbs.
Have emailed you as image came over to small to use.
Regards Paul Anderson Northwest Trucks
Stanfield:
Hi KW
Ken Cleaver,now theirs a name from the past,he came to work for us at Sadlers Oldham depot for a while in the late 80s when Larry Gilsenan was the transport manager.First met Ken down in felixstowe when myself and LG went down there on bussiness and met up with him for a night on the beer(what a night that was) a top bloke Ken R.I.P
Ken was a real nice bloke,but boy did he like his booze.He lost his licence for a while,which must have been around the mid 80’s,and when he got it back Ancliff’s wouldn’t take him back on,so he started driving containers for OOCL (OOCL had a few trucks of their own at the time) and as I was also on the OOCL contract,though driving for Goodways,Ken and I used to have the odd night out together.
One morning we woke up in Baldock after a heavy night,and he produced a bottle of whisky from under his bed and took a couple of good slugs,“Ah!,breakfast” he said.
He’d lived in Felixstowe for as long as I can remember,but was originally from Dewsbury,where apparently,his wife still lived.
He lived with another famous Felixstowe ■■■■-head for a while,Bert Seymour,and the two of them could usually be found in the Routemaster most nights.
I could tell a few stories about Bert Seymour.