Our old farm house is going to be demolished after standing solid for nearly 400 years. The land has been leased out for years and nobody has lived in the old homestead for so many years. I went to have a last look before it was demolished and in one of the big sheds was the old seddon atkinson cattle truck. I learned to drive that when I was very young before ever I had a licence
I stood there looking at it and it was nothing but a ruined truck now but I began to remember driving it.This was nearly 50 years since I first drove it and I just wondered how young drivers today could drive it. It has no power steering a (to me anyway) a huge wheel no abs no bunk there was an old plank you could use as a bed for a rest if you had to go to Dublin it tooks hours to get there in those day. it had a starting handle you had to wind to get her going and the best thing about it it had as far as I remember an eaton splitter box. Took me some time to master that yock.Going round corners you were hauling the wheel around and she was a temperamental old girl. In those days in the winter we had to light a fire under the tank to literally defrost the fuel in freezing temperatures and there was a a lot of them our farm was int the foothills of the mountains.
Yet I thought those were the days and would have sold my soul to have been able to get in and take the beast for a final drive but it was just an old rusting shell.
How many of you lot drove an old beast like that Going round corners literally hauling the wheel around but we knew no different then. Drivers then had not an easy job with lorries like that I doubt if any young lad today would tackle one of those. God but that old wreck brought back many memories of those days. In her hey day she was the dogs proverbials.
If any of you are old enough to have driven trucks like that I would love to hear some of your memories,So please post them if you drove a top of the range model like this back in the day I think there would be some tales to tell.
If it was 50 years since you drove it, it must be pre 66.
What reg is it, if it was new in 66 it will be a ‘C’ reg, or if pre 63 there will be no pre.fix letter after the numbers.
My Dad drove stuff around that era, old Commers, Albions and the like. I used to love the smell of Ezystart that he sprayed in the intake to get the old Albion started on a frosty morning, and the cloud of ‘fog’ it produced in the cold air when it fired up.
It was a case of bring your own heater, …a thick rug to wrap yourself up in the hard as a rock passenger seat.
You would have thought that it would have put me off wanting to be a driver as a kid, (I often wish it had ) especially 'helping ’ with all the handball as it was then, but I used to love it in the school hols.
Can you post a photo of it?
I drove a 1974 M reg Atkinson Borderer in 82, the trucks had not changed that much as they were still using a lot of 60s tech, an old David Brown full crash box, no pas, air operated wipers, it was the first truck I bought as it was cheap, a good old workhorse with no frills, but 20 yrs behind the times compared to a same era DAF 2800 or Scania 111.
You had to learn to DRIVE a truck in those days, not learn to STEER one like a modern truck today.
cant go back that far , my 1st truck was as a b cab erf, the biggest problem was getting her to stop, it went something like hold steering wheel, standup, press like crazy, pray
when i was a kid in the 70’s i used to drive 1950/60 tractors massy ferg etc, they took some driving for a kid
What reg is it, if it was new in 66 it will be a ‘C’ reg, or if pre 63 there will be no pre.fix letter after the numbers.
My uncle went over to England just the war ended (a long trip from Donegal in those days) to buy four Clydesdale horses … we used them on the farm as workhorses. The ones we had were being retired The auld farmer he was buying them from was a cattle dealer and had this old truck. I hope I have this right as it is hard to remember what I was told (I wasn’t even here then) The auld farmer wanted a new cattle truck he had said so my uncle bought two horses and the old truck off him instead The truck cost the price of two horses so loaded the two steeds into the truck drove to Liverpool I think and took it home. That is how this truck ended up in Donegal must have been around 1946/47 and it was about 10 years old then. My grandad apparently went mad at his money being spent on a truck. But it turned out to be a good investment. My uncle started dealing cattle and in those days here you could make a fortune smuggling animals across the border to the north and that’s what happened. My uncle became quite a legend as a smuggler there were many roads called unapproved roads all along the border and which were not always controlled by the customs men. He was a wanted man for years right up to the 60’s but he never got caught.
Due to him buying that truck we were able to but a proper tractor a massey ferguson for the first time a baler and many other things for the farm and from living in near poverty my family became pretty well off by Donegal standards.
I have no idea of the reg nor do I have any pics we had no camera in those days but the local newspaper has a picture of it somewhere in its achives and I am going to try and hunt that down
We moved to the north in the early 50’s and the truck came with us It was used right up to the early70’s when my uncle bought a few new trucks he had become legal by then for his cattle business. It was mothballed into the shed and never has been touched since. And it became an old wreck just rusting away. Such a shame for such a great hardworking lady. That old truck changed my family’s life for ever.
burnley-si:
my 1st truck was as a b cab erf, the biggest problem was getting her to stop, it went something like hold steering wheel, standup, press like crazy
I had quite a few ERF’s back then, and they all had really good brakes, I actually thought that was one of their better traits.
volvo2:
Our old farm house is going to be demolished after standing solid for nearly 400 years. The land has been leased out for years and nobody has lived in the old homestead for so many years. I went to have a last look before it was demolished and in one of the big sheds was the old seddon atkinson cattle truck. I learned to drive that when I was very young before ever I had a licence
I stood there looking at it and it was nothing but a ruined truck now but I began to remember driving it.This was nearly 50 years since I first drove it and I just wondered how young drivers today could drive it. It has no power steering a (to me anyway) a huge wheel no abs no bunk there was an old plank you could use as a bed for a rest if you had to go to Dublin it tooks hours to get there in those day. it had a starting handle you had to wind to get her going and the best thing about it it had as far as I remember an eaton splitter box. Took me some time to master that yock.Going round corners you were hauling the wheel around and she was a temperamental old girl. In those days in the winter we had to light a fire under the tank to literally defrost the fuel in freezing temperatures and there was a a lot of them our farm was int the foothills of the mountains.
Yet I thought those were the days and would have sold my soul to have been able to get in and take the beast for a final drive but it was just an old rusting shell.
How many of you lot drove an old beast like that Going round corners literally hauling the wheel around but we knew no different then. Drivers then had not an easy job with lorries like that I doubt if any young lad today would tackle one of those. God but that old wreck brought back many memories of those days. In her hey day she was the dogs proverbials.
If any of you are old enough to have driven trucks like that I would love to hear some of your memories,So please post them if you drove a top of the range model like this back in the day I think there would be some tales to tell.
Derby to Peterhead with steel pipes in a Thames Trader, and rolls of newsprint back from Markinch to Derby Evening Telegraph - 5.1/2 days round trip - you mean those sort of tales?
Volvo2 mentioned no power steering. You ain’t lived til you’ve driven an eight legger foden fully freighted. I didn’t steer 'em round corners, the only thing I could do was was aim the buggers and hope. Left a works in Feltham one afternoon in the late 60’s with paving slabs and concrete pipe sections for Bingley. I went to turn right at a set of lights and realised I wouldn’t get round, so being a super driver, I noticed the footpath was nice and wide and went round the other side of the traffic light post and back on the road again. The best of it was, that unlike nowadays, no one batted an eyelid.
Volvo2 I drove an eight wheel Leyland Octopus flat wagon for Bramham Haulage who were based in Waterloo a stones throw from Seaforth Dock Liverpool,
I used to have to stand up to steer it around corners it was a nightmare it was pre 1960
and this was 1973 it was freezing in the winter and roasting hot in the summer
I know do 4 nights driving a brand new MAN to Bristol or Falkirk, heated seat, automatic gearbox, cruise control, CD, etc etc never in my dreams would I think how things would change so dramatically for the better for comfort and pulling power
But I don’t enjoy driving as much now with heavy traffic, road closures, pressure from traffic office timed deliverys etc
That matador was very like it I must hunt the newspaper archives to see if I can get that pic of it
Both of those being examples of what the local council still had on its fleet in the early 1980’s and which I had the ‘privilege’ to drive there as a new driver.
Even worse when looking back the new trucks of that era and the international work where I wanted to be but couldn’t get into,was as good as truck development and the job will ever get.
truckyboy:
Great stories, wish i was old enough to remember some of them tales, my dad told me a few stories though.
Driving was never in my family, but as a kid I loved steam trains and lorries. They were engineering marvels and I grew up wanting to be a driver of both. Well, I’m half way there, but I do wish I could have driven the lorries of yesteryear. Even if they DID have Eaton twin splitters!!
truckyboy:
Great stories, wish i was old enough to remember some of them tales, my dad told me a few stories though.
Driving was never in my family, but as a kid I loved steam trains and lorries. They were engineering marvels and I grew up wanting to be a driver of both. Well, I’m half way there, but I do wish I could have driven the lorries of yesteryear. Even if they DID have Eaton twin splitters!!
Don’t listen to him. Truckyboy drove them when the tractor units were called Neddy and Dobbin, not DAF and Scania.
truckyboy:
Great stories, wish i was old enough to remember some of them tales, my dad told me a few stories though.
Driving was never in my family, but as a kid I loved steam trains and lorries. They were engineering marvels and I grew up wanting to be a driver of both. Well, I’m half way there, but I do wish I could have driven the lorries of yesteryear. Even if they DID have Eaton twin splitters!!
Don’t listen to him. Truckyboy drove them when the tractor units were called Neddy and Dobbin, not DAF and Scania.
) especially 'helping ’ with all the handball as it was then, but I used to love it in the school hols.
, my 1st truck was as a b cab erf, the biggest problem was getting her to stop, it went something like hold steering wheel, standup, press like crazy, pray 
Left a works in Feltham one afternoon in the late 60’s with paving slabs and concrete pipe sections for Bingley. I went to turn right at a set of lights and realised I wouldn’t get round, so being a super driver, I noticed the footpath was nice and wide and went round the other side of the traffic light post and back on the road again. The best of it was, that unlike nowadays, no one batted an eyelid. 
