Its amazing how many different body builders there were making removal bodies.
Click on page once.
Hello Dean , great truck body adverts , that last TK , I do hope there was a ramp and not steps fitted to the cheese board on the side !!! or that would of none gone down with the crew ! i never saw any but i know Pickfords had the early sliding doors on there early container wagons .
What is up Dean, you not posted this DAF on here for us ! ? 
2ND week back lads ! well for the men and most of the weeks have been either finishing pre lockdown/March work or starting March moves and still got the odd one next week . Work is coming in for June and the odd one later ! my worry is the Spike coming soon or in the winter when we all know removals slow down.
I still got two on furlough but hopefully the 1st or 8th of June i will have enough work to be able to call them back in .
Trucks for some reason have this last week started to cost money, batteries etc (i surpose the 7/8 weeks did not do them any good) although i did start them every other day.
My bathroom contracts have restarted so my wagon should be busy as it has a cantilever tail lift for pallets .
We started to help out another dead completion mover but i not in a position to turn porter assistance away ,i refused to wear there uniforms though ! we see how that goes as like sorting the blankets out and keeping the ties straight brings on a few frowns !! 
, i am there for the spare days they need help and they need me , i know my men will not go there ,but this week me and my son did and this coming week they need one or two for two days, there is no chance i loose my son to them though as he is dedicated to his granddads firm .
JAKEY:
2ND week back lads ! well for the men and most of the weeks have been either finishing pre lockdown/March work or starting March moves and still got the odd one next week . Work is coming in for June and the odd one later ! my worry is the Spike coming soon or in the winter when we all know removals slow down.I still got two on furlough but hopefully the 1st or 8th of June i will have enough work to be able to call them back in .
Trucks for some reason have this last week started to cost money, batteries etc (i surpose the 7/8 weeks did not do them any good) although i did start them every other day.
My bathroom contracts have restarted so my wagon should be busy as it has a cantilever tail lift for pallets .
We started to help out another dead completion mover but i not in a position to turn porter assistance away ,i refused to wear there uniforms though ! we see how that goes as like sorting the blankets out and keeping the ties straight brings on a few frowns !!
Good to hear things are slowly picking up for you Jakey. 
Hi Steve mate,glad you up and running we are struggling big style not enough trucks to much work and the runs getting stupid and impossible to get round
DEANB:
Dennis Javelin:
I think that trailer from Manchester might have ended up with me. I was in charge of Pickfords Distribution in Scotland in the early 80’s when we had the contract to deliver furniture on behalf of all the catalogue companies. Prior to my arrival they used to send deliveries for the Shetland Isles via Macbraynes but the amount of damages was horrendous as they were transhipped into ordinary box vans before being shipped. There was a lot of traffic going to the islands then as this was the only way they could get access to modern furniture at decent prices. At that time there was a container service from Grangemouth to Shetland (once a week I think) and I arranged for a 20’ step frame trailer with twistlocks to be transferred from Manchester to us in Glasgow. The shipping company provided us with the containers f.o.c. (the use of them not the freight costs!!) and even allowed us to use the container as a store after its arrival on the island - I guess they were keen to get as much traffic as possible. I set up a driver and van on the island to re-deliver the furniture up there and from that day on we had no more claims for damages and the costs were considerably lower than we had been paying to Macbraynes. Win-win for us.Intresting story Dennis. Do you have any pics of your time at Pickfords ?
Unfortunately not. My interest has always been in buses so the only pictures I have are from my time in the navy when I took some pics. One day I’ll get them out of the attic and post them. Pickfords was a strange experience. In all my time with the NFC I never came across a company so averse to change as them. They even referred to the trucks as “cars” which, I was told, was a throwback to the railways (as in railways cars for freight).
hi dennis , was you at London road, I delivered catalogue three piece suites there in the early 80’s probably for onward shipping to the isles…
m.a.n rules:
hi dennis , was you at London road, I delivered catalogue three piece suites there in the early 80’s probably for onward shipping to the isles…
Yes, we shared the yard with the heavy haulage guys. I remember the three piece suites well, took up loads of room for very little extra payment from the catalogues companies.
This picture is for Jakey and the Removal boys. I expect that this cart needed
2 or 3 Heavy Horses to pull it when fully loaded. Clydesdales and other Heavy
Horse breeds were very common in Liverpool many years ago. The drivers “Cab”
was rather sparse, his only controls were the horses reins and the handbrake wheel. NMP.
Ray.
Hello Ray ,thats a cracking cart , i would of thought two horses at the very least.
Dennis Javelin:
m.a.n rules:
hi dennis , was you at London road, I delivered catalogue three piece suites there in the early 80’s probably for onward shipping to the isles…Yes, we shared the yard with the heavy haulage guys. I remember the three piece suites well, took up loads of room for very little extra payment from the catalogues companies.
Why did Pickfords lose the new furniture contract? I thought it would have paid well,i seem to remember they had a depot at white city in Manchester.
jeffreyk:
Dennis Javelin:
m.a.n rules:
hi dennis , was you at London road, I delivered catalogue three piece suites there in the early 80’s probably for onward shipping to the isles…Yes, we shared the yard with the heavy haulage guys. I remember the three piece suites well, took up loads of room for very little extra payment from the catalogues companies.
Why did Pickfords lose the new furniture contract? I thought it would have paid well,i seem to remember they had a depot at white city in Manchester.
I can’t say for certain why they didn’t keep it as I wasn’t privy to the whole operation. I don’t know how many of the branches made a profit - my operation was losing a small fortune when I was sent in. The deliveries were all two man, a driver and a porter (this was the days before flat pack) and Pickfords insisted on using standard removal vans to deliver. The vans were loaded at night on their return to the depot which was all adding to the cost. We had the situation whereby the warehouse staff did nothing during the day as the vans were out delivering and then were paid overtime to load the van when it returned to the depot. Each delivery took on average about 20 mins (it’s not always east to find a ■■■■■■■■■■■■ for a 2000’ cubic feet removal van to park in). The vans would be stuck in traffic in the mornings trying to get to their first drop and the driver had to get back to the depot before his hours ran out. After about a month of this I decided that this had to change so I managed to source a batch of single axle trailers fitted with 1200’ cubic feet bodies and some tractor units (small Bedfords and Leylands). This allowed for the trailers to be loaded during the day and simply swapped over in the evening in preparation for the next day. We were fortunate that a number of the drivers already had Class 1’s and those that didn’t were trained. Rather than a driver and porter I then put two drivers on the deliveries allowing them to stay out longer (the additional overtime was very welcome to them). We then started to achieve a daily delivery rate of about 40 units per vehicle - up from an average of 20!!.
I then looked at the situation regarding deliveries to the offshore islands. Up to this point Pickfords had always used Macbraynes but as I mentioned in an earlier post the damages were horrendous and Macbraynes weren’t cheap - we paid full rate. I took out adverts in all of the local island newspapers asking for small contractors to contact us and I transferred all these deliveries onto them. These guys were a lot cheaper but more attentive - after all they lived on the islands so would face the wrath of the customer if anything arrived damaged. I’m not saying that my introduction of this freight to them changed their lives but there were a few that went on to grow their fleet after we started using them. Within 6 months our operation started to turn a - small - profit but we were only one part of the whole contract so what I did in Scotland wouldn’t necessarily have worked in other parts of the country. I think the difference was that, because I wasn’t steeped in the Pickford’s tradition, I was able to look at problems from a different viewpoint and act accordingly. To many of the branches the distribution contract was merely an addition to their main core removals business that they could use to top up revenue when the removals side was quiet and they paid it lip service.
So, in essence, it probably failed as it was being run by the wrong people who had no background in anything other than removals and wouldn’t countenance a new way of operating. But then that was Pickford’s to a “T”. Theirs was the only way to do things no matter how obvious it was that changes had to be made. The other big removal firms changed their fleets and practices to match the changes in the workplace. At a time when everyone else was moving on to vehicles that could deal with long motorway trips Pickford’s were still buying huge swathes of Bedford’s. They were no longer competitive in the local removal market as more and more small operators started up. It wasn’t that difficult to become a member of the B.A.R (British Association of Removers) so credibility was easily established in the eyes of the customer. By the 80’s Pickford’s had become an anachronism, stuck in a time zone that others had escaped from long before. The NFC tried to shake them up by swapping the MD’s and bringing in one from the BRS side of things but by then it was too late - the culture and working practices were out of touch and this would never be changed.
Given the culture within Pickford’s the distribution contract was doomed to failure before it began. With any contract you are only as good as your weakest link and unfortunately Pickford’s was riddled with weak links.
I’ve seen many photos of 7.5ton gross Bedford TK’s with very large luton van bodies that must often be overloaded, and many of these will have the ill fated 220 cu in 4 cylinder engines that were the standard engine fitted to 7.5ton TKs. I cannot help but wonder how they managed as particularly with the wind resistance experienced with high vans the engines, that was not the most reliable at best must have been tested to its limits .
We only had one 220 and it was dreadful. We had 3 7.5 ton Bedfords One based Spennymoor & one Sheffield & 1 Wellingborough but smaller bodies & 330 engines.
But 2 Ford D series 7.5 GVW one London & 1 Sheffield with Ford 4 cylinder engine were no trouble.
Hi lads ,sorry not been on busy in work had a night out Friday first time in ages got Somerset tomorrow 12 drops ,hows things with you Steve ,I talked to mark the other day he still not working even though other brittania depots are
Robthedog, great photos ,Scania looks so lush .
JAKEY:
John ,night out on a Friday !!! you must be busy.My wagon and the 3.5 t on a local today .
hi Steve looking good mate yes we are very busy mate picking up a lot now and struggling had a good 45 break on Burnham sea front dinner time even sat on the beach it was nice 