John we were at Burnham a few weeks ago ,The hoff is in Paignton next Wednesday evening ,is there a lorry or Coach park ?
JAKEY:
John we were at Burnham a few weeks ago ,The hoff is in Paignton next Wednesday evening ,is there a lorry or Coach park ?
Hi Steve,yes mate I think it’s by the station I will have a look as we are down there most days
Thank you John , we got to pack-load and travel about 1500ft on to The hoffs motor ,be there for the evening ,client has the keys so 7am start the following day ,tip and return 
easy enough job for two men 
We now have all six men back at work and there is plenty to do ,i think after the next three months boom it will fall flat on its face but lets see how we get on .
smallcoal:
JAKEY:
John we were at Burnham a few weeks ago ,The hoff is in Paignton next Wednesday evening ,is there a lorry or Coach park ?Hi Steve,yes mate I think it’s by the station I will have a look as we are down there most days
We used to park on sea front near the pier in paignton , always a few removal trucks parked up there.
Frosty63:
smallcoal:
JAKEY:
John we were at Burnham a few weeks ago ,The hoff is in Paignton next Wednesday evening ,is there a lorry or Coach park ?Hi Steve,yes mate I think it’s by the station I will have a look as we are down there most days
We used to park on sea front near the pier in paignton , always a few removal trucks parked up there.
I was wondering if you still could hopefully Steve will see this ,I keep my open for the Hoff,glad you all back up and running have you shaved your beard mate
Thank you Frosy63 
, the job is next Wednesday/Thursday ,not today !!! its not me any how.
JAKEY:
Thank you Frosy63
Good to see you are slowly picking up some work JAKEY. 
Hill’s Garage Manchester advert from 1964.
Is there a faded clue as to who ran this motor.
Oily
DEANB:
Hill’s Garage Manchester advert from 1964.
Hi Dean,
That ad from Hills ran for many years. Below is a photo of one of ours same from 1963, the 4th we had of that model Marsden. Except we bought the chassis from Adams & Gibbons our local Bedford agents & then dealt directly with Marsden which worked out considerably cheaper than the price Hills were selling for. We paid A & G cash & Marsden cash, not using finance, but had we financed we would have being paying interest for months while the chassis was waiting for Marsden to build the body, so I suppose in those conditions Hills might not have been too expensive.
Manchester was always popular for sale of new pantechnicons. Our first petrol Bedford SB was bought 1952 from Blakes who were Manchester Bedford agents advertised in Commercial Motor.
Then the Hills advert which went from aprox 1960 until Syd Abram started advertising, and continued selling in vast volumes.
I did hear that the sales manager from Hills joined Abrams & took the van sales with him.
Originally they used Marsden to build the bodies & I was with my dad when Ken Marsden explained Abram approached them with a huge order but wanted the cost of the bodies trimmed by a considerable factor and the only way they could do that was reduction in quality of the build. Abrams approached Boyer Brothers of Congleton who eventually traded as Boalloy Ltd. & made fame with Tautliner trailers. The rest is history.
We never bought a new Bedford from Syd Abram but got three when we bought a small fleet of vans. They didn’t last long with us, with many problems with bodywork including windscreens falling out, cracking backframes etc. I know many used them on removals & were happy but ours were used on variety of use and not standing large part of the days loading & unloading and doing high mileages.
I always wondered if Blakes lost Bedford franchise to hills who then lost to Abrams or whether these three dealerships survived together in Manchester.
Hope you are keeping well & away from this horrible virus
Great photos John , as it Dean not rate cutting i am fine with that !!
Any idea where the Pickfords picture was taken, I know it was a three pallet van based at Enfield
Carl Williams:
DEANB:
Hill’s Garage Manchester advert from 1964.Hi Dean,
That ad from Hills ran for many years. Below is a photo of one of ours same from 1963, the 4th we had of that model Marsden. Except we bought the chassis from Adams & Gibbons our local Bedford agents & then dealt directly with Marsden which worked out considerably cheaper than the price Hills were selling for. We paid A & G cash & Marsden cash, not using finance, but had we financed we would have being paying interest for months while the chassis was waiting for Marsden to build the body, so I suppose in those conditions Hills might not have been too expensive.
Manchester was always popular for sale of new pantechnicons. Our first petrol Bedford SB was bought 1952 from Blakes who were Manchester Bedford agents advertised in Commercial Motor.
Then the Hills advert which went from aprox 1960 until Syd Abram started advertising, and continued selling in vast volumes.
I did hear that the sales manager from Hills joined Abrams & took the van sales with him.
Originally they used Marsden to build the bodies & I was with my dad when Ken Marsden explained Abram approached them with a huge order but wanted the cost of the bodies trimmed by a considerable factor and the only way they could do that was reduction in quality of the build. Abrams approached Boyer Brothers of Congleton who eventually traded as Boalloy Ltd. & made fame with Tautliner trailers. The rest is history.
We never bought a new Bedford from Syd Abram but got three when we bought a small fleet of vans. They didn’t last long with us, with many problems with bodywork including windscreens falling out, cracking backframes etc. I know many used them on removals & were happy but ours were used on variety of use and not standing large part of the days loading & unloading and doing high mileages.I always wondered if Blakes lost Bedford franchise to hills who then lost to Abrams or whether these three dealerships survived together in Manchester.
Hope you are keeping well & away from this horrible virus
Morning Carl,
Yes keeping away from the virus.We have been very lucky where i live and very low cases. Hope you are keeping well.
Sound like that advert brought back alot of memories. Its amazing how many different body builders there were back
in the 50’s and 60’s. It seems that every major town had one. We had a local one that would build anything. They would build a pantecnicon
then the next build would be a tipper !
Heres a Marsden advert from 1965. (click on pages twice)
You also mentioned Bower Bros who then traded as Boalloy,heres an advert from 1968.
DEANB:
Carl Williams:
DEANB:
Hill’s Garage Manchester advert from 1964.Hi Dean,
That ad from Hills ran for many years. Below is a photo of one of ours same from 1963, the 4th we had of that model Marsden. Except we bought the chassis from Adams & Gibbons our local Bedford agents & then dealt directly with Marsden which worked out considerably cheaper than the price Hills were selling for. We paid A & G cash & Marsden cash, not using finance, but had we financed we would have being paying interest for months while the chassis was waiting for Marsden to build the body, so I suppose in those conditions Hills might not have been too expensive.
Manchester was always popular for sale of new pantechnicons. Our first petrol Bedford SB was bought 1952 from Blakes who were Manchester Bedford agents advertised in Commercial Motor.
Then the Hills advert which went from aprox 1960 until Syd Abram started advertising, and continued selling in vast volumes.
I did hear that the sales manager from Hills joined Abrams & took the van sales with him.
Originally they used Marsden to build the bodies & I was with my dad when Ken Marsden explained Abram approached them with a huge order but wanted the cost of the bodies trimmed by a considerable factor and the only way they could do that was reduction in quality of the build. Abrams approached Boyer Brothers of Congleton who eventually traded as Boalloy Ltd. & made fame with Tautliner trailers. The rest is history.
We never bought a new Bedford from Syd Abram but got three when we bought a small fleet of vans. They didn’t last long with us, with many problems with bodywork including windscreens falling out, cracking backframes etc. I know many used them on removals & were happy but ours were used on variety of use and not standing large part of the days loading & unloading and doing high mileages.I always wondered if Blakes lost Bedford franchise to hills who then lost to Abrams or whether these three dealerships survived together in Manchester.
Hope you are keeping well & away from this horrible virus
Morning Carl,
Yes keeping away from the virus.We have been very lucky where i live and very low cases. Hope you are keeping well.
Sound like that advert brought back alot of memories.
in the 50’s and 60’s. It seems that every major town had one. We had a local one that would build anything. They would build a pantecnicon
then the next build would be a tipper !Heres a Marsden advert from 1965. (click on pages twice)
You also mentioned Bower Bros who then traded as Boalloy,heres an advert from 1968.
Hi Dean,
The Bowyer Bros (Boalloy) advert is very interesting, I can never remember seeing that before & I cannot remember them having a stand at the Commercial Motor show with a pantechnicon on display, but probably by then they would be promoting the Tautliner trailers. I perhaps am a bit unfair at criticising their body-building abilities, apart from the three we had that had been built to Abrams specifications which had been built to cut costs, we had 2 Seddon Pennines and the example in the photograph built on a Ford passenger chassis & these vans were built to a much higher standard. They never, from my memory, achieved building vans in full glass fibre as Marsden did, which of course made them much easier to maintain. We also had them build Tautliners onto three 40 ft platform trailers we had.
The photo of the little Bedford CA van also brought back memories We had a 1957 example which we ran until 1964. It was an original CA before the facelift the one on the advert displays. I was very disappointed that it was sold before I started driving, so never had the pleasure of driving it. However the chap we sold it to kept it in our livery and it must have been about Christmas 1965 I had Christmas holiday from school and in those times we used to get vey busy at Christmas time and in those days even small vans like that had to display an ‘A’ licence but we could get a temporary extension for an extra vehicle if we applied to the Northern Traffic area, something we did every year & then applied successfully to get them made permanent. (A way of increasing each year an increase on your ‘A’ licence). I approached Don Clegg who had bought the CA luton van & had it parked up, just using very occasionally to see if we could buy it back, as it was still in our livery & ready for me to drive during my school holidays. He said no, he just wanted to keep it as he polished it each week and loved looking at it as he’d wanted to own it for so long.
Our Bedford CA was supplied by Gregories of Uxbridge Bedford agents and the body had been built by Locomotors. When I was young I used to sit in the cab at the wonderment of the craftsmentship of the bodybuilders work. Evey piece of wood in the van had been screwed in place with washers & the screws countersunk & covered to give a flush finish as were the tie-rails in the rear.
So there’s another bodybuilder who built quality bodies Locomotors. Like you say there were so many throughout the country. We had up here Sherwood & Wynn near Darlington and another in Darlington who’s name escapes me & Northern Assemblies at Consett in County Durham who all built quite a lot of luton vans & pantechnicons,
Carl Williams:
Hi Dean,The Bowyer Bros (Boalloy) advert is very interesting, I can never remember seeing that before & I cannot remember them having a stand at the Commercial Motor show with a pantechnicon on display, but probably by then they would be promoting the Tautliner trailers. I perhaps am a bit unfair at criticising their body-building abilities, apart from the three we had that had been built to Abrams specifications which had been built to cut costs, we had 2 Seddon Pennines and the example in the photograph built on a Ford passenger chassis & these vans were built to a much higher standard. They never, from my memory, achieved building vans in full glass fibre as Marsden did, which of course made them much easier to maintain. We also had them build Tautliners onto three 40 ft platform trailers we had.
The photo of the little Bedford CA van also brought back memories We had a 1957 example which we ran until 1964. It was an original CA before the facelift the one on the advert displays. I was very disappointed that it was sold before I started driving, so never had the pleasure of driving it. However the chap we sold it to kept it in our livery and it must have been about Christmas 1965 I had Christmas holiday from school and in those times we used to get vey busy at Christmas time and in those days even small vans like that had to display an ‘A’ licence but we could get a temporary extension for an extra vehicle if we applied to the Northern Traffic area, something we did every year & then applied successfully to get them made permanent. (A way of increasing each year an increase on your ‘A’ licence). I approached Don Clegg who had bought the CA luton van & had it parked up, just using very occasionally to see if we could buy it back, as it was still in our livery & ready for me to drive during my school holidays. He said no, he just wanted to keep it as he polished it each week and loved looking at it as he’d wanted to own it for so long.
Our Bedford CA was supplied by Gregories of Uxbridge Bedford agents and the body had been built by Locomotors. When I was young I used to sit in the cab at the wonderment of the craftsmentship of the bodybuilders work. Evey piece of wood in the van had been screwed in place with washers & the screws countersunk & covered to give a flush finish as were the tie-rails in the rear.So there’s another bodybuilder who built quality bodies Locomotors. Like you say there were so many throughout the country. We had up here Sherwood & Wynn near Darlington and another in Darlington who’s name escapes me & Northern Assemblies at Consett in County Durham who all built quite a lot of luton vans & pantechnicons,
Good story about the fella who bought your CA Bedford van.
Heres an earlier Bowyer bros advert from 1964.
Heres a bit about Locomotors. (Click on pages twice)
Overs of Camberley 1989.
Click on pages twice to read.
Hi lads.sorry not been on but it’s hell with us at the moment not enough trucks 3 drivers have walked work stacking up cause we can’t move it starting to lose the plot slightly hope you boys are busy and keeping the wolf from the door
