Just wondered how you used to unload bricks years ago - if it was handball, how was this done?
Basically, with your arms outstretched, you’d grip as many as possible and transfer them from the stack on the truck to a stack on the ground.
I used pads made from old truck-tyre inner-tubes to reduce damage to my hands.
There was also a clamp with which you could pick up about six at a time,but in my book it was one of the worst loads to deliver.Good job there’s a thing called progress!!
Regards,900X20.
That must have made your arms ache…how many bricks were on a 40’ trailor 
?
I used to work in an unloading gang on a building site in the late 60s and unloaded hundreds of brick lorries by hand.
Not entirely sure what you mean about how it was done but we used to stand at the side of the truck and take the bricks off usually about six at a time i think and stack them neatly behind us.
Common house bricks weren’t much of a problem but we had to be more careful with facing bricks because the face could easily be damaged and the last thing a bricky wants is hundreds of chipped facing bricks to sort through.
They would be stacked in rows on their side and at the ends of the stack there would be alternate rows facing the other way to bind the ends of the stack, if my memory serves me correctly the artics would have 7,000 (could be completely wrong about that though) bricks on them and on a good day four of us could unload a truck of facing bricks in 30/40 minutes with minimal damage to the bricks.
900X20:
There was also a clamp with which you could pick up about six at a time
Yes mate but we called them hands 
Yes it was by Hand, I was on the unloading gang on Heron Estates back in around 1972/3. We’d unload lorry after lorry & it used to be great to be getting towards the end of the one you were on only to see two more pull in just up the road. It was non stop all shift but it kept me fit. We had a chap on the gang that cloud hold more bricks than any of us. To be honest, I can’t remember how many he’d pick up now, obviously ordinary house bricks would be very much lighter than engineering bricks & he’d make us look silly ig he was in the right mood.
We used to almost throw concrete blocks to each other to make the stack & thorouglhy enjoyed doing a load of Thermolite blocks or Marley Tiles because they were such a different beast compared to the bricks. They were good days, hard work but everyone seemed to get on & do the job. I think they carried 6.500 Bricks on a 6 wheeler 8,500 on an 8 & 11.000 on an artic but it was almost 40 years ago & my figures are possibly wrong. We also used to unload bags of cement which were a doddle compared to the hard items such as Bricks & Blocks because the bags were still often warm & plyable, although they then weighed 1cwt (about 50 kilos) they too were easy for a team used to working together.
Hydraulics now do everything, we started to see lorry based cable operated forklifts on London Brick lorries about 1973, if one of those turned up it was a breather for us, he’d go off & unload himself while we finished the handball work. Just about every building site has at least one forklift to do the work in a fraction of the time as well as doing most if not all of the loading out on site.
BB
Hiya i did 2 years flags from hulland ward to cambridge area and bricks from peterbourough to yorkshire area.
We had tipper work for winter months so we could rest our backs for a while…
You ask how we unloaded bricks!!! usually we got 3 labourers …4 was a gift. you stood at the side of the load
and usually took 4 bricks and put a row alongside the lorry straight below the chockrail. these you could stand on
to make yourself taller. now you have a full length layer of bricks the lenth of the trailer and 4 bricks wide
as the layers get higher the more into the trailer you can reach. The bricks was 10 wide on the truck so after
youve got 4 bricks back from the chock rail.IF you was lucky you could turn round.(if it was a bad tip as you turned
round you rocked the trailer on the turntable and 2000 bricks would fall off one side) when you had turned the
stack would be just below the flat deck so you stood on the stack and filled the back row up to about 2ft 6 higher
than the trailer you did,nt have to bend at this time then you filled row 3 upto deck hight by now you could throw
the bricks at the back rows and fill in to the height of the back rows.we would lift bricks as many as 10 at a time.
we would say to the labourers have you seen this you,d have 6 bricks(the labourers had 4 )so they,d do 6 so you,d do 8
and they,d copy you(that speeded things up) If you worked well it took about 90 mins to do 10,000 bricks.3 labourers
To show off if you could see about 12 bricks you,d pick them up( that was a row of 12 bricks squeezed from each end)
they needed to be dry.(lighter)There was a chap who could do 18 bricks.(londons they was quite light)I hope you get the idea.
we never passed bricks to each other you picked them up and stacked them.
Can i say that now i have a very bad shoulder.Thats showing off when younger.we would tip 22 tons of flags in under
18 mins .on good ground.(soft grass)
Haarrr good old days
John
mazz:
That must have made your arms ache…how many bricks were on a 40’ trailor
Hiya mazz… if you had Londons we called then 10,00 on a artic but it was 10,600 i think.
if you had concrete commons on from Buxton 6,000 was 20 ton.
I have carried engineering bricks from Pensnett area and i think 4 and half thousend was over 20 tons.
I was lucky as in 1977 i had a hiab and could lift 2000 Bownings bricks off at once. hiabs was quite rear
in the 70,s(compared to now) i would run with 4/5 flat trailers and unload them with my crane.
I see other chaps have done the bricks we had a ball telling jokes and playing tricks on each other.
most jokes was about the irish one day a chap said you take the p… but ok when we unload you
He was just getting back at us as he came to the cafe with us and i got the teas in.
John
during the war men were men you see and due to the nature of things the most common way to unload bricks was to get ya woman to do it for ya …
young drivers ■■? i ask ya … 
My driving career started with carting bricks out of railway trucks. You would be on your own loading with the aid of an adjustable hand held clamp, as someone previously mentioned, and would carry one odd brick in the other hand. You wouldn’t travel far to the site as the trucks were always shunted into the nearest available station and there would normally be help so unloading would be the easy part, plus you would get to know the old boys after a few times. To see a line of railway trucks in a station siding,all loaded with bricks,first thing on a monday morning didn’t do much to lift the spirit.
When I started doing distance work many backloads were bricks but it was a hundred times easier loading directly from the works, in fact sometimes there were so many blokes barrowing from the kilns you would be in the way. With facing bricks, straw was sprinkled on each row to in a bid to stop damage. The worst loads came from Armitage at Howley Park near Dewsbury. They would load you with a machine but it was hand-ball off, engineering bricks too,very heavy. No gloves in those days either, my hands were like leather. Regards to all, Haddy Gt. Yarmouth.
When I started on the bricks in the late 70’s handball loads were few and far between - Thank the lord 
all brick loading at that time was done with fork trucks, but you did have the occasional handball offload and they were mainly to building sites, although quite a few merchants still had them loose, Dawsons in Clapham junction were one particular merchant, if you had their yard with an artic load - 11,400 and got in there just before dinner they would put about 10 blokes on you and you would be tipped and away in about 45 minutes.
How many blokes would want to do it nowadays…Eh 
I put this pic on the Berkshire Companies thread, but thought that it might be appropriate here as well. It is Thermalite’s yard in Reading taken late 50’s when my old chap drove one of the eight legger Foden’s. I did some miles in that truck! The two Leyland Comet’s are artic’s by the way.
Pete.
I used to load at London Brick Peterbro in the 70’s special forks used to load in about 15mins tipping was handball.The answer to how we got them off was usually very slowly.
The fork lifts had four forks and did they not have small air bags in the
side of the forks and when they picked the stack up they inflated to keep them solid ?.
Remember going to a site in Durham with dress/face bricks got the sheet off a jcb driver came along said ill
tip you , thinking OH MOST HAVE A FORK LIFT WITH AN ATATCHMENT.
Nah just got the bucket and pushed the lot off nice flush deck trailer. 
The site forman came runing down red faced he looked like a helicopter which had just lost one of its rotors
the arm waving he was doing still got a clear sig for the load but the jcb driver got a right good ear bashing.
kevmac47:
I used to load at London Brick Peterbro in the 70’s special forks used to load in about 15mins tipping was handball.The answer to how we got them off was usually very slowly.
Hiya …they did,nt mess around in p,bourough did they kevmac47.
Do you remember the checker at kings dyke?? an older chap with about size14 feet
his boots was so long he looked like a clown.
one afternoon i went to Buckley bricks nr Carnarfon it was 4 pm,ish i got my paperwork from the office
the girl sent me up the yard to a checker( he only had half of a right arm)he said i,ll get a truck
WELL thats all you need a one arm truck driver!!! at that time of day…
The next minute theres a roar and this truck came out of a building with three packs of bricks on,
i dropped a side quickley. Dump 3 packs on. i dropped another side and he,s there again. Dump.!!!
i drop another side jump in the cab fire the old girl up pop her in PTO and before
i can lift the crane he,there waiting, off he goes i jump down and opened the last side board (well mesh things)
he,s there again he dissapeared then back again with 2 packs. This FLT had moving forks. He slotted 2 packs in at the
side of the 3 pack. I put up a side. walk round the other side thats done. up with the sides. by now he,s given me my
paperwork back and gone!!!. I ,ve still Got to place the crane and clamp… wow i left the yard in 25 mins.
I spoke to a Marshalls driver about 8 years ago he said he loaded at this yard and said the chap had just retired.
It was 1978 when he loaded me. I,ll never forget him what a guy…He steered the truck with this short arm through the
steering wheel spokes, it was better then a steering wheel knob…brilliant…any of you lads know him■■?
John
It was to long ago to remember individuals 3300john but I do seem to recall they were for-runners of the H&S brigade (if you park there again you will be banned) The yard I hated going to most was dogsthorpe it always seemed to take ages to get there from the offices.
The first two loads I did with my D1000/A licence was for a Kendal builder one Friday,and was two loads of 3000 each of facing bricks from Blencoe brick plant nr. Penrith down to Ambleside.My next two loads on the Monday was two 60 bale loads of woodpulp (12 ton each!!) for Brady’s from Barrow dock into Croppers at Kendal.After I’d tipped the second load on Tuesday morning I sat in the canteen having my breakfast when the Big grumpy despatch manager came up behind me and “grunted” “there’s a load for Glasgow if you want it” he was walking away by I got turned round with a mouthful of bacon!!! But I was on my way,I was!!! Cheers Dennis.
talking of one armed flt drivers john , do you remember alan at smalldale works [ edenhall ] . he lost his left arm in the brick plant in the 70s . he drove a big clamp truck with the controls on the right side , but he could make that machine sing . only chap i know that could pick up 2 concrete engineering brick in one hand . really nice lad , sadly died suddenly at the age of 47 , the works was shut down for the day of his funeral , dave
rigsby:
talking of one armed flt drivers john , do you remember alan at smalldale works [ edenhall ] . he lost his left arm in the brick plant in the 70s . he drove a big clamp truck with the controls on the right side , but he could make that machine sing . only chap i know that could pick up 2 concrete engineering brick in one hand . really nice lad , sadly died suddenly at the age of 47 , the works was shut down for the day of his funeral , dave
Hiya rigsdy…i never did a load from edenhall was that dalglish chap with the F12 in there at that time■■?, i know andy thompsom got the contract from there and only had one truck.was sam salt running from edenhall■■? i run out of peakstone with eric perkins/ tony heathcote and two others. i worked for harrisons
and eric slaved the bricks off me, then harrison brought the peakstone trailer that was tonys and i run with that, it was a 5ton hiab brilliant.
have a good xmas and new year mate…I see graham has missed the snow …might of known.
Cheers John