Anyone remember Elliots Bricks of Lepton, Huddersfield. I drove for them in the early 60’s. Ancient 4 wheeled Fodens, joiner built wooden framed cabs, high bodies, don’t know what they had been used for in earlier life, but too high for site work very top heavy when loaded. Crash boxes and servo brakes that worked every other day. Only 8 in the fleet, 6 dropsides for facing bricks, (all handball jobs) and 2 tippers for common bricks. One of which I had to drive because of my soft hands and an aversion to blisters and hard work. Very delicate lad I was in my youth. 
hiya,
Remember when down South back in the 70s can’t remember where but was instructed to pick a load of bricks up i had a 55 foot flat trailer on so prior to loading wondering how to load to keep the axle weights OK no need to have bothered when arriving at the works the bricks where specials for lining furnaces and so light they would float on water, a deal was done and the company agreed to pay 30 tons capacity to load the whole trailer out, two pallets high all the way through about 14 tons actual weight real flying load when i eventually got it roped and sheeted, and one drop Sheffield too boot, can’t be bad.
thanks harry long retired.
The Yorkshireman:
Anyone remember Elliots Bricks of Lepton, Huddersfield. I drove for them in the early 60’s. Ancient 4 wheeled Fodens, joiner built wooden framed cabs, high bodies, don’t know what they had been used for in earlier life, but too high for site work very top heavy when loaded. Crash boxes and servo brakes that worked every other day. Only 8 in the fleet, 6 dropsides for facing bricks, (all handball jobs) and 2 tippers for common bricks. One of which I had to drive because of my soft hands and an aversion to blisters and hard work. Very delicate lad I was in my youth.
I remember Elliots, I worked for them for a few months in 1977 they had Atki artics and I had a 6wheel Albion LAD cab with a great hole in the floor just under the seat - I only drove through one puddle with it, the muddy water went up under my legs and even up the inside of the windscreen. There was a missing window in the back and I used to love nipping my hand in the ratchet hand brake! Selecting 2nd gear was also very pleasant as your elbow connected with the back of the cab. It was luxurious in that it did have a crane for offloading though and loading was done by forklift, then I got a lucky break and got a job at Shaws Fuels and never looked back!
gb1:
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.
i,ve handballed loads of bricks worst job ever my eyes would be sore with dust and lots of straw as well [stoney03]
I have hand balled bricks when working on building sites before going onto lorry driving. Butterly Bricks artics used to bring them in.Have hand balled them off lorries that I have driven,didn’t mind that.Worse than bricks in my opinion were 9X9X18" concrete blocks.I have unloaded ten ton loads of those on my own sometimes.Not the best of jobs,but when you are young and there is no handling and lifting laws you do it.
Cheers Dave.
i can remember my stepdad use to get 5 or 6 guys from the village to have half day on there normal jobs and help him unload the old 8 wheel volvos then one day 1979 i think he had them all there waiting when i got home from skool only for a brand new F7 turned up with a crane on !!! he cussed when he had to pay them to watch the driver unload um !! haha
I had nearly two years on Marston Valley, Ridgemont, and then, being young and foolish, went on for B H King at Goldington, cos I fancied an artic for 2/10 halfpenny an hour !!! The last handball I did was at Lightwater, Surrey, 7,500 commons, properly stacked, in 2 hours and 10 mins, all for £2. The trick was to get yourself a flat piece of ground, put your first row under your feet, same length as your load, then go 4 rows back, ; once you had a comfortable working height to reach the middle bolt on your load, then just build up the back two rows. On reaching the middle carefully turn the truck, (it would be easy to lose the outside bolt when turning). keep the truck out until you had built up the front of your stack, then pull in close and top off with your remaining two or three bolts. I still have my diary for 1964, I made £124 in " beer money" that year !!!
I remember doing bricks in the 60s, from Stewartby LBC. they were all handball, 2 blokes usually from another country & myself of course loaded the trailer, I put the straw among the bricks , stopped a bit of chipping 7/1/2 thousand a time they were for Brims at the Charles TTrevelian College ,or the pill factory at Morpeth. I also used to do John T Bells sites at Chaplepark, Westerhope. Then in later years I used to do them for McGovern, much easier to say the least, happy days, Regards Larry.
An old mate of mine used to be on for John Raymond out of Bridgend in the early 70’s when they had Atkinsons and used to load out of the old Calvert brickyard near Aylesbury and he got to a site late afternoon, the foreman said we’re all off home now mate if I give you a fiver will you unload them yourself.
So he said yes and when they had gone drove around the site throwing off a few bricks in small piles, he then drove over them which resulted in most of the bricks being shaken off the trailer and what was left he swept off the side.
This picture of the land tiles is great. a great friend who died in January worked for his dads drainage company, he was the driver, engineer and leader of men while his dad was an ex Olympic and Army rifle shooting champion.
They had a brand new Scammell Michelotti Handyman which they ran for about 25 years and replaced by a Unimog, this was used to move the draining machine & plant, collect spare parts, take us to the pub and collect a load of tiles from Escrick for the jobs they did.
Ivan was only about 5’ and would load the pipes with a modified ball end beet fork with hose pipe on the tines, they were still doing this until the advent of plastic and hessian covered plastic pipe 
Bojangles69:
I had nearly two years on Marston Valley, Ridgemont, and then, being young and foolish, went on for B H King at Goldington, cos I fancied an artic for 2/10 halfpenny an hour !!! The last handball I did was at Lightwater, Surrey, 7,500 commons, properly stacked, in 2 hours and 10 mins, all for £2. The trick was to get yourself a flat piece of ground, put your first row under your feet, same length as your load, then go 4 rows back, ; once you had a comfortable working height to reach the middle bolt on your load, then just build up the back two rows. On reaching the middle carefully turn the truck, (it would be easy to lose the outside bolt when turning). keep the truck out until you had built up the front of your stack, then pull in close and top off with your remaining two or three bolts. I still have my diary for 1964, I made £124 in " beer money" that year !!!
I’ve mention on another thread my interest in the “brick motors” and that they used to swarm all over cafe car parks in the 60’s and early 70’s but I’ve never heard anything of how they operated! What was a day’s work for those 4 wheelers,I’ve read somewhere that the 8 wheelers used to do the longer trips to the South coast ect. And which was the better outfit to work for—Marston Valley or London Brick?LB always seemed to me to have the better motors,but they were the same firm wer’nt they,just different colour schemes?Both fleets sure were a permanent fixture on the roads around London( and every cafe,if you could get on the park!) when I was a regular “darn the smoke”. Cheers Bewick.
stevecook:
The Yorkshireman:
Anyone remember Elliots Bricks of Lepton, Huddersfield. I drove for them in the early 60’s. Ancient 4 wheeled Fodens, joiner built wooden framedII remember Elliots, I worked for them for a few months in 1977 they had Atki artics and I had a 6wheel Albion LAD cab with a great hole in the floor just under the seat - I only drove through one puddle with it, the muddy water went up under my legs and even up the inside of the windscreen. There was a missing window in the back and I used to love nipping my hand in the ratchet hand brake! Selecting 2nd gear was also very pleasant as your elbow connected with the back of the cab. It was luxurious in that it did have a crane for offloading though and loading was done by forklift, then I got a lucky break and got a job at Shaws Fuels and never looked back!
Newsastle
I remember loading at Elliots at Leptonin the 90s, They had an Ex army forklift,& the driver was a Newcastle United fan, I used to collect the bricks for McGoverns at Felling, I sometimes struggled to get traction coming out of the brickyard when it was raining, Happy Days is it still going ?most of the brickyards I went to have closed down, Regards Larry
Bewick:
I’ve mention on another thread my interest in the “brick motors” and that they used to swarm all over cafe car parks in the 60’s and early 70’s but I’ve never heard anything of how they operated! What was a day’s work for those 4 wheelers,I’ve read somewhere that the 8 wheelers used to do the longer trips to the South coast ect. And which was the better outfit to work for—Marston Valley or London Brick?LB always seemed to me to have the better motors,but they were the same firm wer’nt they,just different colour schemes?Both fleets sure were a permanent fixture on the roads around London( and every cafe,if you could get on the park!) when I was a regular “darn the smoke”. Cheers Bewick.
Bewick, mostly the 8 wheelers would do the longer runs as you say, and the 4 wheelers would do the shorter runs so they could get 2 loads a day in, mainly in and around the home counties, they could carry between 3 and 4 thousand on a 4 wheeler usually.
Marston Valley and London Brick were 2 totally different companies and were always competing against each other, alongside Eastwoods,( Redlands) Until the takeover in the early 70’s when everything became LBC and then the final nail in the coffin when Hanson took over in the 80’s.
I Know, or say knew, loads of ‘Valley’ drivers in the past and am assured that Marston had the better motors in the earlier years and was a much better job than LBC, sadly there is no longer any working Brickworks at all in Bedfordshire, a real shame 
Trev.
Hiya …i used to collect from Boyse transportat Bedford(any photo’s) nick was running the outfit
Old mr Boyse used to have a chat with me and he told me he started up doing bricks out
of marston Valley.At one tine he had a Commer Maxiload and did Southhampton daily.
That would be a fair days run i would think with not so many Motorways as today and
the bricks would be hand ball on and off…
John
mazz:
Just wondered how you used to unload bricks years ago - if it was handball, how was this done?
This is how a mate of mine did it.The easy way 
Hiya john…when i started on the bricks i had a 6 wheeler albion and sometimes the tipper sneaked up just
like that bedford…it was’nt to bad with commons like in the photo. A plus out albions had quite a overahang so
the bricks did’nt crash to the ground…one time a driver cocked a albion over tipping bricks near mansfield
the body and bricks was lying on the floor and the albion was sitting upright with the rams in aknott.
the albion had been in dispute with a farm gate hinge a week earlier and the boss did’nt know,
when we got to the site he screamed who’s dented that door. and the body lying on its side.
I always got roped in on sorting messes out like that day.
John
Hiya just noticed that Bedford is a 1968/9 on a G reg. it looks just a bit dated for saying the TK was on the market…
Quicky…John did’nt Jacksons change their livery to light blue in the mid 70s .
John
lemonmouth:
Bewick:
I’ve mention on another thread my interest in the “brick motors” and that they used to swarm all over cafe car parks in the 60’s and early 70’s but I’ve never heard anything of how they operated! What was a day’s work for those 4 wheelers,I’ve read somewhere that the 8 wheelers used to do the longer trips to the South coast ect. And which was the better outfit to work for—Marston Valley or London Brick?LB always seemed to me to have the better motors,but they were the same firm wer’nt they,just different colour schemes?Both fleets sure were a permanent fixture on the roads around London( and every cafe,if you could get on the park!) when I was a regular “darn the smoke”. Cheers Bewick.Bewick, mostly the 8 wheelers would do the longer runs as you say, and the 4 wheelers would do the shorter runs so they could get 2 loads a day in, mainly in and around the home counties, they could carry between 3 and 4 thousand on a 4 wheeler usually.
Marston Valley and London Brick were 2 totally different companies and were always competing against each other, alongside Eastwoods,( Redlands) Until the takeover in the early 70’s when everything became LBC and then the final nail in the coffin when Hanson took over in the 80’s.
I Know, or say knew, loads of ‘Valley’ drivers in the past and am assured that Marston had the better motors in the earlier years and was a much better job than LBC, sadly there is no longer any working Brickworks at all in Bedfordshire, a real shame
Trev.
Thanks for the explanation Trev! Handballing 8,000 bricks a day would be no picnic especially when it was raining so I reckon the 8 wheeler drivers had the better job but I suppose they will have done their time on the 4 wheelers prior to getting onto the 8 wheelers?Cheers Bewick.
Can’t remember where I nicked this pic from,Truck mag or a member on here. Maybe somebody has a better image? Again it’s the little snippets on these threads that cheer us no end. Dented door indeed
stravaiger:
Can’t remember where I nicked this pic from,Truck mag or a member on here. Maybe somebody has a better image? Again it’s the little snippets on these threads that cheer us no end. Dented door indeedMarston Bedfords etc after breakfast on the “old” A5. The new “new” A5 can be seen with an artic heading north (as I remember reading at the time). Over to you guys.
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Have a look on the Ranch Cafe thread Stravaiger and you will see MY photo of the Cafe 
Maybe I should have put a ‘Copyright’ through it like Bubbleman does Eh! 
Trev