hiya,
new computers norm mines that old it’s powered by laclontia cell,(and i bet thats spelled wrongly) and need a good head of steam before i can post anything, iv’e decided i’m going to go into debt and buy a new one, will i get one for 2/6 a week? could stretch to 3 bob if i cut down on food should’ve gone in for M/E work when on the old BRS and then i would have been able to go to tesco’s and pull a handfull of pound notes out of the back pocket and pay cash but i’ll just have to dream that one, i’m definitely going to bed now to save money on the electric, goodnight all.
thanks harry long retired.
Does anyone remember the depot at welshpool? My grandad was (Ithink) the workshop manager there in the 60’s?
regards
hiya,
ploughman overnighted and fuelled up in there when going to aberystwyth only ever the once don’t even know what traffic they carried after tipping ran empty to hereford for a flatpack pylon for the north of scotland, so i’m not much help to you sorry, if you’d had asked me what depot was there i would have thought BRS parcels, but it was a general haulage depot i think, it was in the early sixties so the memory is getting worn out.
thanks harry long retired.
Just checked with mother and he was workshop manager certainly in 1952 - was there when it was Aber Carriers before being taken over by BRS. I think he left in the fifties going through Workshop manager for W R Davies and finally insurance assessor.
Hi PLoughman,
Not wishing to digress offf the BRS thread. I remember Aber Carriers in the sixties and before, ran Bedfords J type and then TK’s, blue box van bodies. They used to come to the shop in the village I live in.
Cheers Dave.
Harry, you are a tight old bu***r, W/pool fill up ther once, remember them old blue wagons, saw them once when I was a school boy, parked up on regent square in Northampton, when I saw wales, I thought it was a foreign country, it took a few years, until I became a lorry driver, I found out it was, specially when they start talking. Sandman Norman
hiya,
norm tight indeed you wound me young man i buy my wife a birthday card evey time she has a birthday it took me 25 years to find a partner who was born on 29th of february and i’ll have you know my children put me through 18 hours of major surgery just to get a fiver out of my wallet, i used to enjoy the welsh run some fantastic views if you ever got to do any cross country work the BRS used to do a lot of asbestos sheets for agricultural buildings and i got to some funny old places in wales when doing that job some of them with unpronouncable names i used to get lost a bit doing that work remember these was pre satnav days it was great trying to ask a native who spoke only welsh directions remembering it was nearly always a farm you was looking for.
thanks harry long retired.
Harry, you are not tight, you was just unlucky to have been born with short arms, and your trousers have deep pockets, and you are close to Scotland. Now I have been in the attic, and found a few priceless items, my PSV licence, 18th May1961, my army form b108, this you recieve when you are demobbed, all your service history are in it, education, mechanical &recovery training, marksman, I done 3years, and 4 years special reserve, until they kick me out in 1965/66, due to the fact Iwould be unable to drive HGV’s, what a laugh, only drove them for another 33 years, since I got over my hand injury. Also found a old pay slip, dated = w10 ( 06/06/1987) Basic hours 40, 1.5 hours 42, bonus hours 26.5, 2.0 hours 11, this was a wage of gross pay, £687.84p, not bad for those times Harry, now you know why no one left, when working for Carlsberg in those days, I bet you would have been first in the Queue for a job, if you had knew?, this was after I left BRS in the end of 1977, when did they close down. SAndman Norman
hiya,
thanks for enlightening me norm, i always wondered why the lads used to vanish when i walked into the pub, funny that could reach the motor controls ok but
couldn’t get me hands on me coin, makes me wonder why aren’t i wealthy like you? me not spending owt and you throwing it about like it was going out of fashion,i’m convinced your a better fiddler than the guy who spent time on the roof, ah well there’s always the lottery and i must be due something back after all i’ve invested in that,could always get a start with carlsberg and become rich beyond my wildest dreams instead.
thanks harry long retired.
Hello Harry Norm and all Red and Rusties
This is one for you Harry I couldnt find a piccy of a wagon and dangler of your ancient eara so I made one . Just reading the forum with the banter of you two oldens are like listening to the 25year clockers that were on BRS when I started as a lad . Did you know after 25 years with BRS you were given a clock , I think it was an old Mantle job knocked up in the workshop and painted BRS red with an inscription " it was nice knowing him , when hes gone give us it back we need it for someone else " , It is possible to have earned two on `em
Got one Norm .
Regards Frenchy
FRenchy, nice to see you back, keep putting those old wagons up, nice to see, but being so young, I never drove them, but old Harry must have, for I think he is older than he makes out, or the depots he worked for, had all the old bangers ha ha ha. Still he is not to bad a bloke, but he is caravan mad, I think I must have past him in the desert, for I used to see wandering nomads, driving thier camels, but there again, when he was in the army, with his famous great coat, he was more used to scammells. Sandman Norman
hiya,
thats a cracking pic frenchy, thanks for that pulled one like that many times in fact i had to move off them to a bristol tractor unit so i would qualify for a class one although i was an artic driver in 1958 before i went to the BRS but the old red and rust stuck to the rules so i had no option, needed to get the six months in to get the licence, didn’t get anywhere near the service in to qualify for a clock in fact i didn’t know of anybody who did, i once got something for driving so many incident free miles i think i left it in the cab or something never really looked at it might have said depot prat for all i know if you couldn’t spend it or sell it i’d no interest and yes norm the old blackburn depot did have a fleet of bangers never got much new stuff in my time there and i was happy with the old stuff, had an octopus minus drawbar, they’d all gone, when i chucked it in i think 1971.
thanks harry long retired.
This thread is better than Morecombe & Wise ever were, it fair cheers me up lads.
Just in passing - what length were those old wagon & drags?
Here’s a good old 'un for you red and rust lads.I never worked for BRS but handballed plenty of bricks out of Peterborough area.Looks like a Birmingham based wagon judging by the “VP” reg.
You are right Mac,a good thread this,keep it up lads.I’m not sure but I think the max length of a wagon and drag in those days would be 18 metres which is about 59 ft,that was certainly the case in the late 70s/early 80s.Somebody will know 
Look at that designer front bumper,and there’s an even older Leyland at the back. 
hiya,
proper motors they are chris, the mechanics on those would have been spot on and the posh front bumper wouldn’t have have made that old girl go any better,i like the paint job done with a fine bristle backyard brush is my guess,the only problem with them is the bricks some graft unloading that lot, give us a ring when empty then i’ll take over.
thanks harry long retired.
CHRIS, nice to hear from you again, I remember, those lorries, saw them often, when on the bricks myself, I even rang London brick in Aylesbury to get a load of bricks cheaper, went with £300 to pay, they was fetching over £20 per thousand, a load was 10,000, each block was a 1000, and weigh a ton, their own lorries had them banded, and could lift them off with their cranes. When we done it, a gang of Italians, used to load us in a hour, then they got a finger forklift, with pneumatic rubber each side, the workers would build stacks, and the forklifts, would load the lorries in 20/30 minutes. then they was £13/14 per thousand, but it was nearly 10 years later, when I was building my garage in 1979/80, it was a cold one that year. MAc D you will have to wait till Harry is fighting fit, then me and him may do a double act, and we will sing “Underneath the Arches, we dream our dreams away”, because at our age that is all we have got to do. Sandman Norman PS I got two loads for the price of one, from buiding merchant.
hiya,
tell you what norm you do the singing i’ll do the listening and as for underneath for the arches a bit damp methinks would play havoc with the arthiritis now if you was to take me to sunny turkoland (as passenger would do ) ply me with best whisky i have been known to render " i belong to glasgow " but you would have to delve well into the bank account to get me to the singing stage even then i would make a bob or two from the bar owner he would pay me to make me noise somewhere else, now norm should i pack a bag or what, did i hear you shout NO NO NO, i think i’d be a bad investment norm better keep your money in your pocket along with the mothballs, this lot is supposed to be about the old BRS and not about my drivel, better get a grip of myself or them guys with the white coats will make the scene and drag me away screaming come to think of it you wouldn’t be able tell the difference between that and me singing see you again when i’ve got got something sensible to say, TA TA.
hiya,
mac D never knew what length those outfits were but longer than the artics of the day noticed that when parked up overnight i was only 21 when i started driving them and used to get the silly quips from ( older much more experienced lads ) how do you get that thing round corners driver? or thats too big for you it’s not a dinky toy, but i managed and never did any damage except to my back.
thanks harry long retired. PS sorry about the posting the computer is acting up and haven’t a clue how to fix it.
hiya,
Just to keep this thread ticking over,here’s another fine old motor,an AEC Mammoth Major MK3 and I’ve driven plenty of these when I worked for A.E.Evans.
No front bumper to paint look,and only one wiper to worry about.
Give us a ring when thas tipped! 
hiya,
nice pic chris, never got to grips with a mammoth but supposed to be good trailer motors because they had special steering as did all AECs at that time much better they say than the bristols and leylands when needing to put them into awkward places you needed arms like garth to shunt the Bs and Ls about, there was a lot of drivers with genuine back problems in my early days they’d been at it a lot longer than me though, and i can remember a few blackburn depot lads getting compensation and a pal of mine becoming hospitalised, he’d been driving wagon and drags pre BRS time, the price of earning a crust eh.
thanks harry long retired.