When I was working for Pickford’s in the early 70s a job came up of fetching around 15 loads of machinery from St. Chamond in France back to English Steel in Sheffield and we had 3 35/40 ton wagons but the other 2 drivers did not want to do the job so I was asked if I would do them all by going down and bringing them back to Southampton then changing trailers and straight back out which I agreed to do. The first lot was around 10 loads so they had worked it out that it would take 12 to 13 weeks so off I went and coming back up through France I said to my mate if you don’t mind a couple of long days we could get Friday nights ferry and go home for the weekend and come back down on Monday morning as I was scheduled to be in on Monday morning and back out on Monday night which went well, on the third or forth weekend I was home Saturday night and there was a knock at the door and it was one of the managers with some fresh instructions and more running money which was usually brought down by the driver with whom I changed over with and all he said was that he had guessed that I would be home and as it was a job he had got he wanted to make sure everything was going fine so I said you do realizes that I am booked off in France and he said as long as it goes well there was no problem as there was load in every Monday morning to go to Sheffield. On completion of the first 10 loads which were done in 11 weeks I was given Friday off and told to book 10 hours of depot duties for Saturday and Sunday and I had booked all the motorway tolls going down as we were to heavy coming back loaded so after the first trip I just used the N roads going down as well which was a nice earner also.it was a fiddle legally but sanctioned as well by the management they had a good job done and I earned a very good wage as I never touched my wages all the time I was on that job and still came home with more money than I started with.