Obviously not a football fan.Then I twigged.Coming from Melbourne,your sport must be rounders.
got my back issue twin splitter thanks - excellent, if too short - if you (or anyone else) is in touch with bob i’d like to contact him?
we’re at the outlaws in gateshead for christmas so will need as many distractions as possible for one thing!
I used to work for cawthorns in the 70’s. I was 17 yrs old working as an office clerk in thier Skelmersdale office on the westgate ind estate…We had F86 , F88 & F89’s. we had some leyland units on the thorne contract. I have a pic somewhere of an F89 that used to go to Italy weekly,the drivers name was Mike 
My boss was Don Blundell, i can remember some drivers,jOHN mORGAN,mIKE bOLTON. We had a driver,Terry Smith that was contracted to BCT he drove a mag deutch tractor, i went to Germany (5 drops) once for a holiday,never forget it 
Hi Catd9, I did my first trip to Germany in a Sed Atki day cab and while coming through Cologne I met up with an old Cawthorn Sinclair driver who called himself Big Les. Any body who met him would say he was a very large overweight person and I could only say that he must of really struggled to strip down a tilt. I am not sure if he was driving a Magirus Deutsch or a Fiat, anyway he seemed a great bloke to me explaining things like T forms, tankshiens G.V.60s etc. We got the same Townsend Thorenson ferry back from Zeebrugge to Dover and Les kept me entertained with his story’s of continental driving. I think Les was one of the reasons that I ended up doing the job for the next seven years.
Terry Smith, would that be Davie Smith’s brother ?. Terry was a Scouser who worked the Liverpool clubs, not a bad singer, a very good ventriloquist, and an excellent comedian. He was a great friend of Gerry Marsden ( Gerry and the Pacemakers ) in fact Terry told me that Gerry was his daughters Godfather.
I am sure that Terry worked for Cawthorn Sinclair before he worked for Dow Freight.
I remember a mate of mine called Ken Bates telling me that he and Terry had run from Zeebrugge to Aachen and it had been raining all the way. As they were about to leave the West German customs one of the customs men told Terry that he wanted to look into the back of Terry’s tilt. Ken was sat in his cab which was parked behind Terry only a few feet away, while Terry was getting wet unlacing the back of his tilt. The two customs men were stood underneath the canopy, keeping dry while having a bit of a chuckle at Der Englander. Terry unlaced the back, dropped the tailboard and climbed in the back to find that two of the roof boards had dropped out and a large bulge was hanging down from inside the roof. This bulge contained about twenty gallons of rainwater on the outside and Ken started wondering why Terry was waving his arms at him and pointing to the side where the customs men were standing.
Terry picked up one of the tilt boards and held it underneath the bulge and as the two customs men walked along the side of the trailer, Ken gave Terry the nod. Terry gave the board an almighty shove as the bulge disappeared and the twenty gallons of water came off the roof, saturated one of the customs men and narrowly missed the other. It must have been funny because even the German customs man who didn’t get wet started laughing.
As regards Brian Robson, I.I.R.C. there was a Les Routiers on the old N6 south of Paris where a lot of British drivers used to park up in 70s/80s. We called it the Footballers Arms and I can remember seeing a signed picture of Brian Robson ( Captain Marvel ) behind the bar. I think he was wearing a West Bromwich Albion shirt and it had been presented by his dad, Brian senior.
I remember big Les,lovely bloke as where all C&S drivers,i always said that had they not closed down the depot,i would still be there.
Your correct about terry / dave, terry did eventualy go on to Dow freight, and he still takes the mickey out of people with his ventriloquist act,he can really throw his voice 
.He still keeps his hand in working the agency’s whenever he feels like it, i think he also recently did a stint for Mcburney out of Liverpool.
On my trip with terry he told everyone in the bars we visited that it was my 18th birthday (lie),we got a free bottle of apple wine every time,he got me well drunk.But as he could speak fluent german he never let on,until we got home.He did the same on the boat home,he knew all the crew on the Townsend Thorenson ferry,we ended up at a private party in the crew’s quaters,thats why i said i would never forget 
Hi catd9,
I seem to remember Les had the passenger seat taken out of his Magirus to give him a bit more room !
Do you remember Juicy (spelling) on Cawthorne’s and his prize winning leeks ?
Good lads to run with.
Regards MaggieD
charlie one:
Obviously not a football fan.Then I twigged.Coming from Melbourne,your sport must be rounders.
Definately not a football fan, we used to deliver oil into Walkers crisps and drink with a bloke who ran a market stall, somebody Linneker they reckon.
Not from Melbourne either. but Hull City are getting some recent well deserved publicity
Heres a full page advert from Commercial Motor…41 years ago.
And a pic of a french registered Merc 1418
Cheers Marc.
thanks very much for that bubbleman.all the cawthorns stuff youve put on is excellent. much appreciated
new a few of c&s lads back in the mid 60-70,
anyone know if eddie charlton, joe codling, georgie nimmo- eddie buchan are still kicking about.
bumper you will find twin splitter is g nimmo,s son
love sponge:
bumper you will find twin splitter is g nimmo,s son
thanks for that information love sponge, bumper
the drivers you mentioned are still on the go. they meet in the barley mow pub in birtley on the first thursday of the month. eddie buchanan lives in doncaster but he came up for the last meeting.
Found some awful quality photos from my collection
Hope these come out ok,having trouble resizing pics at the minute 
Cheers Marc.
Hello again,found a couple of cuttings from way back.
What a high tilt on the 2nd E.R.F.
Cheers Marc.
Brilliant Bubbleman. The old,ns are definitely the best ones
Marc:
What a high tilt on the 2nd E.R.F.
And short too, or is it an illusion caused by the height?
Machinery perhaps? CAT?
hi/ stan the man from stoke/ i remember cawthorn’s shunters at gartcosh steelworks, they carried coils of steel from different sheds interworks, saw em/ many times with up to 40 ton on one trailer going around the works using an old dodge unit, on it’s knees most of the time, trailers bent like banana’s under the weight, then , they loaded the trailer later for the night trunker with it’s legal load of around 20 ton, how much damage was done you can guess but i’m glad i did’nt have to pull em/ p.s anybody got any photo’s of
mcgees, before wilds bought them out, green/white colours,
stan the man, ret, 72
it’s only a piece of
steel with wheels 
stan-the-man:
:lol: hi/ stan the man from stoke/ i remember cawthorn’s shunters at gartcosh steelworks, they carried coils of steel from different sheds interworks, saw em/ many times with up to 40 ton on one trailer going around the works using an old dodge unit, on it’s knees most of the time, trailers bent like banana’s under the weight, then , they loaded the trailer later for the night trunker with it’s legal load of around 20 ton, how much damage was done you can guess but i’m glad i did’nt have to pull em/ p.s anybody got any photo’s of
mcgees, before wilds bought them out, green/white colours,
stan the man, ret, 72it’s only a piece of
steel with wheels
stan do you mean Mcphee’s, have a couple of b&w pic’s of old guy motor’s will dig them out bumper
Mcphees were on City Road,Newcastle weren’t they Bumper? I backloaded off them in the late 60s out of Anglo Great Lakes on Scotswood Road.