Punchy Dan:
Out of all the placed we’d go to as kids it was always the steel works that we’d hide under a blanket on the bed .
All my kids were trained to hide in the bunk at security gates, (I had a play station set up for them in there, so it was no hardship for them.)
In fact when my first daughter started coming with me in the early days, she knew the drill of replacing the appropriate fuse if/when I got pulled…but that’s another story. 
#baddad. 
Ha, those sure bring back memories! Hiding in the bunk, one I remember most was hiding talking logs into Shotton and reloading Kemira (spelling may be off) fertiliser in similar area.
I was also Chief Fusebox Technician.
Harry Monk:
One of my boys used to come away with me in the school holidays between the ages of around 9 to 12 years old, we did France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy as well as all over the UK. He’s 22 now and wouldn’t be remotely interested in driving a truck for a living though.This pic was taken at Portsmouth waiting for the ferry to Caen on a trip to Brest with ship’s stores. I guess he was about 10 at the time.
He looks happy enough Harry.
I really enjoyed getting about with the old man. He worked for a fair few firms: Yiddle Davis, Hills (Brixton) Park Row on Rom River steel contract, CM&S from Barnet, etc. We were at a steel works, can’t remember where, where I was given an electric tug to play with (no trailers) then I went wandering around in the yard and almost fell down a bloody great hole in the dark. Sat on the dock at Portsmouth eating tomato’s straight off the boat; even took me own salt with me. Helping to load and unload 6,000 bricks from Marston and LBC/Phorpres. I even had a cab ride in a steam shunting engine at the docks. I learnt roping including tying to rings on a low loader and sheeting along with using 3 sheets (two and a fly) how to use chains and best of all how to back an artic. He was working for Matthews meat transport with a rigid and dog (drawbar) trailer, but he didn’t let me have a go at that… can’t think why. Later, I worked for Park Row on general, also John Houston, Ralph Hilton, L V Mays, Dimplex, Yardley’s etc when jobs were 10 a penny. I just remember having a great time.
Yiddle Davis, that’s showing your age peterm.
From about age 3 I went out with my Dad and I had the Very Serious Job of navigating. I knew my letters by the time I went to school and I love maps of any type.
Started on tippers an old Commer with holes in the floor that you could see the road through, then onto a flat Albion (hence the name) Clydesdale hauling lime out of Dove Holes quarry and potatoes.
Didn’t get anywhere more exotic than France, Germany in my teenage years. Every day I could I was out with my Dad, my poor Mum never saw me.
Great times and I learned so much, not just geography and how to run two log books ahem, but how to talk to people and how being polite wins out every time.
Carryfast:
By implication you’re saying that anyone who was around trucks by way of their parents’ job should then be given fastrack status in that progression over others, who had to wait until they were old enough to actually go to work and do the job themselves with no backing or help from their Dad.
Jesus how are you so persistently dense? How the f**k you get that from ANYTHING IVE EVER SAID is hilariously stupid. For literally the FOURTH TIME in 3 days I’ll say AGAIN my view which I have stated LITERALLY SEVERAL TIMES, TO YOU! I’m nothing special. Half the industry had childhoods like mine. That your fast track nonsense is complete b****hit. I got on because I had get up and go and went out to find the jobs I wanted. You sat on your arse and expected everything to fall in your lap and got all uppity and bitter and stormed off from the industry in a huff when it didn’t. Will you actually listen this time? IM NOT SPECIAL. I’M NOT UNUSUAL. FFS chap you really never used to be quite this dense.
I posted this 24 hours ago FFS
It’s even on this post. Jesus I do worry about your mental health
CF,
If you care to read through the posts NOT written by Switch on this thread you will see that they all had this fast track face fits scenario in to a job up on leaving school, I was the same as Switch AND the rest of the lads and lasses who have dared or cared to have posted their experiences on here.
When you ‘broke your back’ was it to get a sick book to serve your employers right as they didn’t see you as CF the road commander and replaced you with a driver who towed the line which gave the manager and probably the rest of the workforce an easier life?
Just out of curiosity CF did you qualify for one of these little blue 3 wheelers?
^^^^^^^
That’s the 6 litre conversion motor he was on about.
me and my eldest sister used to go with dad Saturday’s,and school holiday’s in his Mighty Atkinson 
…noisy as ■■■■ though
took all 3 of my kids over the years,when i was on quarry work.not allowed to take my little grandson though…but might take him for a sneaky ride when i eventually hand in my retirement notice 
one of those little blue 3 wheelers (spag charriots we called them…but not PC now i know),one of the local HA members put a Triumph Bonnie engine in back in the day…it was a flyer!
robroy:
^^^^^^^
That’s the 6 litre conversion motor he was on about.
V8 Detroit Rob!
carryfast-yeti:
me and my eldest sister used to go with dad Saturday’s,and school holiday’s in his Mighty Atkinson
took all 3 of my kids over the years,when i was on quarry work.not allowed to take my little grandson though…but might take him for a sneaky ride when i eventually hand in my retirement notice
Did you used to drive one of the Carryfast Roadtrains and do a regular tip at the Argos warehouse in Penkridge?
pete smith:
carryfast-yeti:
me and my eldest sister used to go with dad Saturday’s,and school holiday’s in his Mighty Atkinson
took all 3 of my kids over the years,when i was on quarry work.not allowed to take my little grandson though…but might take him for a sneaky ride when i eventually hand in my retirement noticeDid you used to drive one of the Carryfast Roadtrains and do a regular tip at the Argos warehouse in Penkridge?
no pete…no Roadtrains in my years at Carryfast. i had a regular tip at Argos warehouse in Daventry though.
carryfast-yeti:
pete smith:
carryfast-yeti:
me and my eldest sister used to go with dad Saturday’s,and school holiday’s in his Mighty Atkinson
took all 3 of my kids over the years,when i was on quarry work.not allowed to take my little grandson though…but might take him for a sneaky ride when i eventually hand in my retirement noticeDid you used to drive one of the Carryfast Roadtrains and do a regular tip at the Argos warehouse in Penkridge?
no pete…no Roadtrains in my years at Carryfast. i had a regular tip at Argos warehouse in Daventry though.
Cheers for the reply,
Carryfast:
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of children being in the very real harms way of a truck cab in the event of a serious RTA or all the hazards of a load deck/ loading/unloading area/yard.
The point in the case of our ‘debate’ is obviously your idea that going out with your Dad on the truck by implication counts/should count towards the bs face fits ‘experience’ career progression regime which infests the industry.By implication you’re saying that anyone who was around trucks by way of their parents’ job should then be given fastrack status in that progression over others, who had to wait until they were old enough to actually go to work and do the job themselves with no backing or help from their Dad.
You’re not making a good case for the industry’s defence against accusations of nepotism and favouritism here, while adding weight to mine.
Well, not really. My Father worked in a hospital wages office and nobody in my family had ever been involved in road transport in any way, my son who used to go away in the truck with me has no interest in a job in road transport.
I did what I did because I went out there and asked for it, I didn’t wait for the industry to come knocking on my door. The reason you never achieved the same is quite simply because you are by nature an under-achiever.
Though my dad never had any HGV licences, he drove 7.5 tonners for a local footwear wholesaler for almost 20 years. I travelled religiously with him from ages 4-17 (1983-1996), and only stopped because he gave up driving. I’ve got loads of great memories from my childhood, but sadly only a few photos, none of which are on my hard drive.
The loads were always handballed cartons, a few hundred were loaded and unloaded each day, and I used to help my dad shift them. Cheap glue used on shoes is now one of the most nostalgic smells for me. One vehicle he drove was an Iveco Zeta 7.5ton panel van (remember them?), and it had a sliding door between the cab and the rear. Sometimes, when loading on a Friday afternon ready for Monday, he’d load it in such a way as to leave space for 2 air beds. We’d then take off Saturday morning for seaside places like Lyme Regis and Weston Super Mare where we’d spend all weekend, before Monday’s deliveries in the South West. One thing which always stuck in my mind was how he was always fiddling the tacho, or driving a hundred miles before putting it in. It’s how he was able to hide journeys at weird times, and being only a 2 vehicle operation (the other always a 7.5ton Ford Cargo) there was practically no scrutinising or analysis of tacho charts. So he got away with murder. Nobody ever once questioned all the missing mileage/charts.
He used to get 50p and £1 meal vouchers at Granada services, so would spend all year saving them up, and we’d have a couple hundred quid to buy cooked breakfasts with during summer holidays. I loved those motorway cafeterias at 6am. I learnt to drive on 7.5ton Cargos aged 12. There were several yards which were large, empty, and unoccupied til 8am. We used to arrive 30-60 minutes early. One of the yards was a shoe wholesaler called Terry Ball in Preston, and I used to drive the Cargo around there. Another place was a shoe wholesaler (which is still there I believe) called Florentine’s near Ikea at West Thurrock. We’d get huge chunky bacon sandwiches from an ex-driver who ran a catering van, eat them, then I’d get a 20 minute driving lesson. I get quite nostalgic when I’m round that way these days.
I got my class 1 licence in 2004 aged 25, and was lucky enough to work until 2014 for a family-run firm who allowed drivers to take passengers. I don’t have children, so I took my dad, and when working briefly for Homebase in 2004 I remember hiding him in the bunk at Southampton docks whilst picking up boxes lol. But since 2014 I’ve been working for boring big corporations, so haven’t been able to take anyone. He’s nearly 76 and has fairly bad arthritis, so probably wouldn’t be able to climb in the cab now anyway.
I’ve got way more memories than I could ever write here. A couple stand out though. I remember the police stopping my dad on the hard shoulder where the M66 starts from the M62, and the officer asked me if he was my dad, thinking I was an abducted child. Another time we were in Birmingham, Erdington I think, I was only about 8 or 9, and I saw what looked like a playground, so I wandered off into it. But it was some kind of day centre for troubled kids, and the playground was actually the yard round the back, and wasn’t so obvious from the street. It took my dad 10 minutes to find me and he had to come into the day centre and ask if they’d seen me. To this day he said he’s never panicked so much in his life as he did for that 10 minutes.
I do feel really sad for the way things are now. Not just in transport, but our whole Western culture. Everything felt so much freer and more fun back then. As kids we were always out and about in the 80s. One day he took me, my sister, and my mum with him, and we spent a couple hours on blackpool beach after making his delivery! Imagine doing that nowadays. Half these firms ring you up asking why you stopped for 10 minutes at the services, and have you on camera in the cab all day. What 42 year old, in 30 years time, will say “I remember I used to drive my dad’s artic round Tesco at Reading during the great pandemic”?
Great stories all. Well, mostly! 
ezydriver:
I do feel really sad for the way things are now. Not just in transport, but our whole Western culture. Everything felt so much freer and more fun back then. As kids we were always out and about in the 80s. One day he took me, my sister, and my mum with him, and we spent a couple hours on blackpool beach after making his delivery! Imagine doing that nowadays. Half these firms ring you up asking why you stopped for 10 minutes at the services, and have you on camera in the cab all day. What 42 year old, in 30 years time, will say “I remember I used to drive my dad’s artic round Tesco at Reading during the great pandemic”?
Sadly true
switchlogic:
ezydriver:
I do feel really sad for the way things are now.Sadly true
I blame the face fits elite drivers for carving the job up.
Harry Monk:
I did what I did because I went out there and asked for it, I didn’t wait for the industry to come knocking on my door. The reason you never achieved the same is quite simply because you are by nature an under-achiever.
Ditto ^^^^
Nobody in my family with the exception of me has had anything to do with road haulage. Every job I’ve ever had has been in a different sector of haulage so by definition I’ve had no experience of doing that particular job so I just talked my way into the job. It’s not difficult, it’s not brain surgery and anyone with an ounce of inner drive can do it. I too am no different, better or more special than hundreds of thousands of drivers before me or those who will follow on from me.
