Hi All
Im retired lorry driver after 43 years (enough is enough),and what ive noticed is no one
ever gives the old furniture companys a mention including all the Mags.Back in the 70 s
i used to work for the likes of Homeworthy,Stonehills,Beutility,and Lebus all out of
Lee Valley Trading Estate in Edmonton North London.What gret days they were i realy
cou;ld write a Book on the job.Best one i found to work for was Homeworthy,run by
Mr Frenchman Tom was transport Manager,think i was there for approx 3 years,my
first Wagon was a Thames Trader 2000 cube ft fully loaded 15 drops London,When you
proved youself to Mr Frenchman then he would give you a Ford D800 same size,but with
up to 30 drops either Scotch,Cornwall,North East or Northwest etc etc.Wages were about
£12 per week,But ! for each area you covererd you would get certain amount of nite outs
i.e Scotch was 8 Nights @£2 a night,Cornwall was 6 north East 5 etc etc if you got back
early you still got the same amount,therefore you coul do a Scotch then back for Thursday
morn and they would load you for a midlands with a few drops but still get 3 nights for that.
But being young i wanted to spread my wings went next door got a job with Stonehills more
or less same money but slightly different after a year got bored and went across the road
and got a job with Beutility Furniture,i have so many memorys of them times i realy do.What
i dont have is any pictures of these lorries is there anybody out there that can help me i
would love to see the old photos of them wagons,incedentley i went back to Homeworthy
for another couple of years but then got the urge in the early Eighties to do Contenental
as you did then because of the money etc of which i stuck it out till the year 2000.Better
stop yapping otherwise ill just go on and on and on.
hi,i used to work for hygena kitchen and bedrooms based in howden east yorks,i started just after passing my class 1 in 84.
i stayed there for nerly 20yrs,it was a cracking job,we were bought out by MFI in 88 but still traded under the hygena name
for many yrs,we dilivered to all the MFI stores nationwide from turo to inverness,we had about 40 units based at howden.
In the erly days it was very hard to get a job there,it was dead mans shoe type,the camacardry was unbalivable,most of us would
leave the yard at the same time in a morning ,the security men would be intumoyle trying to book us all out at the same time bless
them,there were some time up to 10 or maybe 15 at a time traveling in convoy the cb would be rining out on channel 33.if we were
heading south we’‘d use the A1 first stop alconbury truck stop for brekkie.after that we go on south do our MFI drops then meet up
for a night out we’d decide were we were going to stop for a night out on route depending on were would be the livelist for a few beers.
In those day we all had a few beers and a good crack be for retiering for the nite,we’d nominate a nocker for the morning to nock us up,cb on’ again are all ready’ then off again back into howden drop tr pick up next tr check in to gate house to make sure right tr number,then in to local cafe for brekkie ,i’ll post some pics of some hygena trucks theres some some where on trucknet so many more
stories to tell at some point
company my dad has worked for over 25 years (ja.coles aka as d.j.jeakins/f.a.pope) used to do alot of deliveries for Nathans who then become Parker Knolls. Mainly the scotland runs. which i would go on when i was a kid, great days.