Looking for a ■■■■ smelling phone box to ring in when tipped,thats before my time but thats what my dad used to do 
sammyopisite:
dexterboy:
I am a Birkenhead boy now in Helsby ,I bet not many people remember Burdells gravy salt the best ever I also remember a guy on a bike with fish in a basket Hoylake fluke caught that morning came round every Thursday ,I bet you did not get Bootle fluke but we are posh from the Wirral LOLHi Dexterboy I am sure you are referring to BURDALLS gravy as it was made in Sheffield in the old Barracks at Hillsborough known locally as Burdalls building
cheers Johnnie
Thanks for that ,it was what I was referring to ,never knew were it was made
seth 70:
Looking for a ■■■■ smelling phone box to ring in when tipped,thats before my time but thats what my dad used to do
Aye you are right, The old phone boxes did stink, & some off them on the old East Lancs Road were full of ■■■■, & you had to put pennies in to get the operator before you could make a transfer call to your office, MY How things have changed Eh, Some haulage firms now have trackers fitted so they know exactly where the vehicle is, Im retired & have been for a very long time, & Im pleased to be out of it, Regards Larry.
Yes your right the old phone boxes did smell a bit ,transfer charge to the office told come back to base say thank you slam the phone down and they could not contact you again ,then do your own thing ,as long as you got back the next day at the expected time no one cared ,now you can’t move for trackers and phones ,not for me thank you ,now retired ,thank god
Lawrence Dunbar:
seth 70:
Looking for a ■■■■ smelling phone box to ring in when tipped,thats before my time but thats what my dad used to doAye you are right, The old phone boxes did stink, & some off them on the old East Lancs Road were full of [zb], & you had to put pennies in to get the operator before you could make a transfer call to your office, MY How things have changed Eh, Some haulage firms now have trackers fitted so they know exactly where the vehicle is, Im retired & have been for a very long time, & Im pleased to be out of it, Regards Larry.
My dad used to put the black and white snowy portable on in the cab when we had nights out in the school hollidays and leave me and nip for a couple of pints with his other drivers ,come back steaming with some crisps and a bottle of pop,in the morning sausage sarnys on the 2 ring cooker ,i loved it
Hiya,
And the magic AA/RAC key which opened either phone box there was plenty
of their boxes in years gone by an they were usually quite clean and nicer to
to use as your “office” when hunting the elusive return load, I’ve still got the
key but I think all the boxes are long gone.
thanks harry, long retired.
I sometimes used to drive miles before I found a phone box that (a) worked or hadn’t been vandalized and; (b) you could actually get near enough to and park an artic. That meant finding a parking space, walking to the box, discovering that it was the fifth in row that had been vandalised - it’s a wonder I ever got reloaded some days! Robert 
And managing to find that elusive phone box at just before four o’clock in the afternoon and finding four schoolgirls inside listening to the newly-introduced Dial-a-Disc service.
What about waiting on the stairs at Dover on a Sunday evening.
Waiting at the Wheel House for your number to come up on the screen, while eating an all day breakfast at 3 in the morning while trying to stay awake, and wondering if you will get to Leads before you need a kip. If you don’t it’ll be 10 before you get there and there’ll be at least 3 trucks in front of you.
Dropping you trailer in Leads overnight and going to the Pizza Hut and cinema ( I can’t remember the name of the place but I could take you straight to it.)
I used to do the same thing when I was loading Perkins engines from Anglian Packers for Turkey out of Peterboro. Drop the trailer and Pizza Hut and a movie.
Volvo 12 and 16 speed gear boxes
’
Tesco at Dover, just up the hill from Husk, stock up with food before going out.
Le Clerk at St Dizzier, stock up with food and cheep fuel. Laughing Cow cheese, before you could get it everywhere. Actually loads of really good cheese, hot bread sticks that would be hard as a rock the next morning… Hot croissant with the chocolate still runny in them.
I don’t know what was better the full size British phone boxes the stank of P*%s and stale ■■■■ or the European half side ones where the wind and rain used to howl through in the winter time.
Using all my ( Bosses ) phone cards to phone my wife in Australia when I was weekended on top of the Blonk, Irun, Patra, Kavala, Tashkent, Almaty, Mucsat, (Well Muscat I used the phone in the hotel where we were put up when we were tipping, but the same thing)
The first time I lit the paraffin cooker in my Globetrotter I nearly set the roof on fire, I changed it for gas after that.
There was another “more common” use for the sink, so I’m led to believe. Always make sure there was water in the container for a quick flush afterwards.
I was big fan of wavy hands on the front screen, and country of origin stickers, the ovals with GB, IR, F, D, I, E, J, SYR, etc on them.
I used to have a Ken Holm wok in the truck under the bunk, I cooked a 2 week old Ginsters sausage roll with Branston’s pickles in it one cold night half way across Kazakhstan ( think there might have bee a packet of Tesco home brand crisps and a can of baked beans in there as well )
Jeff…
McMurdo’s issued us with credit cards for the phone saved carrying change and joined the AA mainly for the sake of boxes were handy for
using the phone but I found some of them had limited space to pull in especially with an artic. Eddie.
Hiya,
Not forgetting the wig and dark glasses for when you had to drive the yard “banger”
when your “pride of the fleet” was in for test/service.
thanks harry, long retired.
Les routier triangle stickers at each end of your bumper,mini scalfs with your name,make of lorry and a few countrys youve been to 
seth 70:
Les routier triangle stickers at each end of your bumper,mini scalfs with your name,make of lorry and a few countrys youve been to
I admit i had those les routier stickers on a ford transit in mid 80’s Seth,but you won’t tell anyone will you?! 
pete smith:
seth 70:
Les routier triangle stickers at each end of your bumper,mini scalfs with your name,make of lorry and a few countrys youve been toI admit i had those les routier stickers on a ford transit in mid 80’s Seth,but you won’t tell anyone will you?!
dont worry pete i had some mini scalfs with every country on the globe,the furthest i went was newcastle up north and coventry south,ive just remembered one for the long distance lads,the sealink sun strip with LESS TRUCKING ABOUT on it,i took the stick off the top off the first T and stuck it in the middle F ,if you get my drift,when we got on the boat they shook their head when they spotted what it said
seth 70:
pete smith:
seth 70:
Les routier triangle stickers at each end of your bumper,mini scalfs with your name,make of lorry and a few countrys youve been toI admit i had those les routier stickers on a ford transit in mid 80’s Seth,but you won’t tell anyone will you?!
Yes but Banbury was distance for me,well it was before M40 was built so it did take me at least 1.5 hr to get there!
Hiya…do gear stick and clutch pedals count on the good ideas forgotten…mind you some drivers can’t remember them.
we used to have cold start buttons (remember the easy start pump for starting ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ a crack that made.
remember the first F88 290 with the heater then decompressor on the turbo as you started them.
there was the alcohol bottles on the back of the cab for the air system antifreeze.
last for now the stop button we pulled to stop the engine…wow that was technical…
By for now lads
John.
The first of the American blue anoraks with furry insides and cowls and calf length real leather boots.
Some of us can remember having to bend down and lift the throttle pedal to stop the engine.
There was no alcohol injector on my 88 so I had to keep the kettle boiling in the passenger footwell to melt the ice in the valve on that stupid air tank that was mounted in front of the nearside wheel.
When I got my Daf the first job was to top up the alcohol reservoir!
Hiya,
One thing that disappeared that wasn’t missed was in a very old Octopus I drove,
that was original to the point of having a hand pump fastened to the back of the
cab which lifted the diesel from the tank to a glass gallon sized container that
fed the pump there being no lift pump that operated from the engine, it was OK
for me having a trailer boy to do the pumping every quarter of an hour or so , it
would have been a bit of graft if it had been a solo motor and no lad to do the
pumping, I suppose it kept the little sod busy and saved me having to use the old
knotted rope, he wouldn’t dare let me air lock thankfully we only did local work.
thanks harry, long retired.
What about the new inventions/ideas that seem brilliant when they came out, but then seem to disappear 
two i can think of are the sloping sided curtainsider trailer -i think it was called the ‘load hugger’ and was popular with the breweries about 20 years ago & what happened to the ‘strapless’ curtainsiders 