1970commer:
Here is a picture of my dad loading brewers grains out of a railway truck with a fork at Trueman’s Burton on Trent into a Thames Trader, he would then have to unload them at a farm the same way, he would sometimes do 3 load a day like this, no wonder he looked so thin then. The picture was taken around 1967/8, he also did plenty of beet pulp from Hatton Station, first in hessian bags then came the 80lb paper ones, all these were rock hard and all shapes.
After an hour shovelling anthracite my shovel felt bigger than that, Your dad’s shovel looks a bit like a Ruston Bucyrus bucket No.9 with a wooden boom, it’s a big bugga. Three load a day with yon shovel lurking would have sickened off most men.
1970commer:
Here is a picture of my dad loading brewers grains out of a railway truck with a fork at Trueman’s Burton on Trent into a Thames Trader, he would then have to unload them at a farm the same way, he would sometimes do 3 load a day like this, no wonder he looked so thin then. The picture was taken around 1967/8, he also did plenty of beet pulp from Hatton Station, first in hessian bags then came the 80lb paper ones, all these were rock hard and all shapes.
Your dad’s name wasn’t Jim, by any chance?
Sorry, but the pic looks like a younger version of someone I knew.
Steve
Hi Steve, My dads name is John Wakefield & he’s just turned 86 last month, he still looks well after a hard working life but doesn’t chuck many grains out of railway trucks any more
1970commer:
Here is a picture of my dad loading brewers grains out of a railway truck with a fork at Trueman’s Burton on Trent into a Thames Trader, he would then have to unload them at a farm the same way, he would sometimes do 3 load a day like this, no wonder he looked so thin then. The picture was taken around 1967/8, he also did plenty of beet pulp from Hatton Station, first in hessian bags then came the 80lb paper ones, all these were rock hard and all shapes.
Your dad’s name wasn’t Jim, by any chance?
Sorry, but the pic looks like a younger version of someone I knew.
Steve
Hi Steve, My dads name is John Wakefield & he’s just turned 86 last month, he still looks well after a hard working life but doesn’t chuck many grains out of railway trucks any more
That’s the fella - J J Wakefield - sorry, but it WAS a long time ago! Glad to hear he’s doing well.
I grew up in Trusley and then lived on Long Lane for many years, and, of course, I knew the garage in Longford very well.
You must be Richard then, (unless you have a brother)? Are you going to restore his old Trader?
1970commer:
Here is a picture of my dad loading brewers grains out of a railway truck with a fork at Trueman’s Burton on Trent into a Thames Trader, he would then have to unload them at a farm the same way, he would sometimes do 3 load a day like this, no wonder he looked so thin then. The picture was taken around 1967/8, he also did plenty of beet pulp from Hatton Station, first in hessian bags then came the 80lb paper ones, all these were rock hard and all shapes.
Your dad’s name wasn’t Jim, by any chance?
Sorry, but the pic looks like a younger version of someone I knew.
Steve
Hi Steve, My dads name is John Wakefield & he’s just turned 86 last month, he still looks well after a hard working life but doesn’t chuck many grains out of railway trucks any more
That’s the fella - J J Wakefield - sorry, but it WAS a long time ago! Glad to hear he’s doing well.
I grew up in Trusley and then lived on Long Lane for many years, and, of course, I knew the garage in Longford very well.
You must be Richard then, (unless you have a brother)? Are you going to restore his old Trader?
Steve
Robert not Richard but you’re close, I do have a brother but he has nothing to do with lorries at all, who shall I tell my dad was asking after him?
I do have a thames trader in the shed but its not my dads old one, this is one I bought about 6 years ago from Llampeter, I also have a Commer TS3 in the garage which I take to a few local shows, with you being so local to us you may well remember Denis Salt’s garage next door to my dads, he had a driver who lived in Trusley called Harold Woodward, then another driver from Hilton called Harold Smith who always walked with a limp, everyone called him Oppy.
1970commer:
Here is a picture of my dad loading brewers grains out of a railway truck with a fork at Trueman’s Burton on Trent into a Thames Trader, he would then have to unload them at a farm the same way, he would sometimes do 3 load a day like this, no wonder he looked so thin then. The picture was taken around 1967/8, he also did plenty of beet pulp from Hatton Station, first in hessian bags then came the 80lb paper ones, all these were rock hard and all shapes.
Your dad’s name wasn’t Jim, by any chance?
Sorry, but the pic looks like a younger version of someone I knew.
Steve
Hi Steve, My dads name is John Wakefield & he’s just turned 86 last month, he still looks well after a hard working life but doesn’t chuck many grains out of railway trucks any more
That’s the fella - J J Wakefield - sorry, but it WAS a long time ago! Glad to hear he’s doing well.
I grew up in Trusley and then lived on Long Lane for many years, and, of course, I knew the garage in Longford very well.
You must be Richard then, (unless you have a brother)? Are you going to restore his old Trader?
Steve
Robert not Richard but you’re close, I do have a brother but he has nothing to do with lorries at all, who shall I tell my dad was asking after him?
I do have a thames trader in the shed but its not my dads old one, this is one I bought about 6 years ago from Llampeter, I also have a Commer TS3 in the garage which I take to a few local shows, with you being so local to us you may well remember Denis Salt’s garage next door to my dads, he had a driver who lived in Trusley called Harold Woodward, then another driver from Hilton called Harold Smith who always walked with a limp, everyone called him Oppy.
My name is Seve Thornley and my dad was the estate builder on the Trusley estate. I spent much of my youth on and around the farms helping out in all sorts of ways and it was while trampling grains when I first came across your dad. I wouldn’t expect him to remember me from this, though I used to see him around from time to time in the fifteen years I lived on Long Lane.
Yes, I remember the garage and ,I think, was Denis’s dad Walter? Gavin used to be at Trusley youth club when I was there - we are going back now! Yes, I knew Harold Woodward, although I don’t recall Harold Smith. Others who spring to mind are Archie Bull on the churn lorry and Erne(?) Goodwin on the cattle truck. I came across a Goodwin on the Pajero owners club forum when I ran one of those and he turned out to be his grandson!
I have seen your lorry around and obviously worked out who you were from the name and address on it, although I now live in Spain, so I havn’t seen much around Long Lane for a little while!
Good to recall some of the past times, and I do hope you restore your Trader in the brown and yellow colours - it always looked realy smart.
Well Steve, I will tell my dad you have been in touch and Gavin, he pops round to see me quite regularly, the only time I have any contact with poor old Archie Bull is when I strim the grass on his grave now, he was a right character, always got a smart comment & a cheeky joke to tell but he also had a heart of gold.
I know the Goodwin you are on about, Keith, he drives for a firm in Ashbourne and his dad drives for a firm who pull out of Nestles in Tutbury.
In my garage there are the initials of a lot of Walter Salt’s drivers on the workshop wall and at the bottom of the list is a great quote, it says “beer is best by A B”, good old Archie Bull, never one to drive past a pub if there was room to stop outside.
Would you be treading grains at Bradbury’s farm in Trusley as I remember going there on a regular basis.
The Trader will be restored in company colours and I still have my working lorry in those same colours too, plenty of pictures on my website www.wakefieldsoflongford.co.uk
The garage is coming up to its 90th ish birthday soon, apparently when he was walking to Longford school in the early 1920’s a local farmer who has now died could just remember it being built, a new garage had to be built next door which is where Denis Salt ran his business from as the garage that was there burnt down in January 2000.
That’s what I like about the net ! You never know who your gonna bump into next !
Look on the reg’s for sale commer1970 you might just find the reg to go with your restoration !
Nice thread good luck with the restoration !
Regards Jimski
Jimski:
That’s what I like about the net ! You never know who your gonna bump into next !
Look on the reg’s for sale commer1970 you might just find the reg to go with your restoration !
Nice thread good luck with the restoration !
Regards Jimski
Hi Jimski I think I know the reg you mean, the one on E-bay, great thinking mate but I already have the original number for my lorry, ELB507C, this lorry started its life with the BBC in London as a vehicle for carrying outside broadcast equipment, I know what you mean about the net though.
kevmac47:
In the 70’s and 80’s I would often load at Hither Green with fresh produce for Gateshead market bloody hard graft then sheet and rope it . The not so good bit of the “good old days”.
Been there, midnight, handballing Spanish onions from pallets onto 40 ft! They would not let us have the pallets, no swaps allowed! Also maybe extra onion payload without pallets? You had to know how to bond the bags.
Rope and sheet then off to unload at Stanley Market, Liverpool: same morning delivery! Daytime digs, reeking of onions, you needed a bath and being knackered, needed good kip! This is where I decided to catch up with the times and do container work! Just handle 4 twistlocks and open / shut the doors!
Spent a couple of days rolling 45 gallon drums onto railway trucks on Hull docks, me on the trailer and four dockers in the rail wagon, they didn’t step on the trailer, problem was because I didn’t have my hazpack card (remember them), and only my HGV, I was only allowed to move the truck on the docks so we had a couple of drivers loading the drums at BP Saltend who kept me supplied with loaded trailers, by the time I had one trailer empty there would be another loaded one arriving, happy days
This photo of my Late Great Uncle Tommy Boiston with his two tonner Bedford from Seaton Burn, Loaded with LBC Bricks out of railway trucks at Dudley Station For delivery to a building site at Fordley A place named after the villages Anitsford & Dudley hence the name Fordley, This was in the early 50s. Regards Larry.
I did a few months with Cobra Railfreight from Wakefield in the early nineties, mostly steel by then but still a lot of cases of wine (and shoes) from Italy to be handballed on to pallets. Not too strenuous, but there were a lot of them in a trainload of those bogie Cargowaggons. A sip or two of the wine might have helped, but any breakages had to be logged and accompanied by the remains of the bottle, so no joy there! One stand-out load was a trainload of rough Yak’s wool from Tibet, for processing somewhere in Bradford. The first wagon was easy enough, climb up and push the bales out to the waiting forklift, but the second was a stinker, literally. When the doors were slid back, the heat and the smell nearly took your breath away, and thousands of wriggling maggots about two inches long were falling out on to the floor. We called the public health to come and identify them before we started unloading, and his advice was to leave the doors open overnight, and the cold would kill them. He was right, but the stink was awful. Matted Yak crap is not nice on a warm day.
kevmac47:
In the 70’s and 80’s I would often load at Hither Green with fresh produce for Gateshead market bloody hard graft then sheet and rope it . The not so good bit of the “good old days”.
Hither Green up till the '80s was International depot for old fashioned freight trains from Europe (via train ferries)
They would bring bagged Spanish onions on pallets to the side of flat sheet & rope trailer! There was no help for driver to handball load 22 tons, the maximum at the time so no pallets allowed!
This was a Midnight start, so as to be at Liverpool Market ASAP in the morning where driver would help unload.
He then had to find shower to remove the smell.
I only did this once thanks!
Transfesa at Paddock Wood was almost this. Their staff handballed the produce out of the railway trucks onto pallets (very badly) and then drivers had to handball it off Transfesa’s pallets onto their own!
Had a ‘C’ licenced tipper way ,way back steady job sand and gravel deliveries loved it , Boss gave me a new disc to put in windscreen a ‘B’ licence said this will give you more varied work and more overtime ,plenty of rail work from sidings as said in above posts ,best job was Bananas to transfer to the ripening rooms , i did’nt stick with tippers for long after that ,got a proper job with BRS instead !! -----toshboy
Cider apples were another favourite, in hessian bags. They were either frozen solid or soaked with over ripe fruit. Either way, it was a pretty miserable one and a half hours drive into Somerset with wet trousers. They had just about dried out when it was time to unload and the whole process started over again. My mother never got used to the smell!
The only “handballing” I fancy you would have done ROF would be thieving coal at midnight out trucks in Cinderford sidings or thereabouts Someone will have told you about the Cider apple job as the nearest you have ever come to cider apples will be supping it out of a glass ! hic!hic! Bewick.
Bewick:
The only “handballing” I fancy you would have done ROF would be thieving coal at midnight out trucks in Cinderford sidings or thereabouts Someone will have told you about the Cider apple job as the nearest you have ever come to cider apples will be supping it out of a glass ! hic!hic! Bewick.
No need for that sort of wrongdoing at Cindyverd when you’re driving a bulk tipper with a nice big grain hatch in the trailer! And I’ve been aquainted with cider apples and their products since I was knee high to the proverbial grasshopper! I’ve persuaded a couple of my fellow allotmenteers to invest in cider apple varieties for their plots- I’m telling them that it’s the environmentally sound thing to do!
Sooooo! This recently formed “Macc Allotment Holders Cider Apple Growers Co-operative” who will hold the following poitions of M.D., Chief Presser, Fermentor-in-Chief, Quality Controller,& Chief Taster. Oh and who will do all the graft like pruning and picking ? Anon 1.
That chap with the shovel looks really happy. I remember drivers looking like that when I started, it was all banter and ragging, now everyone looks like the dog died.
Someone will have told you about the Cider apple job 
