Bewick:
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 ?
I’m in the frame for the first five positions- the rest can argue over the others among themselves!
I used to cart for staffordshire farmers around 1968 beet pulp out of stafford goods yard paper sacks loaded when warm but you you could not stack the things on the truck as they were all shapes and fertilizer from widnes two sixteen ton loads a day all handball on and off, the good old days?
Years ago a lot of stuff was shifted by rail and it was back-breaking work handballing out of trucks in congested railway sidings to take the goods the last few miles to their final destination. I used to do a lot bricks, they were hard work ,but ICI fertiliser was an absolute nightmare. Hundredweight bags all on your own out of closed in-trucks then drive a short distance to various farms praying there would be plenty of manpower. At certain times of the year this seemed never ending. A lot of seed potatoes would come down from Scotland by rail too and equally as hard work. Not so good old days but we were fit as fleas back then. Regards to all, Haddy, Gt. Yarmouth.
My Dad worked for an animal feed company as a driver for over forty years,handled the fertilizer bags like yourself,but the thing that him and all the other drivers hated was beet pulp in sacks.
Cheers Dave.
Dave the Renegade:
My Dad worked for an animal feed company as a driver for over forty years,handled the fertilizer bags like yourself,but the thing that him and all the other drivers hated was beet pulp in sacks.
Cheers Dave.
We did beet pulp too but mainly straight out of Cantley sugar factory so the bags were still warm and soft.But, if you were unlucky enough to get a load that had been stored it would be like carrying a ten -stone slab of concrete off the elevator. Eventually the pulp came in pellet form in cwt. paper sacks but now its probably all in bulk. Good thing too. Cheers,Haddy.
I remember back in 1980 when I was living in Sweden, I drove for a haulage company that had the contract for delivering glassfiber insulation for buildings all over the Stockholm area. This was brought up from the factory (Gullfiber) at Katrineholm in railtrucks and we had to handball it from the railwagons onto our lorries and then deliver it. It itched like hell 
but you got used to it…eventually! 
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”.
haddy:
Dave the Renegade:
My Dad worked for an animal feed company as a driver for over forty years,handled the fertilizer bags like yourself,but the thing that him and all the other drivers hated was beet pulp in sacks.
Cheers Dave.We did beet pulp too but mainly straight out of Cantley sugar factory so the bags were still warm and soft.But, if you were unlucky enough to get a load that had been stored it would be like carrying a ten -stone slab of concrete off the elevator. Eventually the pulp came in pellet form in cwt. paper sacks but now its probably all in bulk. Good thing too. Cheers,Haddy.
Hiya haddy… i used to do odd loads of beet pulp from a aircraft hanger nr kings lynn as you say the bags was triangular/solid and about
5ft long with them long ties(pigs ears)and itch when you started to sweat . The chance of making the load look neat NO WAY
good old days…please don,t come back.
John.
The railway is still as popular in Germany and France although the handball is less, but many warehouses and factories have a rail service, with crossdock facilities.
when i worked for Fridge Freight at Diss we used to do a lot of work out of nine elms to Grimsby it was all frozen beans that originated in southafrica and was shipped over then put in trains for delivery to northray foods at grimsby. We would work all day then go round to nine elms have a kip then load up at midnight all handball lorry and trailer full from the floor to the roof then get up to grimsby for the morning. how many times did the stuff get handled then?
3300John:
haddy:
Dave the Renegade:
My Dad worked for an animal feed company as a driver for over forty years,handled the fertilizer bags like yourself,but the thing that him and all the other drivers hated was beet pulp in sacks.
Cheers Dave.We did beet pulp too but mainly straight out of Cantley sugar factory so the bags were still warm and soft.But, if you were unlucky enough to get a load that had been stored it would be like carrying a ten -stone slab of concrete off the elevator. Eventually the pulp came in pellet form in cwt. paper sacks but now its probably all in bulk. Good thing too. Cheers,Haddy.
Hiya haddy… i used to do odd loads of beet pulp from a aircraft hanger nr kings lynn as you say the bags was triangular/solid and about
5ft long with them long ties(pigs ears)and itch when you started to sweat . The chance of making the load look neat NO WAY
good old days…please don,t come back.
John.
When I was 12 I used to hang out at Waterloo Cattle Foods at Kirkburton and they got sugar beet in by rail in 16 stone (2cwt/100Kg) sacks that stood around 6 feet tall. The men crouched into the sacks and let them fall over their shoulders and then staggered away with them on their backs. Health and Safety eh!
Scottish seed potatoes used to come into Lincolnshire by rail in the 50s and I used to take the old diesel Fergie and trailer to Willoughby Junction and load the cwt bags out of the vans.IIRC the following year they came in 50lb paper sacks.I was only 15,was it illegal to take a tractor on the public highway at that age? My gaffer didn’t bother so I didn’t either.Talk about being cab happy - without a cab.
This is how the Italians did it:
I do remember seeing the railmen in Novara loading an insulated wagon that had the floor covered with ice blocks about the size of big shoe boxes. Did the job provided the train didnt get delayed I suppose.
Reading this brings back some good memories. I recall loading Beet pulp out of rail trucks & the stuff was gone solid by time we got to it. It made your shoulder sore as heck. The same with Fertiliser too. I remember going to load some one day & delivering it to a local farm. The rep had got it wrong & several maonths later we had to go & reload it again. The bags were all wet & my clothes were so stiff at the end of that shift, my jeans could nearly stand up on their own.
Hard work but good days.
BB
I can remember shovelling lime out of the wagons onto the ground at Fountainhall station in the early sixties before Beeching closed the Waverley line.We shovelled it out the wagons then used the front loader on a Fordson Major to load it into farm trailers.Couldnt have been cost effective as the next year Bain of Cousland delivered it with a fleet of Bedfords,TKs I think.