i used to be a plater welder in engineeringand working in the shipyards in southampton but when i moved back up to leeds i started driving but now i dont like this much too many hours treated like an idiot and hated but everyone so now im at college learning to be an electricain. but still doing a few days a week on the road.
left school 94 had apprenticeship lined up at ralph davies fell thru 
became a window fitter till i turned 21 worked for a engineering firm driving 7.5 tonner then class 2 -class 1 .
jessicas dad:
i used to be a plater welder in engineeringand working in the shipyards in southampton but when i moved back up to leeds i started driving but now i dont like this much too many hours treated like an idiot and hated but everyone so now im at college learning to be an electricain. but still doing a few days a week on the road.
Now thats a man with a plan good luck fella 
simon
Left home and school ridiculously young and spent a few years doing the travelling thing, during which time I supported myself through farm/harvest work and busking.
Eventually decided I’d better grow up and get a life, so did three years on forklifts in various factories. One day I sat out in the pouring rain, looked down the long line of trucks waiting to be tipped, and realised that I wanted to be the one in the warm, dry cab with my feet up and the telly on… 
I started out doing a bit of part time work on Checkouts at Tesco while i was doing my A-levels. Moxed to stock control and worked full time then oneday they asked me if i would take a .com van out as they were short, that was back in the early days of .com!
Then just sort of got bitten by the bug, after being outside without a manger breathing down your neck and doing your own thing as well as seeing some lovely countryside i couldnt go back to being stuck under strip lighting!
I started off on the Trade Counter in a Plumbers Merchant after I left school and worked for various similar firms for 5-6 years doing everything at various times. Enjoyed delivering the stuff most though so my last Plumbers Merchant job was purely as a van driver.
Took Class 2 last August cos I like driving…I’d go back to the Plumbers Merchants for the right job (sales with a decent salary and no boss looking over my shoulder all day), but I’d miss the freedom of driving.
RS005D1136:
left school 94 had apprenticeship lined up at ralph davies fell thru .
Was that Mechanics??
Shouldnt reply really as i dont count.
Left school doing an aprent in Mechanics.
Hopefully drive 7.5 tonners when im able to, then go onto bigger stuff when im 21, then cant see myself doing anything else, well that is if i pass 
MAD28:
well that is if i pass
Be positive, when you pass. 
Fom school:
Met police cadet
Farm worker
Sales rep
Tipper driver
Euro driver
Charter skipper
Trawler skipper
Fishmonger
Euro again
Russell Davies
County Court Bailiff
Fishery Officer
Software import
Selling and fitting window blinds
Now retired, thank God.
(Blimey, did I do all that? No wonder I feel tired)
Well, I went to university straight out of college, graduated, and signed up to an agency as a drivers mate the next day 
Had a brief stint in a flour mill when the agency work went slack at winter once. Anyway, tried to save up enough money to get my class 2 or convince someone else to put me through it but eventually had to pay for it myself. Stayed on with agency driving until just recently. Got class 1 in meantime also.
And, as most of you know, as of last week now work as a rep for a scottish transport training company.
Which is weird, cos I hate sales reps. And I have to wear a suit. It just feels wrong. Drivers don’t trust me anymore lol
Dapper Scavenger:
And I have to wear a suit.
A woman in a suit 
Just let me take a moment to think about that.
Yep, works for me.
Well, I must admit to thinking that i might do better if i wore a skirt suite
FROM Boy soldier after 16years paid holiday carried on with one of the many skills i got taught and have been driveing class one since 17years old
so makes a total of 36years on the road, and hopefully can i get back to driveing next year after the next enforced stop due to renewal of two knee caps,
this job is a love --hate relationship and it is adicctive and also non cureable,
are you enjoying it though dapper
wylie:
are you enjoying it though dapper
Its too early to say. I am still feeling very unsettled by it. It is too different a job to know how I stand yet.
I was good at driving, if you pardon the bragging. I’m used to being so completely capable at my job i didn’t even have to think about it anymore and certainly my boss never needed to watch over me.
Now I’m slightly rubbish and my boss is having ‘weekly progress meetings’ that are driving me bonkers lol I’m hoping to improve with practise.
Started as a painter and bodybuilder, then went into repairing and refurbishing ISO containers and bulk conveyor systems. The company i worked for also built Caravan Transporters, and we built too many, so I was sent to Germany when i was 18 to bring some caravans back. I suppose the driving bug had already got me years earlier though.
I have been a car salesman, mechanic and parts manager. I also tried holiday repping selling fishing trips
North Surrey asked if we had been drivers all our life.
Not Yet I hope
Dapper Scavenger:
:shock:Well, I must admit to thinking that i might do better if i wore a skirt suite
Are you big enough to be wearing the cover off a setee then?
When i left school went on a YTS scheme loosly based on transport, working in a wharehouse in a baked bean factory, well i did say loose . That was for a year. Then i worked as a roof tilers labourer for 18 mths, then got a job driving a puddle jumper for a builders merchant, which is just over 20 years ago. Got my claas 1 at the earliest oppurtunity, then it took 6 mths to get an HGV job, but been on artics ever since. I had wanted to drive artics since being about 13, there was an O/D living in our village and i used to go on day runs with him in the school holidays, that was in an F88 and the anF7 that he owned, would sometimes like to be an O/D myself and even Mrs Snax mentioned it a few weeks ago, just dont know if i’m brave enough
Just remembered another one - cane cutting in Queensland.
Salut, David.
Dad, 4 of my uncles, 6 cousins, all drivers, i did a year in a battery hen farm at 16, (if i had a job straight from school and i was 16 before easter i could leave… so i did ) aged 17, got a job delivering eggs down to London, no idea where to go but did it and got back on the same day!!! only 17 drops round london aged 18 i was driving ALL over G.B, Inverness, Thurso, Fraserboro" Wick, Fort William, Exeter, Plymouth Penzance and anywhere between, all in a day cab 7.5 tonner.
At 21 got the licence, and after going all over Europe (my dream when i was 17) i can honestly say,(after 20 years)i still love it, apart from im stuck driving in G.B and not Europe, but i would NEVER EVER do anything else.