A question for the more experienced hands. The younger ones have been spoilt with big globetrotters, toplines, olympics, megaspace, superspace as being the norm. How did you cope on multiple nights away 30 and 40 years ago in a standard day cab ERF B series or Volvo F7 with a sleeper cab, not being able to stand up inside, lack of storage space, no night heater, making the bed up every night, what was used for curtains?
I remeber my first nights out were in a day cab B series ERF on Low Loader work for Coronation Plant Hire from Walkden. I had the back seat of a car to sleep on and no sleeping bag just blankets and bits of old bed sheets for curtains. No night heater. I never got undressed at night in winter, just took my boots off and that was it. I remeber getting my first sleeper cab it was a Scania 110 but then it was a day cab with a couchette but the luxury was fantastic. My first proper sleeper was Volvo F7 but that had no night heater, I remember waking up one morning in Uddigstone with my hair frozen to the bloody window. My first motor with a night heater was Daf 2800 and it was like 5X luxury. Some of ther old motors I have driven like Fodens and Atkis there was hardy enough room to hang your coat up. I look at some of todays motors and you could raise a family in them.
Cliff
Used to sleep in a sleeping bag on a board across the seats when I first started having nights out in the early seventies, personally I found it better than some of the dirty transport B&Bs, it could be uncomfortable and cold and I certainly wouldn’t want to do it now but I suppose in those days things were different and you just got on with the job.
During the day the board would be stowed behind the seats or wherever possible.
In decent weather it didn’t seem bad and could actually be comfortable sleeping in the cab but in the winter the worst part was waking up to find ice on the inside of the windows 
I put up a curtain rail and curtains to make things more comfortable, in the early seventies the lorries I drove never came with radio’s so I fitted my own, cooking in the cab was done on a single burner camping gas cooker which was sometimes also used for heating in the winter.
My first night cab was an ERF with a pod built onto the back of the cab, as far as I can remember it was also the first artic I drove that had a cab built round a metal frame that didn’t shake to bits as you drove down the road … AHHHHHHHH luxury 
I will say this for the old days though, if you were in trouble at the side of the road other drivers would always stop and help, when you needed to fold the sheets other drivers would walk up and take a corner of the sheet and help you fold them rather than watching like they do today 
If you were leaving the lorry and thumbing it home you would always get a lift when you held up your log book 
Drivers learned off other drivers how to do the job in real world situations and other drivers were always happy to help a newbie, in my personal opinion that was far better than today’s Driver CPC.
ask bestbooties he went to the m.e in a semi sleeper merc.now that is a feet in itself
I suppose I was luckier than some and unluckier than others. I drove TKs and D-series for some years and if they were box vans I did what I could with what I had. The TKs at least had a parcel shelf you could stow stuff on so you could lie across the seats, but then the gear lever got a bit familiar 
and anyway the cab was just a couple of inches too short to be able to stretch out fully. The D series were wider and the gear lever didn’t get in the way, but it had no shelf so every night was this drawn out palaver shuffling stuff around, then “reassembly is the reverse of disassembly” in the morning. Many times I woke up at sparrows ■■■■ on winter’s morning to ice on the windows, and I remember spending ten minutes scraping it off one morning and not understanding why I was getting nowhere - it was frosted up inside… Being as I worked for a removals/ storage mob at least I could grab a few furniture blankets as these were useful as curtains or as padding.
I did a fair bit of removals and bulk loads with TK and TL luton pantechs, so I could at least kip up in the luton - if I could get over and past the load that is. I can still vividly remember a few nights at Penrith truck stop in a TL luton in winter running back from over the border that were so [zb] cold in the luton that I got up and just to get the feeling back in my feet Ijogged round the lorry park for ten minutes silently cursing the lucky [zb]s that had night heaters and sleeper cabs. As for getting changed or anything ambitious like that, in a TK or D series forget it unless you wanted bruises and a cracked skull.
And then, one day in the mid-80s, they gave me a sleeper cabbed DAF2100 to drive. Proper bunk beds! Curtains!! Interior lights over the bunks - pure sybaritic luxury! 
My first truck was a Fiat 130 day cab,there was just enough room behind the seats to put an old Volvo F88 top bed on it’s side,then I’d slide both seats right forward and lay the bunk down.No night heater,a few times I’d been so cold I’d run the engine all night.No curtains for the first few months either.
First sleeper I had was another Fiat,a 619 which had been up down to the middle east for most of it’s life,but it was lovely with a proper bed.Still no night heater though.
The younger driver’s of today should spare a thought about the sort of trucks that were being sent to the middle east,and beyond,in the 60’s and 70’s before they start whingeing about not taking a truck out because the night heater has packed up or they consider the cab too small for nights out!
Trans UK were sending F86’s down to Tehran in the mid-70’s like this one…
…and compared to the Guy Big 'J’s,Atki- Borderers etc that were on the route,they were bloody luxurious!
KW:
My first truck was a Fiat 130 day cab,there was just enough room behind the seats to put an old Volvo F88 top bed on it’s side,then I’d slide both seats right forward and lay the bunk down.No night heater,a few times I’d been so cold I’d run the engine all night.No curtains for the first few months either.
I also had one of them it was like a megaspace compared to theTK it replaced (the TK parcel shelf was my bed with my feet out of window_ok unless it rained through night 
) but the Fiat cab was not trimmed at the back and sides, so you woke up on your “bunk” behind the seats with a wet sleeping bag with the condensation making the bare metal wet
Apart from Harry Monk going to Tiblisi in a daycab Volvo and my mate doing a couple of trips in a day cab 3300 to Turkey. I used to sleep under the sheets while carrying ice for the trawlers 
I never had a sleeper cab.A board across the two window ledges in an Albion Reiver,complete with sleeping bag did the trick,plus some curtains up.Never got undressed,just boots off and head down.Same with the AEC MK3,MK5 and Mandator.A bit more room in a day cab Marathon though,made life a bit better.Anyroad a minimum of 8 hours off away from base and you didn’t want 5* comfort,off up the road,get a wash and some snap and you were set up for the shift,although digs were used as much as possible.Decent digs mind you,I would sooner cab it than go in some of the ■■■■■■■■■ that professed to be “Home from Home”.
When I moved to Glass Glover in 1979 they started buying Scania sleepers but they were never used as such,everything was double shifted.
Well like you lads say some digs were the pits, I had a fold up bunk in my Mickey Mouse Foden, I used it quite often when I was on the Spratts, & also when loading from Anglesey with stuff for the Alcan at Lynemouth, sadley now about to close down.
I used to carry one of those fold up tublilar framed sun loungers and put the support legs down either side of the engine on a Leyland Buffalo, as I worked on a bulk tipper for coal merchant I was able to get a new coke sack (twice as long as a coal sack) to sleep in which lived over the engine with a blanket during the day as sound deadening. Running to coal pits you could always get a shower and a meal so no need to carry much else in the way of overnight stuff. Never had curtains as only parked in private places otherwise plod would wake you up and make you find digs although there were some gooduns that would turn a blind eye if you were in a layby.
i started in the early 80,s with an m reg a-series ERF ,i had 2 armchair cushions,which travelled on the engine cover with my sleeping bag wrapped around them,then i had an airbed behind the seats,funnily enough it was quite comfortable,which is more than can be said about driving that pile of s***e.
i had some old flowery curtains,and believe it or not,a tv,radio and c.b.Ihad this wagon for about 2 years,then i got a scania 81 sleeper,i had this for only a few months,when one friday,i was travelling to british gypsum at kirby thore ■■■■■■■■■ got as far as just before stainmore cafe(i had a high tautliner loaded with polystyrene blocks)the wind blew me over!!!so bye bye scania,hello to that bloody erf,not long after that i was reversing into a shed at a papermill in scotland,there was a large crack,i got outto see the steering had collapsed.
the firm i worked for did’nt thing much of servicing properly,but thank god it never happened coming up the a74,so,after that it was bye bye erf and hello NEW JOB!!
in them day s it was all about exprience,if you did’nt have any(like me)you usually got it by getting a job with dubious outfits with rubbish tackle ,but onc e you could rope and sheet etc,jobs and wagons got better.
tachograph:
Used to sleep in a sleeping bag on a board across the seats when I first started having nights out in the early seventies, personally I found it better than some of the dirty transport B&Bs, it could be uncomfortable and cold and I certainly wouldn’t want to do it now but I suppose in those days things were different and you just got on with the job.
During the day the board would be stowed behind the seats or wherever possible.In decent weather it didn’t seem bad and could actually be comfortable sleeping in the cab but in the winter the worst part was waking up to find ice on the inside of the windows
I put up a curtain rail and curtains to make things more comfortable, in the early seventies the lorries I drove never came with radio’s so I fitted my own, cooking in the cab was done on a single burner camping gas cooker which was sometimes also used for heating in the winter.
.
Yes, a day cab Sed Atki, with a board across and a homemade mattress. I had some fairly comfortable nights. A couple of pints, pull the home made curtains round, into the sleeping bag , very cozy. Although I once nearly froze to death in Dundee one VERY cold night, hell it was cold (no night heater) but I survived, and the 290 ■■■■■■■ started first touch the next morning.
Happy days.
In a MKV AEC , with a collection of boards and suitcases , then i was weekended in Edinburgh and went out and bought some curtains and track to go across the windscreen, that made it as near to a sleeper a possible still no heater let alone a night heater, i used to open the engine cover in winter to get some heat in the cab, but we were never stopped long enough normally to get the engine cold,after 6 months i got upgraded to a tilt cab with a very small sleeper but it was one you could lay down and stretch out ahh heaven!
Hiya beanie…you know i’ve been there and had a go… you could always get a good nights sleep, my first
nights out was with a Albion ergo unit for croda, sticks planks foam cushons the lot… it was where do
you put all this crap while your driving. you wake up you was half asleep bursting for a pee and trying to
get all the crap out of the way so you could do your days work…plus you had to check the oil and water
through the bonnet inside the cab where all this crap was stacked. night mare… what was hard to get out
of a ERF works b series and do 3 years in a KM on the shelf now that takes guts. but the money was their
John
I’m not that old but my first nights away where in an Atkinson Borderer, with a padded board across the doors. Only did a few I’m that, thank god. Then it was either a fl10 or an Atkinson 410 and sometimes a scania Wendy house or a merc power liner . None of them where spacious but they had a bed and night heater. Wouldn’t like to night out in one now but we managed back then
I am here: maps.google.com/maps?ll=55.928476,-3.269981
Been told I can’t use my signature by some elitist ■■■■■■
Sometimes you wish you hadn’t clicked on a thread as the dreadful memories of sleeping on planks of wood in a mickey mouse Foden come flooding back, having to scrape the ice off the inside of the windows, just like at home with those old steel framed Crittal windows.
We must have been bloody mad to do it.
Always B&B’d it if i could though, still would if the job was as it should be…drivers shouldn’t be sleeping in tin cans feet away from a rat infested ditch, they should be in a proper bed away from the truck with warmth quiet proper toilets and washing facilities, after a proper evening meal and a good breakfast to look forward to before even thinking of the truck.
My late father and brother (Desert driver) went three times to the Middle East in a 5 year old 110 Scania day cab. It was then converted to a sleeper cab and a v8 fitted. My first truck was a 110 day cab 6x4 which we run on european before it was rebuilt with a v8 and sleeper cab. When my brother sees this thread I’m sure he will post the pictures.
Regards Robert
I had a Motor Panels Seddon (FAD 314L) sheer luxury compared to the ERF’s as the engine cover was flat and level with the seats, it was recessed but you could pad that out.
A furniture guy once gave me a couple of blankets which I had for years plus a sleeping bag. Curtains were usually newspaper. The Telegraph was best as it was printed on thicker paper which offered better insulation and you could always do the crossword if you couldn’t get to sleep.
Number one rule to remember if using a board wedged onto the door window ledge was to always lock the door otherwise someone could open the door and you’d slide out head first.
Happy days
zzarbean:
I had a Motor Panels Seddon (FAD 314L) sheer luxury compared to the ERF’s as the engine cover was flat and level with the seats, it was recessed but you could pad that out.
A furniture guy once gave me a couple of blankets which I had for years plus a sleeping bag. Curtains were usually newspaper. The Telegraph was best as it was printed on thicker paper which offered better insulation and you could always do the crossword if you couldn’t get to sleep.Number one rule to remember if using a board wedged onto the door window ledge was to always lock the door otherwise someone could open the door and you’d slide out head first.
Happy days
Wrapped up in a sleeping bag . . . . just like being buried at sea . . . havent heard that one for a while