grumpy old man:
mizzo:
Like many others my first distance motor was an Atki Borderer. I had home made curtains (courtesy of mother), 2 bread boards with 2 screws in each end to drop into the door pull handles, my ‘mattress’ was the seat backing out of a transit mini-bus and of course a good sleeping bag. All this was folded away every morning of course and fitted into various places pretty well. I gaffer taped up the bonnet and had a few layers of sound proofing on it, checking and topping up engine oil had to done through the opening at the back the cab and was a pain! I could sit with my feet in the passenger footwell to get changed, but doubt I could do it now! I was in my early 20’s at the time and was totally cab-happy, as some have said ‘we knew no better**’ but I have to say I bloody loved it. Regards, Mizzo.**
[/quote]I think we all did, we were drivers, we could do any job in the yard, get your notes and “give us a ring when you’re empty”. We set off, we were our own boss, got the job done. none of the modern day tracking, cab phones, endless rules and regs. We were drivers, we had to think for ourselves.
Happy daysSpot on Brian,I loved it.One of my favourite jobs was loading out of Bassetts Sweets Sheffield in a morning,calling at home for some snap and running down to Southampton/Exeter,parking outside gates,off to fish and chip shop then a couple of jars and away to cabotel,a Reiver.Tip in morning,ring for a backload,load up and trundle home,booked off down t’road of course and tip whatever next day and ring in.Made such a change from endless steel to Brum and back.
Like you say,happy days,young 'uns don’t know what they missed.
Please note the following observations , at the ripe young age of 68 and still driving C+E I cannot undestand the suicidal attitude of many members of our profession who insist ( and some hauliers ) of having vehicles with double bunks , fridge , 6 cup holders , etc etc etc !!! need I say more , then the same drivers wonder why Stobbart is laying off trampers , and hauliers with similar vehicles are sadly no longer with us . Only recently observed a Turkish driver at Charnock Richard services with a standard MAN .TGA .tractor unit , and at Forton services again a Turkish driver with a Merc Axor tractor with a standard single sleeper cab !!! , finally most of trendy !!! vehicles run by British hauliers dont even leave our shores .
tachograph:
I couldn’t agree more, it never ceases to surprise me that so few drivers seem to leave their cabs and have a look round the places they stop at or just go for a pint and a meal.
I nearly always got out for a walk before shuteye - after all, no portable TV (prolly just as well) and I’d get a bit bored with the radio. Depends where I was mind - not much point if I was stuck in a layby on a main road miles from anywhere. But I usually tried to wangle it so I stopped in a town with a lorry park - there were lots of places back then where there were no stupid bylaws that stopped wagons using the town car park, so you could park up, lock up and see what town had to offer. A good night was a decent chippy (I avoided the local curry house for obvious reasons 
) and a pint or two in the local - it dawned on me one night as I supped that I was being paid to sample local brews from all over the country that I would never have otherwise tried, which cheered me up no end 
One of the best large towns back then was Northampton - wagons could park overnight in the cattle market which was only a short walk to town.
If I couldn’t get to a town, next best was a village with a pub - I’d go out through the village and if it looked promising then find a layby within a mile or so - nothing like a good walk to the pub especially on a warm summer evening.
Why sit in your cab all night when all that’s on offer?
Some good stuff on here of how it used to be when blokes were more independent and resourceful and could go out and get a job done without the aid of a mobile phone or sat nav.
Here’s a pic of my mate’s 67 Ergo Marshal which I take away on classic road runs and last month on a paying load which took in 800ks of the South Island. I made the bed up as a bit of fun as I wanted to see what it was like to sleep across the boards in a Ergo. I use it quite a bit as it saves paying for a motel room.
It sits on a couple of bits of 4x2 on the engine cover,then rests on the window sils. Note the cut out at the foot end this is so I can stand up,take my boot off,drop me strides and swing up in to the scratcher. Also note the wall to wall carpet,not my doing this was the previous tenant and the breakfast waiting on the dash.
NZ JAMIE:
Some good stuff on here of how it used to be when blokes were more independent and resourceful and could go out and get a job done without the aid of a mobile phone or sat nav.Here’s a pic of my mate’s 67 Ergo Marshal which I take away on classic road runs and last month on a paying load which took in 800ks of the South Island. I made the bed up as a bit of fun as I wanted to see what it was like to sleep across the boards in a Ergo. I use it quite a bit as it saves paying for a motel room.
It sits on a couple of bits of 4x2 on the engine cover,then rests on the window sils. Note the cut out at the foot end this is so I can stand up,take my boot off,drop me strides and swing up in to the scratcher. Also note the wall to wall carpet,not my doing this was the previous tenant and the breakfast waiting on the dash.
Hiya jamie …merry christmas mate…now whats that banana really for■■? going back about 18 years there was two girls who used to enterain
us at the crick truckstop and what thay could do with a banana was nobodies buisness…have’t seen them for ages i was just woundering if
they found there way down under to make you lads smile…wink wink
John
18 years later they might look like ya mother in law 
fredm
3300John:
NZ JAMIE:
Some good stuff on here of how it used to be when blokes were more independent and resourceful and could go out and get a job done without the aid of a mobile phone or sat nav.Here’s a pic of my mate’s 67 Ergo Marshal which I take away on classic road runs and last month on a paying load which took in 800ks of the South Island. I made the bed up as a bit of fun as I wanted to see what it was like to sleep across the boards in a Ergo. I use it quite a bit as it saves paying for a motel room.
It sits on a couple of bits of 4x2 on the engine cover,then rests on the window sils. Note the cut out at the foot end this is so I can stand up,take my boot off,drop me strides and swing up in to the scratcher. Also note the wall to wall carpet,not my doing this was the previous tenant and the breakfast waiting on the dash.
Hiya jamie …merry christmas mate…now whats that banana really for■■? going back about 18 years there was two girls who used to enterain
us at the crick truckstop and what thay could do with a banana was nobodies buisness…have’t seen them for ages i was just woundering if
they found there way down under to make you lads smile…wink wink
John
Might be one of the same girls that used to pick up a sixpence from the bar top with her fanny!!!..The Church Inn I think was the pub,down the smoke somewhere.
Take it easy,
David
5thwheel:
3300John:
NZ JAMIE:
Some good stuff on here of how it used to be when blokes were more independent and resourceful and could go out and get a job done without the aid of a mobile phone or sat nav.Here’s a pic of my mate’s 67 Ergo Marshal which I take away on classic road runs and last month on a paying load which took in 800ks of the South Island. I made the bed up as a bit of fun as I wanted to see what it was like to sleep across the boards in a Ergo. I use it quite a bit as it saves paying for a motel room.
It sits on a couple of bits of 4x2 on the engine cover,then rests on the window sils. Note the cut out at the foot end this is so I can stand up,take my boot off,drop me strides and swing up in to the scratcher. Also note the wall to wall carpet,not my doing this was the previous tenant and the breakfast waiting on the dash.
Hiya jamie …merry christmas mate…now whats that banana really for■■? going back about 18 years there was two girls who used to enterain
us at the crick truckstop and what thay could do with a banana was nobodies buisness…have’t seen them for ages i was just woundering if
they found there way down under to make you lads smile…wink wink
JohnMight be one of the same girls that used to pick up a sixpence from the bar top with her fanny!!!..The Church Inn I think was the pub,down the smoke somewhere.
Take it easy,
David
Would love to see that done . . . after some old timer had warmed it up on his pipe !! 
5thwheel:
Might be one of the same girls that used to pick up a sixpence from the bar top with her fanny!!!..The Church Inn I think was the pub,down the smoke somewhere.Take it easy,
David
I had to check the pub name as I saw that done in Greenhithe 
Wheel Nut:
5thwheel:
Might be one of the same girls that used to pick up a sixpence from the bar top with her fanny!!!..The Church Inn I think was the pub,down the smoke somewhere.Take it easy,
David
I had to check the pub name as I saw that done in Greenhithe
reminds me of the “wax treatment” that an old driver pal of mine was offered in the old Tony’s cafe Grantham.
The wax treatment, Well come on tell us then did the wax fly out of his ears when the Geisha girl did the bis ? & did he say ouch, HA HA. Regards Larry.
Lawrence Dunbar:
The wax treatment, Well come on tell us then did the wax fly out of his ears when the Geisha girl did the bis ? & did he say ouch, HA HA. Regards Larry.
He was on night trunk and complaining of earache and deafness so the lass behind the counter said she could cure it,just to get his old man out and lay it on the counter and she’d whack it with a mallet,the wax would come flying out of his earoles,job done.
True story…so I’m told.
Well thats the same storey that I was told, donkeys years ago by a good old mate of mine Parkey Denholm [RIP], He reckoned there was certainley a far nicer way too remove the wax, but he never got round to telling me. Happy Days EH. Larry Ps, never tried it myself.
NZ JAMIE:
Some good stuff on here of how it used to be when blokes were more independent and resourceful and could go out and get a job done without the aid of a mobile phone or sat nav.Here’s a pic of my mate’s 67 Ergo Marshal which I take away on classic road runs and last month on a paying load which took in 800ks of the South Island. I made the bed up as a bit of fun as I wanted to see what it was like to sleep across the boards in a Ergo. I use it quite a bit as it saves paying for a motel room.
It sits on a couple of bits of 4x2 on the engine cover,then rests on the window sils. Note the cut out at the foot end this is so I can stand up,take my boot off,drop me strides and swing up in to the scratcher. Also note the wall to wall carpet,not my doing this was the previous tenant and the breakfast waiting on the dash.
Never leave home without 2 bricks
Wheel Nut:
5thwheel:
Might be one of the same girls that used to pick up a sixpence from the bar top with her fanny!!!..The Church Inn I think was the pub,down the smoke somewhere.Take it easy,
David
I had to check the pub name as I saw that done in Greenhithe
Never did get my tanner back,perhaps she did the trick at various pubs Wheelnut?
Ive only been driving 6 years and ive had a small daf sleeper cab and I have several nights out a week and I struggle so I hate to think what you guys used to do years ago. Cant wait to get a bigger cab in the new year so i can stretch out.
Wheel Nut:
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
S’troo, I drove to Tbilisi in Georgia in this FL7, it took three weeks. No night heater, though that didn’t matter cos it was Summer, but the lack of curtains was a pain and there wasn’t very much storage space.
Well my night heater was a road side lamp, fired up with pariffin, they were readiley avalaiable wher ever there was road works, they kept the frost out when I was in the likes of the old Derry Cafe in the 50s having a midnight breakfast, allong with my old mates, a lot of them now long gone, Regards Larry.
I remember starting a new job when young naive and keen taking a load up North from Kent in a Morris “Threepenny Bit Cab” Flatbed. Knew it meant a night out so took my sleeping bag! Realisation dawned that sleeping in a cab with a great big engine hump was not going to be easy overnight! Ended up sleeping under sheet on flatbed! On return rigged up a board that I could could rest on the window ledge with a lump of foam for comfort. Scraping off ice on INSIDE of windscreen in morning pre nightheater days to make a living was madness in winter!
ossie:
I remember starting a new job when young naive and keen taking a load up North from Kent in a Morris “Threepenny Bit Cab” Flatbed. Knew it meant a night out so took my sleeping bag! Realisation dawned that sleeping in a cab with a great big engine hump was not going to be easy overnight! Ended up sleeping under sheet on flatbed! On return rigged up a board that I could could rest on the window ledge with a lump of foam for comfort. Scraping off ice on INSIDE of windscreen in morning pre nightheater days to make a living was madness in winter!
Well good for you, you learned the hard way & your still here like lots of us oldies, Well done my man, Happy Xmas From old Larry.