I think it is in the blood.
I used to lay awake at night aged about eight, this would be about 1962, listening to the lorry’s climbing the hill out of town. The whine of the rear axles seemed like a song to me, and I knew right then I wanted to drive a lorry for a living.
School came and went without any qualifications being earned. A series of dead end repetetive jobs, until I managed to get on for a local farmers consortium delivering loads of Hay and straw. I got to pilot a Bedford TK, with eight stud wheels, as long as it weighed under 3 Ton 16 Cwt, you could drive it on a car license even at 10 ton gross, I had passed that at 17 so I was laughing 
Everything came off of that Bedford for it’s MOT, the hay rack over the cab, second diesel tank, spare wheel, passenger seat, smaller batteries fitted to save pounds of weight. Never get away with that now 
A few other jobs until I too worked for National Carriers driving a Leyland box on parcel freight. I applied for a job as a night trunk driver and got it, that meant that National Carriers had to get me my HGV. A weeks course & test at Yeadon near Heathrow on a TK artic fitted with a six speed box and 2 speed rear axle. Passed first time and back to National Carriers driving a Dodge with a Scammel coupling on the evening trunk to Ipswich aged 22.
I progressed onto a Volvo F86 pulling 33 footers on the same trunk until I went on the contracts side. I had a Seddon-Atkinson 400 sleeper (who called them Sudden-Accidents on here ? 
) I used to load at Terrington St John with tacky sea-side ware and deliver to gift shops all around the coast of the UK, out all week, it actually wasnt a bad job!
That finished and I went to a local Haulier and got a job for them, hence the signature…‘You wont last five minutes working for them’ my old boss at National Carriers said. But the best part of 19 years was spent with Hayford & Beazley Group Transport. (see my post in the old lorrys and firms section under the same name)
I spent all of my life on distance work, with my fair share of European work too, the first trip to Germany in 1981 the last in 2003, I think all in all that I have seen the best years of this industry.
Nowadays I have had to slow down, I still drive albeit on a six wheeler with a HIAB. I had a severe heart attack last May with a triple heart bypass last August. The DVLA told me I could start driving again last January, and I have a new job with Buildbase in Harlow as relief driver/yardman…until I have the urge to drift again 