Boatchaser:
When i worked at Cert in Warrington Thomas Smith Jnr did a lot for Bells whiskey down to us and then reload soap powder from Levers Bros back up to Scotland , i,m sure the address on the side of the trucks was Broxburn ■■ and I,ll always remember they had a driver called Jimmy who had a wooden leg.
Thomas Smith moved out to East Mains Ins Est in Broxburn during the late eighties.
Anyone remember Rab Balloch who worked for Inter City ■■■■■■■■■■■ at one time.Now owns Fernhaul from Broxburn.
Bewick:
Trev_H:
Bewick:
I would strongly disagree about calling Peter Thompson “legendary” “george” ! I would call it more like “being a jammy [zb] in the right place at the right time”.If you were offered,say,a going concern with shares worth,say,£1 each but you only had to pay 1p a share you would be feted as a hero and that was just about the size of deal Peter Thompson was involved in.It was my understanding of the deal at the time and still is,nice work if you get it though ! Cheers Bewick.
Hi Dennis, at that time when brs was part of nfc shares were offered to all employees, unions advised workers not to get involved but when I learnt that a lot of directors were re-morgaging houses to buy 1p shares i took a gamble !
Yes it was a rip off from tax payers money but what was good for them made me a few bob too. 
Well done Trev,I hope you “filled your boots” mate,have you ever read Peter Thompson’s book,he really was a smugg [zb] that dressed the deal up as a personal triumph for him and a few of the other airesols on his Board of directors,it was bloody breathtaking to read the [zb] he had written and would have us believe as a true record. Cheers Dennis.PS it was a bit like Rover/MG debacle that got BMW stuffed !
Hello all, Dennis, I can only totally agree with you on this point, and your comments!! It never ceases to amaze me how the “egos” of some rather fortunate persons drive them to publicise their, (accidental), good fortune, and contort it into the just reward of their “fruitfull endeavour”! when the share offer in NFC was made, a very good, (and slightly younger) friend, whose business was based in St Vallier, (who possesed a very good business degree from a leading French Business School), said that as an Englishman, I should have been an employee of NFC, and placed every last centime of my possesions into shares, rather than working for a French vehicle manufacturer , and then sold them, and invested the proceeds into his business, and helped him achieve his aims,( and perhaps along the way, become a very wealthy man)!!! Well, I suppose he was right, and his lack of ego has not allowed him to bragg, and every day his vehicles are on our roads!! Trev H, Im glad you earned out of it, I bet Peter Thompson never got up "early oclock", and never felt what wet sheets and ropes feel like, Oh how I really dislike that British Managerial arrogance! the reason why we are always falling behind! Cheerio for now.
Jim Brackenridge the MD of Charles Alexander received an actual Scottish pound note from Les O’ Brien for the transfer of his Company. Jim left not long after and formed JBT. He installed Murray Prentice as his MD and they operated out of part of the old Inter City site at ■■■■■■■■■■■■
Murray Prentice gave me my first start at JBT, I worked out of the Old Inns site, which was owned by Baylis at the time. The yard is still there although it is now occupied by Gist on the Marks & Spencer contract. The sheds that were at the bottom of the yard were demolished a few years back (before they fell down I think) but the workshops and the main warehouse are still their. I worked alongside an ex Intercity man, Alec Cooper, who I believe was one of the fleet engineers at ■■■■■■■■■■■ before going with Murray and Jim Brackenridge. I never knew Jim but always got on well with Murray before we parted comapny on a slightly sour note but thats a story for another day.
Rich
I seem to remember them coming on to Chasetown when I was running from there, known locally as “the dump” (from it’s wartime operation). They very soon had taken most of the work from all around, which didn’t effect me too much, but put another small operator on there, to the wall. Later I read that they had lost two million pounds that year, but a spokesman said it was within their plans at that stage of the expansion! I remember thinking, what chance have we little operators got, we wouldn’t survive a month if we lost only a tichey fraction of that! Then one day they closed up and were gone, with lorries from other depots collecting the work from companies on site, so the pain continued.
The Chasetown depot was closed by Williams Distribution when they took over, this happened to most of their sites.
Sorry to read about Neil Munro he gave me a job in transport office at Maryhill was there for about 6 months then they merged with ICT and was made redundant he was a good guy
Neil was an absolute gentleman, one of the best.
N D has the TDG Coldstore in Eastleigh
Cheers Rich
tribsa:
N D has the TDG Coldstore in Eastleigh
Cheers Rich
Well considering that ND took over TDG lock,stock and barrel,I don’t think that it should come as a suprise Doh!
know all Dennis it took a long time before any changes took place I should have worded it better sorry your lordship.
tribsa:
know all Dennis it took a long time before any changes took place I should have worded it better sorry your lordship.
I think I should transfer my acerbic wit,en bloc,to Bully’s Truckstop dear oh dear ! Cheers Dennis.
Do any of you guy’s remember a night driver from Inter City at Leigh called Ernie Campell he was a big fella from iirc Glasgow originally
Yes, I remember Ernie Campbell. I would say he left Inter City in the mid 80’s. I think he lived in Farnworth.
This is a fascinating thread, and very interesting about the companies and personalities involved.
The second post from Imperial caught my attention and I knew it would grow into something good.
Thanks for posting.
Wheel Nut:
This is a fascinating thread, and very interesting about the companies and personalities involved.
The second post from Imperial caught my attention and I knew it would grow into something good.
Thanks for posting.
I agree with you 100% sir!
Imperial, I too (along with 10 million others probably) worked for the TDG group back in the mid 80’s (Western Transport, the Avonmouth based company but worked in my home town of Warrington - mostly!) As a transport operator, we were encouraged to try and share our general workload amongst our fellow group companies which I always tried to do. However, there were notably some members of the group which, most definately did NOT play ball and with hindsight, and some of your very informative comments (bonuses, budgets, commissions etc) it’s easy to see why. We actually had several owner drivers on our general haulage ops, but most of our (aging) fleet was being allocated to the growing contract distribution side of the business. We still had quite a lot of general haulage work though, easily more than we could handle with our own account fleet, so we regularly subbed within the group, plus we had many subbies from outside of it also. I started to get a bit disillusioned with things within the company when, more often, other group operators (including our own other sites) refused our offers of back load work, preferring to run their vehicles empty back to their bases. This, according to my fellow colleagues, was as a result of allocating vehicles to a specific contract, and charging the customer inflated prices for both legs of the journey (the saving fuel bit came later.) I can honestly say that I don’t think that I’ve ever worked for a company that had such little concern for its other group members, which is sad really because it is defo one of the best jobs that I’ve had. I worked along side some very knowledgable and friendly people, and was lucky enough to get quality training within their own school at Avonmouth.
I hope that you are having some success in the licensing trade and the name Golding Hoptroff, I remember fondly from my Western days (are they still by Aintree racecourse?) The 2 good chaps that I used to liase with were Ian and (poss Philip?) I’ve had a few Jules Clairons since then!
Your spot on with your assessment of how the TDG operated “hayday”,but in the earlier days thats how it was,each company had it’s own identity and more-or-less had to sink or swim by it’s own efforts with minimal interference from Group HQ.You often had the ridiculous situation of two Group members quoting against one another for the same traffic!It was only in later years,after the “good times” came to an end that rationalisation and amalgamation of various Group members took place.But I believe the TDG was very successful over many years when Sir James Duncan was the Boss.Cheers Bewick.
Bewick:
Your spot on with your assessment of how the TDG operated “hayday”,but in the earlier days thats how it was,each company had it’s own identity and more-or-less had to sink or swim by it’s own efforts with minimal interference from Group HQ.You often had the ridiculous situation of two Group members quoting against one another for the same traffic!It was only in later years,after the “good times” came to an end that rationalisation and amalgamation of various Group members took place.But I believe the TDG was very successful over many years when Sir James Duncan was the Boss.Cheers Bewick.
You speak wise words Mr Bewick (I remember loading your wagons back to Henry Cookes BTW) not to stray too far off the topic but I met Sir James once as he and a colleague called into our yard to use the loo (we didn’t get a warning and methinks he was a very brave man considering we shared it with the McKelvies - I’ll bet that’s not in his memoirs!)
Speaking of Intercity Transport, when I worked for Baxters Road Services 50/60s, tgey had a Depot In Lloyd Street, next door to British Ropes Rutherglen, The shunter Kenny Bell used to get us quite a lot of returns from them, He used to be Traffic Clerk for Crows Transport Office in Glasgow, & knew the Traffic Office staff at Intercity very well, Happy days, Regards Larry.
Ian Merriman is still at Golding Hoptroff, I believe they have moved to Huyton. I remember that Beck and Pollitzer and Ridings of Preston were extremely helpful in putting work our way. Some other Group Companies seemed to want little to do with others.
I had a great relationship with the B & P guys at Howley Lane and Stretton. Ironically I was lured to a bogus meeting at Howley Lane, to find out that my 22 years service was over inside two minutes. I often wonder what happened to the many fantastic people that I dealt with on a daily basis.
Those 22 years were the best of my working life, but there were some really bad times due to fatal road accidents and mentors passing away etc.
I can honestly say that running a pub with a dozen staff is harder than handling 250 drivers ever was !