You are a star, classic pics again!!
Many Many Thanx
routier:
No, all those different coloured F10s were driven by employees of the company, they may have used ODs but the wagons were not in their colours, they had a big schweppes contract which they ( 2 brothers) lost and as a result it was their downfall before Paul Kamel reinvented the firm and got it back to where it is today.
not strictly correct.
Some of the o/d’s did in fact run under Kammac’s name and colours, one of these being Terry Hunter, who then went on to form his own Company pulling out of Nacanco at Skem.
Kammac had a yard in Milton Keynes and about 8-10 motors were based there, yet during the week the yard was chocker with other wagons who were all on the lash in the Beacon pub.
When Kammac went under in 1988, the company was bought out by Leggetts and Paul Kammel was kept on to run it, although the company was then named kammac 88, and our wages were paid by “skyjade” which was something to do with the Leggett brothers.
It was all confusing at that point, but as long as the money got paid, who was I to question it.
I left about a year or so after the takeover, and done it in style. Got all sorts of mouth down the phone from one of the gaffers, so just hung up, dropped trailer at Nacanco in Milton Keynes, went home took gear out of the motor and put unit back under the trailer and walked away from it… stuff em.
Was a good job though
routier:
You are a star, classic pics again!!Many Many Thanx
Yep, and proper Volvo flat tops with the round headlights 
Wheel Nut:
Yep, and proper Volvo flat tops with the round headlights
Indeed, propper Volvo’s.
In fact I couldn’t be more pleased to see them, I bought ‘Vampire’ ACM330X in 1987 and took it all over the place, I’ve got tons of pic’s of her in various countries and as soon as I get the scanner working I’ll post a couple from different places.
Ross.
tc trans:
routier:
No, all those different coloured F10s were driven by employees of the company, they may have used ODs but the wagons were not in their colours, they had a big schweppes contract which they ( 2 brothers) lost and as a result it was their downfall before Paul Kamel reinvented the firm and got it back to where it is today.not strictly correct.
Some of the o/d’s did in fact run under Kammac’s name and colours, one of these being Terry Hunter, who then went on to form his own Company pulling out of Nacanco at Skem.Kammac had a yard in Milton Keynes and about 8-10 motors were based there, yet during the week the yard was chocker with other wagons who were all on the lash in the Beacon pub.
When Kammac went under in 1988, the company was bought out by Leggetts and Paul Kammel was kept on to run it, although the company was then named kammac 88, and our wages were paid by “skyjade” which was something to do with the Leggett brothers.
It was all confusing at that point, but as long as the money got paid, who was I to question it.I left about a year or so after the takeover, and done it in style. Got all sorts of mouth down the phone from one of the gaffers, so just hung up, dropped trailer at Nacanco in Milton Keynes, went home took gear out of the motor and put unit back under the trailer and walked away from it… stuff em.
Was a good job though
Your memory is working better than mine! 
Terry Hunter, yes I remember him, had a few Scanias in Blue and did all the NACANCO work out of Skem unitl he lost it I think to Taylor Barnard, went back down to one truck I heard which he ran himself, dont know if hes still goin tho… Kammac took over one of my dads old firms, Beaver Transport and had the work out of Fort Sterling/Mansells on the tissue /toilet paper. They kept a really old atki as a shunter, will see if my dad has any pics of it. It was up in Bolton the Fort Sterling place, I think now thats where the JJB stadium is built!
I remember Leggetts now takin it over and being renamed to Kammac 88, once the firm got back on Track , Paul bought it back from Leggetts and moved it forward.
They had a smart fleet tho in their day. Pauls other brother was a driver there, cant remember his name, my brother bumped into him the other week, hes not drving trucks any more.
Blimey Routier, I spent many hours at Horwich loading out of Fort Sterling, and many more hours trying to tip the stuff at Tesco RDC’s.
I am glad to hear that Paul bought it back, he was a good bloke, but ole snakey. he was summat else.
I have been trying to find some photo’s of the 3300ATI daf I drove, know I had some somewhere but cant find the buggers.
Funny story I remember.
On the day the receivers came in, me and another lad were just pulling into the yard in Milton Keynes when a car blocked the gates behind as we pulled in.
We were then acosted by various suits who were all trying to claim which kits was theirs.
Any way a few days went by where we worked for the recievers and finally a buy out was was not going to be finalised so the receivers paid us to drive the wagons back to Burscough, where they would then pay our train fare home.
One of the gaffers, Jerry Quinn I think, told us each to load 330 blue pallets and sell em on the way up at Knutsford, which we duly did, and then pocketed the money too, well its gotta be done.
On arrival in Burscough, the suits were all back there claiming what they owned etc.
Stood in the yard we could see the wagons coming over the hill by the waste place, and 6 wheel F10’s were coming in with no wheels or tyres on the mid lifts, several had no air kits on the roofs, most tri axle trailers with the front lift axles also had no wheels and tyres.
Basically every driver that could flog something off the motor did so.
A crtying shame really cos they looked like the ■■■■■■ had been at them.
It was only about a week later that Paul phoned up to get some of us back, and we had to go to Leggetts in Enfield, collect a mercedes car, (which was to be pauls company car) and on the way north collect various drivers, boy did that car get caned… and then we went back to doing it all again.
Glad to see they are still in business, and good luck to Paul
not strictly correct.
Some of the o/d’s did in fact run under Kammac’s name and colours, one of these being Terry Hunter, who then went on to form his own Company pulling out of Nacanco at Skem.Kammac had a yard in Milton Keynes and about 8-10 motors were based there, yet during the week the yard was chocker with other wagons who were all on the lash in the Beacon pub.
When Kammac went under in 1988, the company was bought out by Leggetts and Paul Kammel was kept on to run it, although the company was then named kammac 88, and our wages were paid by “skyjade” which was something to do with the Leggett brothers.
I used to work with Terry’s wife when she was the Finance Manager at CSC in Preston. After he got rid of all his motors, he kept one Streamline Scania and went on the boxes out of Seaforth - I think he subbed for Johnsons. At one time a Stobart-subbie was using his yard, as was Glyn Hayton with his tipper. All is quiet in there now - a long time since I saw a wagon parked in there.
Another of the owner-drivers at the time was Ian Garvey, who continued on his own after extricating himself from the chaos that descended on the Kammac operation. Around 1990-92 he was running two very smart 112/3 Scanias which were in Brian Read (Bridlington) colours, although he bought both brand new from the Scania place at Haydock. I was good pals with Ian’s brother Ted at the time, who used to do weekends down to Kent & back for him on the fruit job. I was at school with Ian’s kids and also Paul & Karl Kamel. It was never dull sharing a class with Karl…
I used to work at Abbey Lane infrequently, washing trailers and can confirm that the F88s and early flat-top F10s were owner-driver motors. Bought through Lancashire Trucks at Kirkby, they were also painted there. I can remember when Brian and Nigel were at the farm on Southport Road at Scarisbrick, when all the curtainsiders were stars and stripes - they were a bugger to keep clean. I rode my bike home blinded by Vy-clean on several Sundays - after spending the biggest part of the weekend hoisted up on an FLT scrubbing trailers with a brush.
One enduring memory was Nigel and his white Ford Consul (the Mk1 Coupe Granada type-thing) He once rolled up on a Sunday morning in it, and got out sporting a massive bandage on his hand. It later transpired that someone had said the wrong thing in the pub and he’d just flattened the guy with a pint mug, which exploded in his hand upon impact…
After Kammac 88, there was a brief period of operations as Whiteline, but that faded away as quickly as it appeared. Soon after the Kammac as we know it today came into existance - the last time I looked, Paul Kamel was still listed as one of the directors.
routier:
I think now thats where the JJB stadium is built!
it’s next door to the JJB, and is now called georgia pacific (US owners) - we do some occasional machinery moves around european plants for them
jj72:
routier:
I think now thats where the JJB stadium is built!it’s next door to the JJB, and is now called georgia pacific (US owners) - we do some occasional machinery moves around european plants for them
TDS (Tyldesley Distribution Services) do a big chunk of the work in & out of there. I go past their workshops most days and there are always tidy looking ERFs knocking about - the latest being low-line ECTs, which look smart pulling the high-capacity curtainsiders on low-profiles.
Blimey, some trips down memory lane there, The Stars and Stripes Curtainsiders, I remember them well!
Jerry Quinn I beleive is now TM at Fahey Freight ( was Driver Provider), Paul as far as I know, is not directly involved anymore, kind of sitting in the background, so av bin told anyhow
Didnt know though the old F12 were ODs though, did Kammac not own any of them then ?
routier:
Blimey, some trips down memory lane there, The Stars and Stripes Curtainsiders, I remember them well!Jerry Quinn I beleive is now TM at Fahey Freight ( was Driver Provider), Paul as far as I know, is not directly involved anymore, kind of sitting in the background, so av bin told anyhow
Didnt know though the old F12 were ODs though, did Kammac not own any of them then ?
Not all the flat-tops were F12s - in fact, I think the majority were F10s - there were quite a lot of ODs in that lot. There were a rake of DAF DKSE 6x2s followed by dome-top F10s - all of which were rentals if memory serves.
Brian was shown round Volvo in Sweden prior to the UK launch of the FL10 - and he was quite outspoken with his views, apparently saying they were too lightweight in their construction and he definitely didn’t like the idea of a fixed drivers seat (which they had to begin with). He said prior to launch that he wouldn’t be buying any - but he was renting off Salford Van hire anyway at the time, which made me (and a lot of others I suspect) laugh at the time.
routier:
Blimey, some trips down memory lane there, The Stars and Stripes Curtainsiders, I remember them well!Didnt know though the old F12 were ODs though, did Kammac not own any of them then ?
It was always quoted (dont know if its fact) that the stars n stripes livery signified the american money that had been injected into the company at some point.
when the Company became Kammac 88 after the leggett buy out, the only motors that went with the sale which were previously owned by Kammac were about 8 Daf 3300’s all on “C” plates, and a couple of F10’s.
Everything else they had prior to the buy out was leased, mostly from Salfords.
My motor was a black 3300 C580 DND, cracking tool.
It was a four wheel unit, and got taken in to have a tag axle fitted, it was so ■■■■ long the suzies were pretty much at full stretch when hooked up in a straight line 
It was the only motor they had that could not spin around in the yard at Silversprings in Folkestone, well unless you wanted to be replacing air lines everytime.
tc trans:
It was always quoted (dont know if its fact) that the stars n stripes livery signified the american money that had been injected into the company at some point.when the Company became Kammac 88 after the leggett buy out, the only motors that went with the sale which were previously owned by Kammac were about 8 Daf 3300’s all on “C” plates, and a couple of F10’s.
Everything else they had prior to the buy out was leased, mostly from Salfords…
There were around half a dozen of the DAFs lined up in the yard for ages when things got wound up - all with DND registrations. I don’t think Leggetts used them as they brought in their SA401s with the 8-pot Gardners and the DAFs just sat there.
Another vivid recollection was the Leggett method of warming up an eight-cylinder Gardner - stick the wagon in reverse and back it up the yard flat out until the smoke clears - if one length of the warehouse didn’t do it, spin it round and have another go. The noise was horrible - and definitely not what was intended when the motor was built…
I’ve just been looking at another picture of one of Kammac’s F10s (B-reg) and it had an alloy top tank which doubled as a catwalk (chequerplate top) and it reminded me of something I could never get my head round with the flat-tops.
They all came from Lancashire Trucks with those Hatcher plastic top tanks where the catwalk normally (as in nowadays) sits. If you were (for the sake of argument) stood on the fifth wheel, looking at the back of the cab, these tanks were like a ■■■■■■■■■ plastic T shape. They were as brittle as hell and loads of the Kammac ones were had been patched.
I once asked Brian why he had them and not the alloy ones. He just looked at me over the top of his glasses and without batting an eyelid said “If you can get the alloy tanks cheaper than the plastic ones, tell me how and I’ll fit them” Considering the grief the plastic ones gave him, I often wondered why he bothered with them - in fact, most of the time they were left empty because they leaked.
if my memory serves me well, kammacs trucks had american football or basket ball team names sign written on them,they used to reload fruit from sheerness docks in kent. 
I remember them bringing cans into sunderland for Vaux. Didn’t the RHA challenge Kammacs licence because of the use of self employed drivers on company operated vehicles ?
I remember Paul and his brother when I worked for Eddie Core in the early 70,s, and they had a TK Bedford curtainsider on the fruit market at Liverpool and they used to have a round selling spuds to chip shops etc. cos they bought their produce off Eddie Core from Halsall and kept their Bedford in Eddie,s garage at Halsall, then the next time I see them is when I went to se Paul about a job in the earl 80,s at Burscough, but when I heard some of the runs that you were supposed to do I am glad I didn,t get the job. 
Like all firms some of the stories where a bit hard to be believed such as the one about 2 trips to Milton keynes A NIGHT from Burscough that was supposed to be a nights work even in them days it seemed a bit ambitious and seeing is believing 
: 
routier and jj72, its in horwich not bolton, and that stadium is the reebok, home of bolton wanderers, the jjb is a shed in wigan where their team attempt to play the wonderful game 
I can remember Paul and his brother working out of Heysham Harbour on the Cyprus Potato job around 1976,they had a F10 with a 40’ flat trailer .I was driving for B & R Haulage, 800 bags of spuds all hand ball 
I remember B&R at Halsall when I worked for Eddie Core a few yards up the road they had (then) ERf,s with the 240 8 pot Gardner and the Scammell Crusaders with the Rolls Royce eagle 220 and (in those days) Sleeper cabs and Liverpool being what it was then union wise you were blacked for sleeping in the cab by the union.
But that never bothered the likes of B&R or other local firms who weren,t in the union.
I remember going on the Cyprus spuds job at Eddie Core,s from Heysham all handball but only 400 bags not 800 like the 40 ft trailers.
He hated artics with a vengeance cos he used to say they jack knife to easily and would never have one in his yard.
I also remember we used to load out of Preston Docks off the “Lancashire Flats” from Roadferry and that was a pig cos you had to handball the bags off the flat on to your own wagon alongside and then put them on pallets.