I’ve never worked for a blue-chip transport company- DHL, TNT, Stobart, Tibbett and Britten etc. I’m sure in many ways they are good to work for. The money is probably better than I earn, there are pensions and other benefits, plus you get to wear a nice uniform in bright primary colours so you can spend all day looking like a Teletubby.
I’ve always swum in the murkier end of the transport pool, and there are advantages to this too.
Firstly, my boss understands my failings, such as my insolence, unpunctuality, indiscipline and general innate laziness.
Secondly, he lets me borrow the artic at weekends to move my mate’s preserved fairground ride around.
Best of all, I’m allowed to take passengers.
This week, Little Harry has been on home leave from borstal in preparation for his release, and so here are a few photos we took of our week together on the road.
I enjoy driving, but I hate hooking up trailers, as this constitutes “work” and work is beneath old Harry’s dignity, so I always jump at the chance to get somebody else to do it for me.
Passing Heathrow, and even on Sunday evening the M25 is packed. Why wasn’t this motoway built with 12 lanes from the start?
On monday, we’re awake and ready to go in the middle of the night. You can see that it’s absolutely “taters”, as we say in Turnham Green. My air pressure is low because Little Harry spent most of the previous evening playing with the air duster.
Our first delivery is at Woodstock. This once-quiet little Oxfordshre town shot to fame when a massive rock festival was held there on Max Yasgur’s farm at the height of the hippy era, headlined by Jimi Hendrix and attended by nearly half a million people.
(Yeah, alright, I know, I know 
)
Next, we’ve got six deliveries in Birmingham, and here we are at a builders merchant in Stirchley. This is their “rapid response vehicle”, used for local deliveries and which runs all day on 50p worth of electricity. Little Harry has been here before and loves this thing, and proudly poses in the world-famous Harry Monk salute.
Sadly, this firm have now been taken over by a national chain of merchants. I won’t name them, but they are the loathsome snotgobblers with the green and yellow livery.
After a few more drops, we are in Snowdonia, with deliveries at Bala, Pwllheli and Conwy.
We don’t just do motorways and “A” roads…
We have just passed several signs stating “keep apart 2 chevrons” but tipper drivers aren’t the sharpest chisels in the box and the rearmost driver here (yes, there are two trucks in this photo) seems to think that a “chevron” is a unit of measurement, approximately equal to 18 inches.
He is constantly on his brakes. Why is he driving like this? He is making a lot of work for himself (see paragraph 4), and is spending all day looking at fourty square feet of pressed aluminium when he could be looking at Shropshire.
And finally, it’s time to park up, watch some TV and play “the hat game”.
And now we’re looking forward to a trip at Easter. Little Harry has done several trips to France and Belgium, but I’m hoping for a Poland, Italy or Spain next time.
And finally a big “Thank You” to my boss, Richard.
thats what gets you intrested in the job remember my first time out in a yellow d series ford to deliver a car wash machine to essex i was 6 and still remember everybody making a big fuss of me and did a load more trips with dad went all over europe 