badboybumpkin:
So was there a connection between Mammoth and a company called Crook or Brook as I recall some green Mercedes with that name in Mammoths yard when I went on a couple of trips with Gordon Smith in the late seventies
Hi Badboybumpkin,
Yes there was a company called Crooks from the Matlock area,I seem to recall and you would have seen a Mercedes tractor unit in green I think it was a 1619 day cab with a fold down bunk for when the driver was allowed to sleep.
A funny story springs to mind of one trip when John Ward was short of a tractor unit he shipped it out to Rome,with a Mammoth driver called Jim Malpin,Gordon might even have been with us, we came off in Le Havre in the evening and got south of Paris,Auxerre services and parked up for the night,Jim then realised there were no curtains in the cab so decided to open up his maps and tape them to the windscreen and side windows and got his head down.When he awoke in the morning there was a coachload of German tourists looking at the maps trying to see where they were, they ran off when a disheveled Jim dropped the window and poked his head out. One of Buzzers Mary Hopkin moments.
Very good Richard , but of course my first trip in a truck abroad to France was in a day cab mandator no curtains either, made me own with stretchy plastic covered wire to hold them up and the obligatory hard board across the engine hump. One thing you had to make sure of was lock your doors as I found out when Pat Scory bless him open mine and I ended half out the cab heading for a ditch. JD.
Buzzer:
Very good Richard , but of course my first trip in a truck abroad to France was in a day cab mandator no curtains either, made me own with stretchy plastic covered wire to hold them up and the obligatory hard board across the engine hump. One thing you had to make sure of was lock your doors as I found out when Pat Scory bless him open mine and I ended half out the cab heading for a ditch. JD.
Yes my board clipped on the passenger window to the hump then suitcase on driver seat to make that up. Used it in a Marathon and Leyland Buffalo. Happy day’s.
Thanks Richard
I thought there was another company in there I used to have a load of pic but can’t find them. Love reading the stories you lads out on here
Curtiss & Sons Ltd started in 1871 with horse drawn carts & wagons.Initially moving household goods in Portsmouth,they developed their removals & storage operations to cover the whole of the south.
1928 Associated Daimler 4/5 tonner with solid tyres.Pneumatic tyres were common on smaller capacity lorries,but still not yet reliable at higher weights.
Curtiss were granted their Royal Warrant in 1921.
March 1935 AEC Majestic model 666 with l/o container.The flat body & cab were probably built by Lee’s of Bournemouth.
Curtiss’s large Southampton depot & depository was in River View Rd ( off Manor Farm Rd) Bitterne Park. It was demolished in the early 70’s to make way for a housing development.
Heard on the grapevine Pitter’s are ceasing road transport at the end of this month, a long standing company that goes back a long way and one I did fruit transport from the docks many moons ago, anyone know if this is correct, Buzzer
Buzzer:
Heard on the grapevine Pitter’s are ceasing road transport at the end of this month, a long standing company that goes back a long way and one I did fruit transport from the docks many moons ago, anyone know if this is correct, Buzzer
Buzzer:
Heard on the grapevine Pitter’s are ceasing road transport at the end of this month, a long standing company that goes back a long way and one I did fruit transport from the docks many moons ago, anyone know if this is correct, Buzzer
Apparently so, 120 years in transport
Only last week I saw two de-stickered Pitter units going North on the back of a low loader, that will be a real shame.
Now that the well respected Coliseum coaches have gone to Luckets I could see it all going as a very valuable pocket of land so the van sales & hire could go to an industrial estate. HENDY Truck sell the vastly more Iveco products.
It’s not like any developers struggle with permission to build houses in West End.
