I forgot about l reece from horsmonden they finished in transport in 84ish,they ran volvo f86 and i remember they had some f10s they had stands in 9 elms and spits if i recall,when i did runs to northern markets in the early 80s with me tk bedford they were all one droppers,james b brown in manchester,fyffes in liverpool,e jordan sheffield,barnett brothers in gateshead,jv white in leeds,h scott in bradford and nellist in hull the loads were all 8plts and some on the back of a 7.5 ton puddle jumper good job vosa wern’t about in those days 
aidey:
Hi all
Got thinking the other day back to when i usd to do the fruit/flower markets and what happened to some of the high profile hauliers that were around then and what happened to them. Some i rember are R&T transport woolwich (often used to load from there) Wheatgrove (had some top gear) Wood from kent had several depots at one time.
Can’t Think of any others at the moment but expect some of you can.
I used to drive for Parkers of surfleet, many a wet cold night spent handballing in thmarkets around the Uk and them reloading all kinds of stuff…good days !!! at least we were all British then and always looked to give a helping hand to any one that looked to be struggling
I remember 79/early 80s i worked for walter game at somersham on night market deliveries often went to leeds market where walter game was also, on the way up i used to stop at markam moor there would be: T B olivers (benwick) Gowlers from wimblington and some C Minaar (earith) drivers in there all heading to markets up north.Then there were other regular runs , bristol- cardiff,or leicester-nottingham-derby, stratford-spits and borough,nearly always handball, never had to buy any veg tho!
Marketing for Growers (MFG) aka Garrett International based near Canterbury.
When I was with them we did loads of oranges or onions from Spain. Half way across Europe and then expected to be up all night too cos they could put a night man on.
How I hated getting to some market at around midnight after a days work and then being expected to wait another couple of hours or longer until the silly buggers decided to open up. Then they’d mess about shunting pallets about for another hour. I actually got into a scrap with a bloke at Edge Lane market in Liverpool one night cos he simply wouldn’t get on and tip me grrrrrrr 
And then the gaffer would be on the phone at 9am saying where the hell are you. Never again.
Tip you lonewolf you must have been one of the lucky ones.I’ll never forget that first night on the markets got to the first stand gave him me paperwork.He says there’s the fork lift off you go it was like that all night. I soon learned how to drive a fork truck. Spits,covent garden and weston were all d.i.y. Funny though all the northern markets did it for you.
My first driving job was on a 3.5t,collecting produce from farms around west Cornwall and taking back to the yard to load onto the artics.
We’d load 4 a day with either 850/1000 boxes of cauli,cabbage and flowers(October to April),or 22tons (880 bags) of spuds (May to July).
One would go to London (West. Int,Covent,Spits and Borough).
One would go to Bristol,Cardiff and Birmingham.
The other two would cover Manchester and Liverpool.
Other companies from the area on the same work were,
Cooks of Cornwall (cream and brown Dodges,SA’s and Bedford TM’s)
Chris Miners (brown and orange Scanias)
Steve Underhill (black Iveco Turbostars)
Dennis Oates (maroon and grey Scanias/Volvos)
Aldridges (blue Scanias and TM’s)
Rowe Group (green Volvos,Scanias and TM’s)
T Ellis (white DAF’s)
Conway Bailey (orange Leyland Roadtrains)
L.P.Stephens (red Leylands,Scanias)
There’s some good old names coming up on here now. Keep em coming and any pics you might have.(bearing in mind it was night work)