My First Job

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
1

I was just 21 when I passed my HGV Class1, first attempt I might add, and as soon as passed I went to see Bobby Fox Snr, the boss at Chilton Transport in Bow. He said that I had to have experience to get a job on his firm. I replied that how could I get experience if I couldnt get a job!!
He said that he would give me a chance, " when can you start" he asked.
Tomorrow I said. And so it was, got to the yard and met Jamie the transport manager and some of the drivers. Thats your truck over there, he pointed to and old Seddon Atkinson, go and get some chocks and a backscotch and get over to convoys in Deptford, theres a load of reels of paper for Oxford.
So off I went, after finding out what a backscotch was!! And make sure that all your dollies are straight…
And the rest is history…Here is a picture of that old Seddon Atkinson, I hope you like it.

After a few months, I got a newly painted Marathon and I felt like the nuts, that thing was so fast, I was up and down the road with steel and pipes, like there was no tomorrow. Then the LinPac cardboard job all over the place with a tautliner, great job everyday was different I was getting the taste for journey work.
Heres a pic of the old Marathon.

After about a year of Tauts and flats and dollies and chains & toggles, I was getting itchie feet and could feel that I needed to go further. So I thanked Foxy for the start and got a job with EuroTrans out of Ferry Lane.
John Smith was my new Boss and I would really start to learn about transport from now on!! although I didnt know it yet.
First trip Tip aload of soft toys in Paris.I was to run with Jimmy Ellis and Johnny Copping, they would show me the ropes. I started to learn the ropes on the ferry to Boulogne. Crash course on driving on the Periferique in rush hour, clutch master cylinder failure at Versaille, so I just carried on without a clutch. Tip the toys and run up empty to Luxembourg and change trailers with one of the Kiwi birds. Then take the loaded trailer and Tip British Shoe Leicester.All this with no clutch hydraulics.
And so started my long hits…
Did that a few times, with aclutch though, and then a few empty runs to Pavia for shoes.
After a good few months of this, I started doing Barcelona, and then Portugal. I was soon to become a Portugal specialist.
I loved going to Portugal. I used to run with Jimmy Ellis alot, and thats how I got to know where to eat properly and how to do the job properly, Jimmy showed me all the good places to eat. Thanks Jim.!!
Heres a pic of me and Jimmy parked up on route to Portugal.

Then after a couple of years of Smithy, Jimmy Ellis asked me if I wanted to come over to Tanker Bill and Roy Bradford, he was already on for Lawrabian. The firm was to become Lawrabian, based on the A13.
Istanbul sounded like an interesting place to drive to.
And so I went, to see Roy Bradford and got given an old Expo Freight 111, belonging to Jimmy Hassan. WOO 704S. We were mainly on the Otosan Ford job to Hydarpassa from Fords at Dagenham. Those loads were heavy.
Heres a pic of WOO 704S on my way back in Bulgy with Black Neville.

I know that some of you guys will remember that truck.

TO BE CONTINUED…

2

Whats Tanker Bill doing now? We were drivers together on SCA doing Italy.Roy was working in the office at the time.

3

I have no idea, last I heard he was in the states. But that was many years ago.

4

The cry of new drivers down the ages has always been ‘how can we get
experience if no-one will give us a start?’ To which I have always replied ‘you
just have to be in the right place at the right time, everyone started somewhere’.

Your experience GS mirrored my own. After driving a Co-op pop wagon, a spell
at sea, and then shifting muck for Wimpeys on the (soon to be) M1, my first
haulage job came when 3 of us walked into a haulier’s yard just at the
moment he was looking for 3 drivers. I got the 4 wheeler Albion flat (because I
said I hadn’t driven an artic before but my mate George, had), George got the
Kew Dodge artic (28ft 4-in-line flat), and the other fellow said he’d only come
along for the ride and didn’t want a job because he got lost more than 5 miles
from home. :laughing:
My first load was Stanton pipes to Cambridge,and then, following George’s
instructions (to look in Headlight), rang up Convoys in London and got 2 pick-
ups, 2 drops, Bath & Bristol - and off I went on my first grand tour. Always fixed
it to load back home for the weekend and was my own boss all week.
Bliss. :laughing:
First digs, New Cross, grim but exciting. New places, new faces, every day.
Good times.

5

I remember getting my class one in 1975 aged 21, with the sole intention of doing “continental” then middle east, after learning the ropes in the UK on general haulage , I started applying for jobs only to be told I needed experience, but also mechanical knowledge, and my own tools. Was this standard practice. Took me 22 years to get over the water!? Looking back perhaps I should have blagged it. Is that where I went wrong?

6

I had already served my time as apprentice mechanic, and had worked for several years as motorcycle mechanic, then car mechanic and then as a diesel fitter, all by the time I was 21.I left school when I was 15 with a few CSE’s and an O Level, and that was about it. After meeting some of the lads coming back from the Middle East in the late seventies and early eighties, I told the girl that I was living with that I was going for a paper and went to Rome with my mate Frank, who was on for Scouse Roy out of a yard in Bromley by Bow. I got back two weeks later just before Christmas. I ended up driving the old 2800 left ■■■■■■ Daf most of the way home. We loaded Prato and came back via Austria over the Brenner. And when we got into southern Germany, I met one of Falcongates in the services, on his way back from Baghdad. The motor was filthy and his diesel was all waxed up in his tanks. He told me about his trip and I knew then that was what I wanted to do. All I had to do was " get some experience"
By the time I was 25, I was an owner driver and I was pulling for Astran. Bob Paul used to call me the injection of youth.
The moral of this story is “Set yourself a goal and be patient, work hard and do what it takes to reach that goal”
I still set myself goals now…

7

What year would that pic of WOO 704S have been taken?It was still running for Expo Freight when I finished there in '85.I don’t know how much longer Expo was running for after I left.

8

Bestbooties
I think that was about 86 or 87, cant remember exactly, it all seems so long ago. I will have to search through my old passports to see the triptik from Kapik.

9

GS OVERLAND:
… he pointed to and old Seddon Atkinson, go and get some chocks and a backscotch …

:confused: :confused:

Ok GS, i will ask the question…what the (zb) is a “backscotch” :laughing: :laughing:

Kinda think im setting myself up for a fall but…whatever!! :wink:

Is it anything like a “piecost”■■? :laughing: :wink:

Bullitt.

10

Hi Bullit
I take it that you never loaded reels of paper.
A back scotch is a triangular piece of timber the same length as the width of a trailer, ie 8ft 3in or there abouts with a length of rope attached through a hole at each end. Each reel is loaded side by side on the roll and chocks are driven in between the trailer bed and the reel of paper. once the bottom tier of reels is loaded, the Backscotch is positioned behind the last two reels at the back of the trailer, and secured with the ropes by a dollie knot, thus securing the bottom tier of reels.Now the upper tier can be loaded, and sheeted and roped.
I hope this answers your question.
I thought that a long weight was closer to a piecost, about one pound fifty in todays money!!!
I have sent a few apprentices for a long weight( wait).
GS

11

GAY JOCK :laughing: :laughing:

BEING SERIOUS NOW A 8FT TRIANGLED SHAPE LENGTH OF WOOD USUALLY WITH ROPES ATTACHED WHICH IS WEDGED IN BEHIND THE LAST REEL ON THE DECK OF YOUR TRAILER WHEN CARRYING REELS OF PAPER

12

Cheers GS and Greek, never had the pleasure of paper reels, remember seeing Convoys alot when Fleet Street was still the hub of the newspaper industry.

You never stop learning do you!! :wink:

13

Those were the days gs…a flatbed trl wedges backscotch 2 bodysheets and a flysheet. When you had put all that lot on and made a good job of it it was something to be proud of. Iremember the days when you would not go down the road with ,a poorly sheeted load for fear of being slanged off by your mates.

14

Used to load newsprint out of Convoys for Glasgow in the early '70’s.
A well roped and sheeted load always looked good.
Had a backscotch in my garage for years after I came off that and went on to Middle East,thought I may need it again sometime…

15

GS OVERLAND:
I was just 21 when I passed my HGV Class1, first attempt I might add, and as soon as passed I went to see Bobby Fox Snr, the boss at Chilton Transport in Bow. He said that I had to have experience to get a job on his firm. I replied that how could I get experience if I couldnt get a job!!
He said that he would give me a chance, " when can you start" he asked.
Tomorrow I said. And so it was, got to the yard and met Jamie the transport manager and some of the drivers. Thats your truck over there, he pointed to and old Seddon Atkinson, go and get some chocks and a backscotch and get over to convoys in Deptford, theres a load of reels of paper for Oxford.
So off I went, after finding out what a backscotch was!! And make sure that all your dollies are straight…
And the rest is history…Here is a picture of that old Seddon Atkinson, I hope you like it.

!(http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z175/GS- ]

gs that paddy num scania i drove that i sure 426 sze when i had on smithy some one had jack knife it also woo i think i drove that to greece for tanker bill
good bloke bill same manner as me egg

OVERLAND/ReelsofpaperforOxford1stloadforChil.jpg)

After a few months, I got a newly painted Marathon and I felt like the nuts, that thing was so fast, I was up and down the road with steel and pipes, like there was no tomorrow. Then the LinPac cardboard job all over the place with a tautliner, great job everyday was different I was getting the taste for journey work.
Heres a pic of the old Marathon.

After about a year of Tauts and flats and dollies and chains & toggles, I was getting itchie feet and could feel that I needed to go further. So I thanked Foxy for the start and got a job with EuroTrans out of Ferry Lane.
John Smith was my new Boss and I would really start to learn about transport from now on!! although I didnt know it yet.
First trip Tip aload of soft toys in Paris.I was to run with Jimmy Ellis and Johnny Copping, they would show me the ropes. I started to learn the ropes on the ferry to Boulogne. Crash course on driving on the Periferique in rush hour, clutch master cylinder failure at Versaille, so I just carried on without a clutch. Tip the toys and run up empty to Luxembourg and change trailers with one of the Kiwi birds. Then take the loaded trailer and Tip British Shoe Leicester.All this with no clutch hydraulics.
And so started my long hits…
Did that a few times, with aclutch though, and then a few empty runs to Pavia for shoes.
After a good few months of this, I started doing Barcelona, and then Portugal. I was soon to become a Portugal specialist.
I loved going to Portugal. I used to run with Jimmy Ellis alot, and thats how I got to know where to eat properly and how to do the job properly, Jimmy showed me all the good places to eat. Thanks Jim.!!
Heres a pic of me and Jimmy parked up on route to Portugal.

Then after a couple of years of Smithy, Jimmy Ellis asked me if I wanted to come over to Tanker Bill and Roy Bradford, he was already on for Lawrabian. The firm was to become Lawrabian, based on the A13.
Istanbul sounded like an interesting place to drive to.
And so I went, to see Roy Bradford and got given an old Expo Freight 111, belonging to Jimmy Hassan. WOO 704S. We were mainly on the Otosan Ford job to Hydarpassa from Fords at Dagenham. Those loads were heavy.
Heres a pic of WOO 704S on my way back in Bulgy with Black Neville.

I know that some of you guys will remember that truck.

TO BE CONTINUED…

16

hi, just wondering why the two red 111s are irish registered and who had em in ireland??
thanks, great pics :wink:

17

offalyrover:
hi, just wondering why the two red 111s are irish registered and who had em in ireland??
thanks, great pics :wink:

the 2 irish reg was proberly the 1st of flaging out they where in the name of t i r from taglich near dublin and was owned by tanker bill as i said i drove 426 sze in them days it was easier to get irish permits an d blue/pink books you got away with a lot irish plates egg

18

My FIRST job is too far back for photographic records,but my first Middle East job was done in an old Volvo F88 240,8 speed box,about 1974.
AEH 254H,you know how it is,never forget a registration number do you?
Did not find out till I was hung up on a mountain in South Eastern Turkey that the diff lock had been removed some years previously,this motor was relegated to shunter when I got home and I moved up to a 290,wow!

This was taken in Austria on the outward trip.

19

Anybody got any snaps of Malta Cross trucks? LH F88’s with a lift axle. That was my first TIR outfit.

20

I started at 15 with the Scottish CWS Transport Division in Glasgow, 1962. Started driving at 18 with a petrol 30cwt BMC, then after 9 months got a TK under 3t ulw. Stayed there until I was 22, then went to BRS. Never passed the test, got my HGV by grandfather rights. Worked with A & J MacLellan for a couple of years, Smith of Maddiston in Glasgow, then United Glass for 5 yrs,
Various jobs since then. First time I loaded out of Convoys Deptford for Convoys Glasgow was the first time I loaded reels. The Deptford guys were great, I told them I had never done this before, so they showed me how to do it right. Gave me chocks and the backscotch, not to mention good advice on how to rope it at the rear BEFORE i put the sheets on. Good lads!
Now I’m 60 wondering where the years have gone!
I was also a member of the Headlight Drivers Assocation , I’ve still got my badge!
Alex