There ya go!
Retired Old ■■■■:
Right then, where do we start?
Us Macc based lads had an “agreement” with the lorry park attendant at Pop’s. He would let us park for a quid when we were on a dodgy as long as we didn’t require a parking ticket.
Brian’s old wooden café burned down (honest, officer!). He built a new bungalow and separate café on the proceeds of the insurance payout wich was superb- so much so that it was almost impossible to get a parking space around breakfast or lunch time. Brian, his wife and their son ran the new place but it closed when Brian retired. Our gang were calling here twice a day, five days a week at one time when we were hauling stone in and out of Tilcon at Pershore.
Can’t remember the name of the café on the Tewkesbury side of the M50, but I remember the adjoining garage was taken over by a company for their motorway breakdown service. It was almost opposite the Shuthonger Manor Hotel. which was lying almost derelict the last time I saw it.
Kempsey was about eight mile further North on the A38, Larry, over the border in a foreign country known as Worcestershire. I hadn’t realised that there was a café there.
Aye I remember brians as you do both excellent stops,good atmosphere as well.Did hear that david ran a café at symonds yat after they closed the old premises for a short time,anyone confirm this?
regards dave.
Spardo:
Trev_H:
The saltbox is on that old route Larry but it’s close to Burton on Trent and still trading I believe.Glad to hear that Trev, it was always on my list of good places to stop and I remember in the days before the new road was built, but planned, we all signed a petition to have a convenient junction made connecting it.
Not sure how convenient the eventual junction was but the last time I was there, admittedly some years ago now, I remember thinking that this is what happens in France - if it’s good enough it will continue to thrive even when by-passed.
Saltbox breakfast… 
No good without a decent layer of brown sauce. I thought it was compulsory to have brown sauce on a breakfast. Don’t tell me I’ve been pouring it on all these years when I could have been eating healthily?
And there’s only one egg. What’s happening there?
Aye I noticed only one egg , Oh dear it must have been a weightwatchers breakfast Eh, Of course us owldies all know that we have to watch our weight according to our Medical Advisors Ha Ha, Regards Larry.
Well of all the junk on that plate the only thing I would eat is the toast! Never bothered with cafe’s, unless I was trying to kill time in the afternoon when I would just have a cuppa. Missus used to pack me up four slices of bread and some cheese and that would often get eaten in the first traffic holdup when I got bored haha. 
Pete.
I used to eat all of my sandwiches and call at a transport cafe,if I had time, and still eat a cooked meal when I got home. I weighed 12.5 stone and ate quite a bit. Now I weigh 16 stone and eat beggar all.
Cheers Dave.
Dave the Renegade:
I used to eat all of my sandwiches and call at a transport cafe,if I had time, and still eat a cooked meal when I got home.
Cheers Dave.
Yes Dave, no matter how late I arrived home (and with surfacing gangs it could be ANYTIME) the missus had a cooked meal ready. Funnily enough when I first went driving I lost about two stone with the jumping up and down sheeting and shovelling etc, plus I used to walk half a mile uphill home from the lorry park. Then my weight came back again when we had to park at the quarry and I used the car, plus an easysheet as well! 
Pete.
windrush:
Dave the Renegade:
I used to eat all of my sandwiches and call at a transport cafe,if I had time, and still eat a cooked meal when I got home.
Cheers Dave.Yes Dave, no matter how late I arrived home (and with surfacing gangs it could be ANYTIME) the missus had a cooked meal ready. Funnily enough when I first went driving I lost about two stone with the jumping up and down sheeting and shovelling etc, plus I used to walk half a mile uphill home from the lorry park. Then my weight came back again when we had to park at the quarry and I used the car, plus an easysheet as well!
Pete.
Always had a cooked meal Pete, in those days, my Mum cooked for my Dad who was a lorry driver and my two Sisters. We all had a cooked meal, still do with Tracy. Not quite as big of a helping these days.
Cheers Dave.
windrush:
Well of all the junk on that plate the only thing I would eat is the toast! Never bothered with cafe’s, unless I was trying to kill time in the afternoon when I would just have a cuppa. Missus used to pack me up four slices of bread and some cheese and that would often get eaten in the first traffic holdup when I got bored haha.Pete.
The tomatoes and beans wouldn’t hurt you! and that “toast” looks like fried bread to me, not so healthy! The trouble is most of the stuff we like is unhealthy. Oh well time for my daily bowl of porridge, made with water of course. Got to look after the old heart, only half of it is working. Cheers Haddy. PS. Roll on lunchtime.
haddy:
windrush:
Well of all the junk on that plate the only thing I would eat is the toast! Never bothered with cafe’s, unless I was trying to kill time in the afternoon when I would just have a cuppa. Missus used to pack me up four slices of bread and some cheese and that would often get eaten in the first traffic holdup when I got bored haha.Pete.
The tomatoes and beans wouldn’t hurt you! and that “toast” looks like fried bread to me, not so healthy! The trouble is most of the stuff we like is unhealthy. Oh well time for my daily bowl of porridge, made with water of course. Got to look after the old heart, only half of it is working. Cheers Haddy. PS. Roll on lunchtime.
Had a cowboys breakfast this way. Good old bacon & beans, keep the old tailgate in working order.
Cheers Dave.
Hiya the saltbox changed hands about 10 years ago FOR THE BETTER.i used to do the coffee factory down the road.
i also did the Burton brewery’s at the weekend(brewers Grains)the salt box always opened 7 days but the owner from
the 70/80s would’nt do toast after 10 am. i always aked WHY but he would’nt. i always craved for cheese on toast
mid afternoon but no chance. i always wonder what the problem was…today the place is a gold mine.
John
Well I have never eaten Baked beans as just looking at them makes me heave, Bacon I am not overkeen on either (though I will eat it if forced to) and eggs are a DEFINATE no no as they make me throw up! Tomato pips get under my dentures so I’m obviously not ‘trucker’ material. 
Pete.
Dave the Renegade:
haddy:
windrush:
Well of all the junk on that plate the only thing I would eat is the toast! Never bothered with cafe’s, unless I was trying to kill time in the afternoon when I would just have a cuppa. Missus used to pack me up four slices of bread and some cheese and that would often get eaten in the first traffic holdup when I got bored haha.Pete.
The tomatoes and beans wouldn’t hurt you! and that “toast” looks like fried bread to me, not so healthy! The trouble is most of the stuff we like is unhealthy. Oh well time for my daily bowl of porridge, made with water of course. Got to look after the old heart, only half of it is working. Cheers Haddy. PS. Roll on lunchtime.
Had a cowboys breakfast this way. Good old bacon & beans, keep the old tailgate in working order.
Cheers Dave.
When 16 ton of grain came in 256 hundred weight and quarter sacks and 7000 bricks were stacked off 7 at a time you needed a breakfast like that.
Bob
Oh, there IS someone else who remembers the hundredweight-and-a-quarter sacks 
Not quite so bad when they were tipped down a chute, but a real back-buster if you had to carry them up steps into a granary. (“He’s not here today but I can show you where he wants them stacked”).
Talk about the Good Old Days.
Retired Old ■■■■:
Oh, there IS someone else who remembers the hundredweight-and-a-quarter sacks
Talk about the Good Old Days.
My old mate did flour for Grace’s up the ladder to the ‘flour loft’. He and his trailer mate both died of enlarged hearts
windrush:
Well I have never eaten Baked beans as just looking at them makes me heave, Bacon I am not overkeen on either (though I will eat it if forced to) and eggs are a DEFINATE no no as they make me throw up! Tomato pips get under my dentures so I’m obviously not ‘trucker’ material.Pete.
Well,you’ll not be rayt fussed with this bit of snap then Pete. I think Haddy put it on a few years back and I think it was a Lowestoft breakfast,£15 and you got yer money back if you scoffed the lot.
Corn was usually carried in “coombe” sacks. Barley weighed 16 stone, wheat and maize 18 stone, and oats were a mere 12 stone. Now and again you could cop a farm collection and the grain, mostly barley for the local maltings, would be in “catch-weight” bags. This is when the farmer would fill any kind of sack he could lay his hands on to avoid sack hire charges. Seed sacks, cattle-cake sacks, spud sacks, sugar-beet pulp sacks all filled to capacity would come up the elevator at random. The weights would vary between 8 and 20 stone. I never did dried peas or beans but I think they weighed 20 stone a coombe.
No wonder so many of us old boys are full of aches and pains. Cheers Haddy.
Chris Webb:
windrush:
Well I have never eaten Baked beans as just looking at them makes me heave, Bacon I am not overkeen on either (though I will eat it if forced to) and eggs are a DEFINATE no no as they make me throw up! Tomato pips get under my dentures so I’m obviously not ‘trucker’ material.Pete.
Well,you’ll not be rayt fussed with this bit of snap then Pete. I think Haddy put it on a few years back and I think it was a Lowestoft breakfast,£15 and you got yer money back if you scoffed the lot.
No Chris, not for me! I never ate breakfast anyway, just 4 slices of bread and cheese for whenever I managed to grab a minute, and a meal at night. If I had a large meal during the day I wouldn’t have felt much like working. 
Pete.
I used to have three cooked meals a day when I was in my twenties. But I worked (?) for BRS at the time so there was more spare time than work! 