Len Vale, of the old O J Oxley Cartage and Haulage firm from the Globe Works Grays Essex will be 100 on Thursday 15th June.
IIRC,There was a firm from there called Drapers Transport they used to get work from Proctor & Gambles in the 60s, Maroon coloured Dodges, Regards Larry.
I’ve been absent from this forum for a good while now, but I’m still alive and kicking!
I retire in July, well sort of, I’m going to carry on working for a few nights a week.
Is Lenny Vale still with us? I wonder if he’s still got his British Leyland Marina he bought brand new while I was there.
Can anyone remember the exact dates when Transfleet were doing the Esso contract?
When I drove for W.H.Allen in Bedford around the early eighties we used to take a lot of stuff down to various container and shipping agents around Rainham Thurrock and Stratford. If we got held up waiting to tip etc and couldn’t get all the deliveries done we used to drop off the missed deliveries to an Haulage firm called Globe Hire. Can’t remember if they were around the Thurrock area or Silvertown? They used to make us a bacon sandwich and give us a tenner back hander for taking it in their.
As some of you know, I posted a reply in the Brain Haulage topic. I worked for them from 1985 to 1992.
This site has got me looking back further. Most of the companies I worked for before Brains seem to have disappeared now.
Oxley Cartage of Globe Works, Grays. That’s where I first started in 1976. Some of the lads I remember from there are Terry and Graham Brown. The three Stone brothers, Billy, Nobby and Jimmy. Billy and Nobby were right handfulls, Jim was totally different. Les ‘winkle’ Crabb, the shunter at Thames Case. Bill ‘the gallop’ Yallop. Peter Binder, who went to Drapers. Lots more blokes who’s faces I can see, but names I can’t remember.
Went on to Newens Transport, run by Pat Creasey. I was only there a year before it folded. That’s when we had the recession of the early eighties. I could only get a bit a bit of casual work, mainly for a bloke named Alan Taylor, operating a few vehicles out of Mairs yard in Tilbury. Mainly F88’s and F86’s. I used to regularly drive a Guy rigid, kitted out for carrying one container. I used to do a regular run to Birmingham meat market in that. I heard just recently that Alan Taylor died. That was a big shock. He seemed a right ■■■■■■■. He gave me a lift home in his Porsche one night after my old banger broke down.
Did a bit of holiday relief for Brains, but didn’t get the job at the end of it, so went to work for Armour Transport. I liked Phil Armour, but not the bloke he took on as transport manager. Did some for P&O, on the OCL contract.
Also did a bit for Canutes when they were in Motherwell Way. I’d packed up smoking then, but doing two Dovers a night for Canutes and all the hassle, put me back on the weed.
I could never get on Harris’s or Jess B Woodcocks, dead mans shoes jobs, they were.
Does anyone remember Ferrycrown, run by Eddie Bell? I was on there for a while. I had a brand spanking new F7, a Y reg. Mainly timber and reels. Normally delivered to the Daily Telegraph in St Brides Street, near Ludgate Circus.
Anybody else got any recollections of these old companies?
phil armour!!! the manager you refer to would be paul doherty i assume, used to drink in same pub as him in gidea park, any truth in the rumour that phil used to beat him up if he cost him money? 
SUPERCUBE:
phil armour!!! the manager you refer to would be paul doherty i assume, used to drink in same pub as him in gidea park, any truth in the rumour that phil used to beat him up if he cost him money?
Yeah, that’s the man. I was ok with him until one evening, about 8pm when I was dieselling up, freezing cold with sleet blowing down my neck. He came walking out to the pumps. I said something about it being a long day, and he said something like ‘well that’s ok, you’ve got to be in Liverpool at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning’.
Nah, not me mate.
I think I left just after that.
When I started this thread, I didn’t realise there was another excellent thread going - ‘Essex Companies’.
Sorry lads, should’ve done my homework.
■■? 8pm-8am, 12hrs- plenty of time. 
Yeah, right. 
I used to do St Helens-Kings X-Kirkby-St Helens in 9 hours!
there you go tetleysmooth, you could have gone up and down and still had three hours sleep,
Viking:
I used to do St Helens-Kings X-Kirkby-St Helens in 9 hours!
You were just the sort of geezer Armour’s were looking for. 
problem is, he always got someone to do it. if i ran bent it was for me, at the time you are talking about, i was on for youngs on cgm contract, the biggest worry we had was trying to kill time.
Tetleysmooth:
Viking:
I used to do St Helens-Kings X-Kirkby-St Helens in 9 hours!You were just the sort of geezer Armour’s were looking for.
It was no problem mate…I was on regular nights and there were a lot of firms doing the same type of run in the 70s.
In the early nineties, we had a mini recession, that’s when Brain went ■■■■ up. I got a job with Transfleet working out of the Esso depot in Purfleet. Jeez, what a terrible job. Multidrops to their filling stations.
They lost the contract after a year and dare I say this, I ended up working for Stobarts when they opened a depot in the truckstop in Oliver Road.
A Sunday nights work for them was Thurrock-Warrington-Wrexham-Purfleet. And you had to tip the load at Procter&Gambles when you got back.
Phew!!
Tetleysmooth:
In the early nineties, we had a mini recession, that’s when Brain went ■■■■ up. I got a job with Transfleet working out of the Esso depot in Purfleet. Jeez, what a terrible job. Multidrops to their filling stations.
They lost the contract after a year and dare I say this, I ended up working for Stobarts when they opened a depot in the truckstop in Oliver Road.
A Sunday nights work for them was Thurrock-Warrington-Wrexham-Purfleet. And you had to tip the load at Procter&Gambles when you got back.
Phew!!
The colour just drained from my face as I read “Transfleet”. They were the bain of our life when they first took the transport and drivers over on Bailee Freight Services.
In my opinion the start of the downfall of old fashioned transport operators. It was these whizzkids who promoted the accountant to be the most important man in a transport office. 
I’ve worked for:
Selina freight tank lane or whatever, long gone. 111 scania day cab
Universal movements school road grays, long gone, i think they were bought out by f p youngs
Express freight, now in tilbury
Goodways transport, thurrock, great job
Walkers transport, grays, still going
Tommy Allen then became P&O roadtanks
And the brilliant Mckellar Trucking 
i wish i could remember all the companies i worked for in my 40+yrs in transport. i can recall most, but there are huge gaps in my cv. 
The Channel Tunnel rail link goes right through McKellars old yard now.
Ensign bus and the London Power Wash used to in there too.