Harkers from Sunderland.
DEANB:
Harkers from Sunderland.0
We moved house a few years ago and we got Harkers to pack / store and redeliver our furniture etc. At the time they had a regular job moving military households from Germany back to Catterick Garrison.
Don’t think they are doing domestic removals now.
Tyneside
Think it has been mentioned before but Harkers did have the contract with Homeworthy Furniture from Sunderland for delivering their furniture goods. Used to run full loads of MDF with MAT trailers out of Teesport there.
tyneside:
“DEANB” Harkers from Sunderland.We moved house a few years ago and we got Harkers to pack / store and redeliver our furniture etc. At the time they had a regular job moving military households from Germany back to Catterick Garrison.
Don’t think they are doing domestic removals now.Tyneside
There is alot of work on those army contracts Tyneside but it tends to be the larger companies that complete them. However the rates
are not as good as you would expect and they get an awful lot of claims on those moves. 
DEANB:
tyneside:
“DEANB” Harkers from Sunderland.We moved house a few years ago and we got Harkers to pack / store and redeliver our furniture etc. At the time they had a regular job moving military households from Germany back to Catterick Garrison.
Don’t think they are doing domestic removals now.Tyneside
There is alot of work on those army contracts Tyneside but it tends to be the larger companies that complete them. However the rates
are not as good as you would expect and they get an awful lot of claims on those moves.
I think it might interest a few when I explain our dealings with Homeworthy Furniture from 1984.
I will illustrate how we progressed to this in longer details on the W.H.Williams thread in a few days time.
Courtaulds at their massive textile site at Spennymoor had opened in 1969 and we did all the transport of finished products and they closed the plant in 1981 which took over a year to end. In todays figures this lost us over £6million in turnover, and we were actively looking for alternative work for about 40 drivers and vans. We therefore opened an office for Removals in Sunderland and appointed Malcom Marsden as sales manager covering the Sunderland area
Among the prospective customers he visited was Homeworthy Furniture. At the time Homeworthy was owned by the Lonrho conglomerate which was run by an individual Tiny Rowlands who was never out of the news. Although at the time I never knew Homeworthy had an agreement with their Trade Unions that no outside hauliers would be allowed to take loads from their premises. Malcolm managed to get a few load for our vans. Little did we know at the time they were testing us.
Andrew Scott had worked directly for Tiny Rowlands for over 30 years He was a Company Doctor who was put into failing companies Lonro had bought to turn them round and make them profitable. Homeworthy had a Managing Director & a board of Directors who ran the company & Scott had been given a Directorship and although he did not get involved in the day to day running of the company he basicly controlled everything. I think it was Edmonton where Homeworthy had their orriginal factory (Scott took me and showed me where it was on one of our visits to London). He engineered to closing of that plant and the move of the entire business to Sunderland no doubt wth huge Government Grants. He showed me with great pride the vaccuum packing of the furniture facility he had introduced and his replacement fleet of lift off draw bar Scania s he had introduced with 'air suspension so the rigid could be lowered to exactly the same height as the draw bar trailers. He wasn’t keen when I pointed out one of our full length rigids could hold ne and a half times the amount carried on each lift off container making the cost per item much cheaper to deliver.
After he was happy about how we handled the vehicle deliveries we did for them he contacted Malcolm Marsden to ask could we quote for doing all their Mail Order work which was approx 50% of their production and thats where Malcolm handed the negotiations to me.
I had dealt with many large companies wth the likes of Thorn & Courtauld two of the largest in UK but never any like Scott on behalf of Homeworthy.
I really wanted to get the work as it would slot into our Mail Order work we were already doing for all the Mail Order companies with the exception of Littlewoods. (GUS who were by far the largest Mail Order Company owning Kays of Worcester (The UK’s largest) and about 18 catalogues including names like Univeral etc were owned by the Wolfson family & I understand they had family argument with the Moores family who owned Littlewoods so you took your choice & couldn’t work for both. Homeworthy however were the exception)s
The biggest problem with the Homeworthy deal I agreed was I agreed to pay for any damage which I had built into my calculation of price however as we got going they interpreted it as any returns that were damaged they held us responsible. With mail order the companies had to offer a 24 days return scheme. Most of Homeworthy was built up furniture which was shrink rapped on delivery but the returns we collected often had been damaged in people’s homes & was unwrapped when returned. Also they sold some about 5% which was self assembly furniture which often came back like firewood after customers had failed to assemble correctly.
However going back to our negotiations I had to work out a price for delivery of each piece of furniture which was very time consuming, Scott demanded I did a presentation to the full board of Homeworthy directors at our premises at Spennymoor which featured me using a whiteboard and afternoon tea. Scott himself visited each of our depots where I had the job to introduce him to each of our depot managers there to ensure we were running to an acceptable standard.
Then the final straw was that as our vehicles were not able to load at their Sunderland factory as their union agreement, they would bring loads presorted for each of our depots to our Spennymoor depot for transhipping onto our vans and we had to build a covered transhipping dock where each vehicle could reverse to & carry the loads accross under cover. Finally once the contract was signed about 2 months later Scott called to tell us he was leaving Homeworthy as his job was completed as he had negotiated a staff by out from Lonro and he was going back to Tiny Rowland to get his next assignment. He confided in me that he had done all he could to try to get the company back into profitability and there was no hope in the next 5 years and the new company would fail and go under. In the event thats what happened but just before they went under they were taken over by Silent Night for a nominal sum. Suddenly our insurers increased their charges to insure the Homeworthy debt as they went from blue chip to risk
Back to Andrew Scott Off he went to see Tiny Rowland for his ‘Next Assignment’ to be told as he was over 60 he was too old (Rowland at the time was 76. So he came and offered his services to us and we gave him a Mercedes Car and he became our first ever none family director. Taking the title as Commercial Director
at his time at Homeworthy he had been hated by all fellow directors & all staff ad I soon realised why. He did a lot of good including getting all our deliveries from UBU at North Shields and Team Valley sorted into loads directly from our depots. We had been collecting directly from production & taking & offloading into our Warehouses at Spennymoor and then sorting & reloading into full loads to our depots. That might seem an easy task but it took a lot of time as it had to be negotiated by GUS & Kays under guideance by GUS Transport who were our customers and UBU which although owned by GUS didn’t like the idea as it was a lot more work for them. He came t us carrying a carving knife to make us more competitive ^& efficient but we were a family business and things didn’t work the same way as a large PLC with no heart or care for employees. I had many arguments with him but he had my dad’s ear and turned us appart which had never happened before, Had things gone all right we would have floated on the stock exchange but it didn’t.
When our contract with Homeworthy came for renegotiation he demanded I left it to him. Bearing in mind he was hated by homeworthy and they wrongly thought the fact he had gone to work for us he had negotiated a bad contact for them & they didn’t trust him he lost the contract & they returned to doing their own mail order deliveries His reply was we were better off without them as we had made no profit from their work which was true but they made a contribution to our Mail order operation which without them was less profitable, as when they were gone our overheads remained the same,
Any body with any information on GW& L haulage co from the north east poss much appreciated thank you
Hi ravda, Thanks for posting Rankins Commer, They were a well known haulage Co plus the did warehousing too at their Cut Bank Depot, They also had a depot in Howard Street Liverpool where they ran a nightly trunk service from Newcastle,They IIRC Had a depot in Middlesboro, Plus they ran a few Tankers as well, Working out of Wilton ICI. A lot of my long gone pals drove for them, Happy long gone days, Take care & stay safe my friend, Regards Larry.
I know this has been posted several times in the past, But it was my first driving job for Baxters Road Services, In 1956, Young Jonny Baxter was a real Gent, Of course so was his Father, They paid decent money & night out money, Regards Larry.
I’m trying to find out any information about a company called G Wilson & Leatherland possibly from the Yarm area any help would be much appreciated
I’m trying to find out any information about a company called G Wilson & Leatherland possibly from the Yarm area any help would be much appreciated sorry double post
PJH 400:
I’m trying to find out any information about a company called G Wilson & Leatherland possibly from the Yarm area any help would be much appreciated sorry double post
Wilson and Leatherland were fruit and veg sellers and operated out of Cannon Park fruit and veg market in Middlesbrough. They were and did had premises at nearby Stokesley / Great Broughton. They did have at one time a Scania 140 in a two tone blue colour, usually for loads of potatoes from around the country, friend of mine called Lewis Simpson drove this for a few years, proper flying machine at the time!!
More good old pics Tyneside, the Radio Rentals van is a Ford 10cwt, pity we can’t see the reg no to date it but likely just post war, many of these were built as mobile canteens during the war and used by many volunteer services to supply the forces and civilians with a much needed cuppa and sticky bun. Franky.
I travelled along the new by pass 2 or 3 days after opening in my Foden S21 8 wheeler carrying a 12 foot wide tank lid from Whitehaven to Tyne Dock Engineering at South Shields, with a motor cycle police ■■■■■■ from the rear as it was new dual carriageway which was necessary according to the cop. Eventually I lost sight of him in my mirror so after turning off at the White Mare Pool onto a lay by wondering where he had disappeared to when a Bedford TK pulled in and the driver came over to tell me that my ■■■■■■ had got a puncture on the new road and left me to it. As it was getting near finishing time I drove as far as John Reid Rd where I eventually managed to get hold of two cops in a Mini who escorted me to TDE and got the lid lifted off just before finishing time. This must have been 1968 or 9.
The double decker looks like one of the unique at that time front entrance AEC Regents with C H Roe body belonging to Sunderland and District Omnibus Co (SDO) you can just make out the garter logo on the side and rear panels. They always looked good in their dark blue and ivory livery.
The Good Old Days ! Cheers, Leyland 600
J.R.Young Maggie.
