hiya, is it john banks the one you are thinking of? used to be matey with andy(?) who i met in yugo one trip andy worked for john banks and i beleive some of the trucks came from unit commercials.also connected with O&B transport from over cambs.
chazzer:
Hi Ray, MacTrucking was the subbie from over the border but as we all called him Mac I can’t remember his proper name but not a man to upset after a few drinks. Malcolm Coates was another driver who had been on the m/e for a long time and had worked for John ? the man who organised the Angola merceneries as transport manager based on the airfield behind Leigh Delamere services loading trailers for Kuehne and Nagel. Unfortunately Malcolm was in the dark to the fact that his boss was pocketing the upfront money and had been told that they were storing the trailers until there were enough to send probably 100 units in one go. Quite surprised when K & N reps turned up wanting to know why all their loads had’nt shipped but the money had been drawn. Malcolm went to Aus where he died in a trucking accident several years later or so I have been told, if I’m wrong I am sure someone will put me right.
Mick Shirley is now retired allegedly as a truck salesman although I was doing some work for him last year as he still keeps his hand in delivering new vehicles for Amey. Two other Radclive m/e drivers were Rod Sadler who sadly died from cancer and Alan Clayton, Goddard still lives in Wantage and I know he looks at this site quite regularly so he might be tempted to sign up and put some of his own tales on here. JSK had an F12 6x4 V reg which he started doing heavy haulage with Derek Garrard from Longworth until he and Heather moved to Spain along with said F12 and according to Derek who has a holiday home near John not far from Granada the F12 resides in the front garden much to Heathers disgust.
Ashley Coghill sent me an email the other day with a picture off of toprun with myself, Micky Dunston and I think JSK and trucks on top of Mont Cenis so I will try and paste it in here soon.
Mushroomman your right it is definately Mrs Winslow’s little boy and Micky Dunston in the other pic.
Chazzer
Is this the Derek Garrard that drove an F88 for John Wisschussen,a subbie for Chapman and Ball?
5thwheel:
bestbooties:
I’m sure I mentioned on another thread,that Simon International finished up with the F12 roadtrain,registration *** OWL.
Black John drove it for some time and on one trip was going to Baghdad via Syria.
Going down the hill towards Damascus,he ran out of brakes,(I think he may well have been double loaded),and rolled the drag on the exit slip where we used to turn off passed the sugar beet factory for Iraq.
He was loaded for the ice cream factory in Badhdad with cocoa butter,managed to get the whole load signed for and picked up the damged drag on the way home.The rig finished up here at Stoke,but before we could put it back on the road,things were coming to an end and it was sold at auction.
But before this,I was asked to fly out to Greece to recover one of SI’s F89 roadtrains that was in the Yugo customs on the Greek border at Gevgelia when someone had dumped it after a trailer wheel bearing had collapsed.
I flew out to Athens and was met by Black John in the ex Radclive’s roadtrain,and we drove it between us up to Gevgelia so I could get the F89 road train mobile and back home.There you go Bestbooties,another story for your book!
Take it easy,
David
If I put many more stories on here I wont need to write a book!
Bestbooties,
as far as Derek Garrard is concerned I know he worked for Chapman and Ball maybe he was working for the subbie before that and he went on to work for Mavertons after them (he was probably the only NON member of the pump and hose club), then he went on to set up his own company and ended up running heavy haulage out as far a Azerbijan, sold up around 2001 and does light haulage and drives race trucks to the european races for Force India F1. I still keep in regular contact with him via email and skype.
LB76, John Banks was the name I was trying to think of but we are talking late 70’s and the old grey matter gets clogged up now and again
JSK had a DUKW ex army amphibious vehicle in his front garden when he lived in Didcot area, perhaps there is some as yet unknown disease that affects some people who have an obsession with wing mirrors, woe betide anyone who even looked at JSK`s mirrors. I remember well when he used to arrive at work, carrying an umbrella and a copy of the financial times, another one of those people who never ever let you down, great character, I took a call at the office one morning from the Garda in Dublin asking if I knew why one of our lorries was taking up 20 car parking spaces on the side of the River Liffey, and could I get the driver to move it, needless to say long before mobile phones, I explained that he stood a much better chance than me.
Ray
Isn’t that Radclives old yard by the side of the A420 just after the Farringdon island swindon bound.
Think its now occuppied by a builders merchant and wood yard. ■■?
If you turn right at the roundabout on the 420 at the bottom of the dip swindon bound and go down Park road Radclives old yard is on the right about 300 yds before the town centre, a long double building running parallel to the road with big gates.
Thanks for clearing that one up Chazzer, because from the pictures in P. Dwyers book on F88/89 the ramps you can clearly see just resembled that yard for some reason.
I’ll keep taking the pills 
JSK had a DUKW (amphibious landing craft) in his front garden when he lived somewhere near Didcot, I will always remember as he came to work, he regularly had a rolled umbrella under one arm and a copy of The Financial Times under the other. I took a telephone call early one morning from a garda officer from Dublin, informing us that there was a Radclive lorry taking up some 20 or so car parking spaces along the river Liffey. Yes JSK how they expected us to get it moved remains a mystery. Can anyone remember the Aussie/driver who worked for Radclive for some while. One hell of a character.
Ray
Ray I don’t think anyone remembers his name we just called him Ossie
I was sent this by TruckerAsh from the TopRun website, I have no idea who took it but old hands will recognise the layby near the lake at the top of Mont Cenis when I was subbing to Radclives with an ex Astran 140 all of us on our way to Greece
Hi chazzer, Can you remember the year the pic was taken? The trousers say '70s, 
the reg’s of Radclive motors, mid 70’s, but I can’t make out the year of reg. on your 140. Just wondered if you were running much older motor than firm’s men? 
Hi BigG-Unit,
Mine was a P reg and the year was I think 1979 just before I started doing regular Greek runs but most of Radclive’s trucks were R and S reg.
Just trawling through some old pics and found this.
I`m pretty certain I took this in Carisio
LOOK a MAT vehicle and two Bowker Volvos well what a blast from the past
rayluv:
LOOK a MAT vehicle and two Bowker Volvos well what a blast from the past
Hullo all,
Yes it looks like it could be carisio, the Garonne in fact. But fancy seeing a MAT parking on that side of the road, it was always on the other side at the Paladini. That was the unofficial MAT Italia depot 
Mind you that was in the days before these Sat Nav things eh.
Cheers, Archie
Classic old school pic, some “proper lorries” there 
Radclive Transport was formed in 1972 and the first trucks purchased were 4 x F 88 Volvo Tractor Units
The first drivers on the scene from memory were Jack Caddon, Joe Cook, Bill Cook and Alex Christie
One of Jack Caddon’ s first jobs was on tour with Led Zepplin When I joined the company in May 1973 Alex Christie was involved with Joe Cook hauling Live Trees from Hungary to the parent companies ( Radclive Nurseries ) farm for replanting and distribution throughout the UK Something in the region of 70 - 100 loads I believe From there the company progressed and purchased 4 x DAF 2600 Tractors All with non tilt sleeper cabs and split windscreens
More Volvo’s were purchased some new and some secondhand which were rebuilt in Radclives own workshop
In 1976 Radclive obtained a contract to move missiles from Frosinone to Skalstrup in Denmark for NATO The photo of the Radclive truck in Genoa is one such load
Radclive Transport did have some of the best and very able drivers at the time who worked very much as a team and new recruits were taken onboard as recommended by the drivers
A good company which sadly fell by the wayside for various reasons
Drivers with stories and input wouldmake good reading
On a sad note some of the guys are no longer with us the latest being Des Townsend who was given a great send off on Thursday 19 th August. He is most likely having a pint with Rod Sadler and Bobby Smith who also handed their liences in
There is talk of a Radclive reunion So watch this space
Mick S
Mick, if anyone has stories of Radclive it’s you, sad news about Des Townsend. When are you going on Skype?
Bobbydog:
I remember well the very best team of drivers and technicians any company could wish for, had it not been for them, Radclive would have succumbed a long time before it did. I started with them and drove some tipper rigids, before going on to an F86 tractor unit doing predominantly near european countries, and then moving on to a LHD Daf ODP233M, we had two other Dafs and the rest were F88 240s and I think 1 F89 which Alex drove. Eventually ending up trying to run the business with Martin looking over my shoulder from Vancouver. We moved on to a full Volvo fleet buying some F88 290s and two F12`s both 6x4 one for low loader work and the second as a road train.Some of the names I remember, apart from those in previous articles were John Stanley Keen (went to Spain I think) with Heather, Dave Shirley who went to Dawsons, Gordon Grant, Roger Maull, I cant remeber any others right now, other than it was a priveledge to work with a truly professional and committed group of men.
Raymond
Is Dave Shirley still about?
Rememeber him from Dawsonfreight Commercial days.Good salesman did the deal with Cannons at Milton
for the FL7 units for the South Wales coal run to Didcot Power Station that would have been 1987.He was still
living in Stanford in the Vale around then as I remember dropping a new FL6 tipper at his house late one saturday
so he could deliver on the sunday afternoon!!!