I worked at Butlers back in 1976 - 77 when I was a young fella, new import from Oz. Used to live in West Ealing and catch the little diesel train to Greenford. Back then it was called Butler’s Warehousing & Distribution Ltd, and claimed it was the largest covered warehouse in Europe. All of the warehouses to the left of the central alley, as you faced from Greenford station, were devoted to bulk tea imports, and used to smell lovely, except in summer when the tannin used to be overpowering. I worked as a reach forklift driver in the warehouses on the right which were half devoted to stock for Debenham’s stores (don’t know if they still exist; haven’t been back to Pommie since 1978), which I used to pull out of the racks and assemble into delivery truck loads, and half devoted to bulk biscuits and soft drink. Used to use Monotrol Hysters to load and unload them onto and off 40 footers.
I’ve still got the recommendation they wrote me dated 29/9/1978…it was tucked inside the old passport. They address on it was PO Box 14 Rockware Avenue Greenford.
Drove my first truck for Butler’s too, and wrecked my first parked cars!
Looking on Google Maps I can see that the warehouses are still there and are called Wincanton at the front, but I can’t see through the trees to see who’s using the rear end where I used to work. They were certainly built to last; I think they were 30 years old when I was there in the '70s. Memory plays funny tricks though, and I can’t even recall that pub on the corner, and I’m sure I would have gone in for a beer or two. I also thought there was some sort of hospital where Tata Beverages is, because I used to sneak into its staff cafe late at night. I blame lead in petrol fumes and anno domini.
But Butler’s was a strange company then. So was England too!! James Callaghan and 50 quid for 50 hours. Nobody wanted to work, except for Ozzie and Kiwi imports. Butlers had a penny a pallet bonus for forkies, but then refused to pay it to me because I loaded and unloaded every truck that came in while the other forkies played dominos. They put two extra Debenhams trucks on to load on night shift and added two hours of overtime to the start of the shift, because it was load and finish. I found that if I worked hard enough I could finish all the trucks inside the two hours overtime and go home before my shift actually started…They didn’t like that much either.
All of Debenhams electonics were kept in a security cage, but that didn’t stop pallets of them going missing. So being Australian and on night shift, they sent the Ds around to turn my house over. Wasted time, I knew how the pallets were getting out, on their precious day shift. Still, enough was enough, and I didn’t mind when they started retrenching in 1977. I moved onto Joseph Lucas (Prince of Darkness), at Acton, until the time came to go home to Oz and reacquire my true accent.
Still driving 40 years later, but now it’s something a bit bigger than a TK Bedford. It’s 25m bdoubles now, Melbourne, Victoria to Moree in NSW Australia, 1220 km in 15 hours (for AUD556 a leg or about GBP330 per day). I blame my career choice on Butlers. The smell of diesel gets into the pores and never comes out. Still it’s a good life if you like listening to music and talking books, swearing at motorists and caravanners and running over Australia’s national emblem. Got another one this week. The roos are a bit young and silly this time of year and there’s a limit to how far you can swing a bdouble to try and miss them.
