DEANB:
When you look at pics like this you realise what a dangerous job sheeting some of the taller loads must have been.Hate to think how many drivers must have had serious/fatal accidents falling off over the years.
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You’re not wrong there Dean, at Midlands Storage a 40’ load of cartoned Raleigh bikes took 2 40’ square sheets and barely covered them. All brought to the trailer by a forkie on 9’ wide pallets. He then had to wait to lift us up on top to spread them, had to get it right first time, no chance of adjustments, then wait around to lift us back down again. Tying down took around 2 hours I think, a really good throwing arm was needed. One time, after loading late in the day, I was still there all alone finishing off. There was a very small bit of platform clear at the rear and I climbed up to thread the Scotch cross and caught my foot in the cross over at the base, tumbled straight off the trailer and rolled underneath it out of sight. I must have been in shock, which prevented me from calling out, my arm was broken, and I lay there for nearly half an hour. There was one forkie working overtime in another shed and passed by every now and then but couldn’t see me or, of course, hear my weak cries. Eventually the thought struck him that he hadn’t seen me for a while so he climbed down to investigate. He gave me a lift to my car, the depot was very extensive, and I drove myself one-armed to Ilkeston hospital where the arm was set.
Naturally I didn’t deliver that load but of those I did, Liverpool docks were the worst. No help to unload, just a checker with a clipboard. Ropes off, sheets pulled off, the latter tumbled at least one stack and lively legs were required to dodge the avalanche. Then, using the half stacks left as ladders, we climbed up and pushed each stack off from a sitting position till most were demolished. Several times during this process it was necessary to climb down and stack the fallen cartons on their pallets. Why on earth did we out up with this treatment? When, at Econofreight, I was elected shop steward I tried. We had an issue with 20 foot long 6" steel pipes in 2 pyramid stacks on the trailer. ropes were thrown over and tied between each layer. Alone again at Liverpool, we had to tightrope walk along the top placing multiple hooks at each end. A driver from Burton, can’t remember the name, yellow and E something comes to mind (Ensor Transport?), was killed after he misplaced the hooks on different pipes. The resulting chaos threw him off and buried him under them. I asked our manager to either send a 2nd man or make sure at least 2 loads went together each time. Refused. We quietly did it ourselves. If necessary we waited at Liverpool until another load came along so we could do the job in relative safety.
Wow, where did all that come from? Haven’t thought of that for years, must have been bottled up as a really bad memory. With apologies to our Scouser members here, but to this day the worst accent in the world to me is a Liverpool one.
I was never aware that falls from loads were a major problem in the industry although in later years the “Jobs Worth HSE Wallahs” started to make themselves busy and I did have two or three fairly heated discussions with the Cretins but I always managed to defend successfully the manner and methods we employed on S & R. I also believe that there have been many “falls” out of Curtainsiders over the past years. 
One in particular I recall was an ex Bewick Driver who was in later years working for TDG and he suffered serious injury ( far worse than the two Bewick accidents I referred to) when he was pushed out of a Curtainsider .
Cheers Bewick.
