That fly sheet looks quite new Dennis,yet it’s roped over,tut,tut driver!!!
David
I think I have explained the reason for using a fly sheet in an earlier post Dave ! This was a load of sea washed turf off Morecambe Bay and every winter time we hauled this traffic regularly to the south east for a chap called Roberts, an Irish fella, who was acknowledged to be the finest builder of bowling greens in the UK. Well usually when we loaded this turf it was ■■■■ wet through and our shunters would run the trailers into the depot and the tandems were ■■■■■■■ groaning at times there was that much water in them often had 25ton in weight and it ran out over night to more-or-less make the load legal Especially iffy on the tandems before we started getting the tri axles which sorted the overloading out. Well if it was raining over night and they weren’t sheeted the turf soaked up another load of rain.However.it was no good using the main sheets as they were far too big plus they got ■■■■ up off the turf, so we decided to use the PVC fly sheets which were the right size plus they kept the rain off the turf and as it was only a dozen or fifteen loads per season, may have been a few more depending on how many greens he was re-turfing or building new. That shot just happens to have a fairly new sheet on it but usually we used the old ones out of the sheet store. Can’t get it dead right all the time but it was a good paying job and he was a gentleman to work with ! Cheers Dennis.PS a possible reason that that trailer got onto the job maybe that it was directed straight onto the marsh without coming through the depot and collecting an older fly sheet
Right Dave,we did start having a sheet tie stitched into the edge of the fly sheets but not the ordinary rope as it was too thick and made the sheet heavier. Cheers Dennis.
I know what a bottle sheet is “rigsby”,I have busted a gut using them on glass wear out of St Helens on many a load,that is a fly sheet in the picture,Dennis maintained he didn’t have any bottle sheets,only flys and mains.
These PVC main sheets were the only ones I ever tried and they were ■■■■■■■ terrible to use especially in extremely cold conditions,their only redeeming feature was I bought them secondhand half price in “as new condition” from a Milnthorpe O/D as they were no good to him on his Cape Boards job. I think they finished up covering a pulp stack we had in the yard,■■■■■■■ things ! But you’ve got to try these things provided of course it doesn’t cost “an arm and a leg” eh! Cheers Bewick.
We had pvc sheets on tippers for a while, they were not so bad for those lads carting stone all the time as they were nice and light but for us on coated they sweated terribly and folding them up was like wrestling with a slippery wet eel! Eventually they cracked and split, useless after that though I did keep part of one for when we double sheeted to keep the top one clean.
On the subject of stolen sheets a mate of mine and Bewick’s had a very fast LAD cabbed Albion Reiver, early one morning snatching a bit of shuteye on Keele Services mid 1960s heading to Manchester to load for home after tipping steel strip at Joseph Lucas’ Hall Green (always a nightime delivery) he felt the wagon give a jolt and a clattery engined vehicle pulling away from alongside. Half asleep jumping out he checked and discovered his folded sheets had gone from behind the headboard and was just in time to see a 3 or 4 ton Fordson Thames 4D type van roaring away. Being rather quick tempered the blue touch paper had been lit, the Reiver fired up and off in pursuit, soon catching up he extinguished all lights until just slight ahead of the 4D then attempted to force it onto the hard shoulder but failed then an ICI tanker caught up with them gave the wire he would assist and between them managed to box the 4D in and force it onto the hard should. Both drivers jumping out with hammer and jack bar in hands R shouts “which un dista want ?” as there were two occupants in the 4D. “Either” says the ICI man so one angry driver at each cab door the occupants sat cowering in terror with their hands up pleading not to be harmed. Not sure how to deal with them legally after finding several sheets in the van they unloaded them all onto the Reiver and let the two guys go.
Calling in at Knutsford Services the incident was reported to the police there who awe struck saying they never got excitement like that. Anyway the sheets were examined and turned out to be his own plus the others being Athersmiths of Barrow. The culprits were apprehended and turned out to be a couple of all in wrestlers from Yorkshire who were not so brave when faced with two angry drivers. The outcome was both companies got their sheets back and my mate received £2 reward from the Barrow company for his trouble, Dennis can you imagine the comments made with regard to a reward ■■
Far fetched but true.
Cheers Leyland 600.
Leyland600:
On the subject of stolen sheets a mate of mine and Bewick’s had a very fast LAD cabbed Albion Reiver, early one morning snatching a bit of shuteye on Keele Services mid 1960s heading to Manchester to load for home after tipping steel strip at Joseph Lucas’ Hall Green (always a nightime delivery) he felt the wagon give a jolt and a clattery engined vehicle pulling away from alongside. Half asleep jumping out he checked and discovered his folded sheets had gone from behind the headboard and was just in time to see a 3 or 4 ton Fordson Thames 4D type van roaring away. Being rather quick tempered the blue touch paper had been lit, the Reiver fired up and off in pursuit, soon catching up he extinguished all lights until just slight ahead of the 4D then attempted to force it onto the hard shoulder but failed then an ICI tanker caught up with them gave the wire he would assist and between them managed to box the 4D in and force it onto the hard should. Both drivers jumping out with hammer and jack bar in hands R shouts “which un dista want ?” as there were two occupants in the 4D. “Either” says the ICI man so one angry driver at each cab door the occupants sat cowering in terror with their hands up pleading not to be harmed. Not sure how to deal with them legally after finding several sheets in the van they unloaded them all onto the Reiver and let the two guys go.
Calling in at Knutsford Services the incident was reported to the police there who awe struck saying they never got excitement like that. Anyway the sheets were examined and turned out to be his own plus the others being Athersmiths of Barrow. The culprits were apprehended and turned out to be a couple of all in wrestlers from Yorkshire who were not so brave when faced with two angry drivers. The outcome was both companies got their sheets back and my mate received £2 reward from the Barrow company for his trouble, Dennis can you imagine the comments made with regard to a reward ■■
Far fetched but true.
Cheers Leyland 600.
Great tale that L600 and I can well imagine RWB could have dealt with both miscreants on his own, wrestlers or no,but you have to remember that the rates that Athsmiths operated for (and I’m not kidding) a reward of £2 was a fortune and RWB should have been most grateful An old long gone pal of mine Tommy Leyland once did a subbie load from Athersmiths in about 1970 from Barrow to the North East and when he got the confirmation note it paid summat like £9 10s net I kid you not,Tommy was fit to be tied down !! Cheers Dennis.
Bewick:
Well! have we run out of rope or has the skill finally been lost for ever ? those were the days Cheers Bewick.
No i am still here .
Oh! [zb] it! your feet must have touched the floor before the rope tightened then Dan ! Cheers Dennis.
Round here its only for sheep thieves .
Spot on there Dan, the Old Bill should catch some of the ■■■■■■■■ and string the ■■■■■■■ up, and leave the ■■■■■ hanging for 6 months as a warning to their 'Obo’s. like they did with Highwaymen years ago! Cheers Dennis.
Going a bit off topic here ,a neighbouring farmer found his stolen trailer for sale ,went to see it took the seller hostage ,brought him back to the farm and locked him up for a day whilst deciding what to do to him ,ended up in more trouble than the trailer thief .
Punchy Dan:
Going a bit off topic here ,a neighbouring farmer found his stolen trailer for sale ,went to see it took the seller hostage ,brought him back to the farm and locked him up for a day whilst deciding what to do to him ,ended up in more trouble than the trailer thief .
Unfortunately Dan that’s what’s wrong with this country nowadays and until things are altered injustices like you describe will keep on happening. Once I caught a “Scroat” trying to break into one of my Merc cars at home around mid-night,I chased the ■■■■ and caught him but there was no-one about so I couldn’t keep a hold of him and drive to the nick,so I had got one of his manky shoes and gave him a few cracks and slung him into a bunch of nettles,he screamed ■■■■■■■ murder at me and then legged it.Then I went home and rung The Old Bill who sent a young Bobby, this was by about 1 am. So he tells me he knows who this Scroat probably is by my description but he can’t tell me for legal reasons !! But I’m talking about the mid 80’s and I had one or two “handy” lads working for me at that time who lived in town who said we’ll find out who he is you just forget it ! I found out later the wassock got a right pasting one night shortly after outside a Club in town by one of the bouncers who was the brother of one of my Lads Cheers Dennis.
I’ve just gone back to general haulage after a gap of twenty odd years been on car transporters for the last seventeen,had enough of it.i now work for a small firm in north east,I love it,it’s amazing how you never forget,and how every thing soon comes back
Hi Bewick , there used to be a saying round here when things got a bit traumatic with breakdowns, accident damage or VOSA threats etc " The wagon / bus is over the pit and the rope has been hidden" !!!
Cheers Leyland 600
Leyland600:
Hi Bewick , there used to be a saying round here when things got a bit traumatic with breakdowns, accident damage or VOSA threats etc " The wagon / bus is over the pit and the rope has been hidden" !!!
Cheers Leyland 600
And all this was going around me when I was a lad growing up in Ireby L600 ! I can’t recall ADB getting into such a fix ! mebe the Scroats about Wigton got into a bit “lumber” but then I was just sat on’t bonnet of’t Beaver or’t Comet and innocent of all around me eh! can’t think that William would ever do owt’ wrang and he had Gab riding “shotgun” wid him for a couple of years as well. Great old times pity I was so young so as not to take it all in but a packet of crisps and a bottle of pop in an Auction mart café was near enough for me eh! Cheers Bewick.
Hi Leyland600, your tale about the theft of your sheets jogged the old grey matter and reminded me of an incident in about 1960. I was with a Warners driver in a Seddon Mk15/10 - 427 AD en route from Gloucester Auction Mart to Coggans Abbattoir in Chichester and as we approached Birdlip village on the side of the road was a yellow sheet. We stopped and opened it up and it was lettered James Duke & Sons - Bishops Waltham. Ken Warner said that as we were passing their mill we would return it to them which we did.There was no reward offered but we were happy that we had done our good deed for the day. Many years later circa 1978 I was doing work for Oldacres Animal Feeds and they bought the business of Southdown Feeds on Terminus Ind Estate in Chichester and I began hauling bulk raw materials from there for Bishops Cleeve Mill so I needed traffic to get me down there. On the off chance I called into James Dukes and related the tale of the sheet and enquired as to the likelihood of work down to them and came away with copious loads from Sharpness and Avonmouth to Bishops Waltham - just shows that honesty is the best policy. Regards Noel
Yes Laurie I certainly agree with you, one good deed deserves another which may be a long time in coming but nevertheless they do turn up eventually.
Cheers Leyland 600
Especially iffy on the tandems before we started getting the tri axles which sorted the overloading out. Well if it was raining over night and they weren’t sheeted the turf soaked up another load of rain.However.it was no good using the main sheets as they were far too big plus they got ■■■■ up off the turf, so we decided to use the PVC fly sheets which were the right size plus they kept the rain off the turf and as it was only a dozen or fifteen loads per season, may have been a few more depending on how many greens he was re-turfing or building new. That shot just happens to have a fairly new sheet on it but usually we used the old ones out of the sheet store. Can’t get it dead right all the time but it was a good paying job and he was a gentleman to work with ! Cheers Dennis.PS a possible reason that that trailer got onto the job maybe that it was directed straight onto the marsh without coming through the depot and collecting an older fly sheet 
An old long gone pal of mine Tommy Leyland once did a subbie load from Athersmiths in about 1970 from Barrow to the North East and when he got the confirmation note it paid summat like £9 10s net I kid you not,Tommy was fit to be tied down !! Cheers Dennis.
Cheers Dennis.
