Archie McCullock He had a 1748 and did top scotch one way, he used to backload cassette tapes into a place in the midlands and then loaded back to north west on a Fri. That got written off and replaced with an identical one, F-Reg I think
I remember Archie,He used to play guitar and sing a bit. I believe he now lives in Spain…Got the pic on Facebook
Silentnight Football Team approx 1970… Back row L to R , cant remember names of 3 guys who worked in the warehouse, dressed is Joe Costello, Team Manager , he was in Transport Office, Next guy again nameless worked in the factory office, Jack Alderson garage mechanic, Mick Tyson. Front row L to R . Norman Fancy, Stuart Kinder, Pete Hirst, Olwyn Jones, Robbie Duxbury…
You must be turning your loft over with these photos Mick!
exsilentnight:
Hi Robroy, I found this pic of the late Steve Summers, He was killed November 8th 2010…age 55…
Yeh that’s the Steve I knew, a good lad, it’s sad, it’s always the good ones who go first.
To Cold up North, In the football team the guy 3rd from the left standing next to Joe Costello… Do you know what happened to him ? Not long after conveyor belts were installed in warehouse to load directly onto trucks , he got his arm trapped and it dragged him in up to the shoulder … I must have left not long after cos I dont recollect hearing anything else.
No I dont, i only recognise little Norman and Robbie.
I will show my dad tomorrow and get back to you.
Hi Cold up North, Fred will remember these trailors. Silentnight had the newly developed Concorde Bed ( constructed from fibre glass etc ) delivered independently from the usual Silentnight beds because they were unique and expensive and wanted to create the impression of an higher quality product… Just a few of us drivers were handpicked to do this job , one stipulation was that we had to have a 2nd man , the bed in seperate boxes had to be lifted by 2 men to minimise any damage… With normal Silentnight deliveries we worked alone throwing the beds up onto our shoulders , carrying them into the stores and dropping them where indicated… The Concorde range didnt last long as far as I can remember because very shortly we started delivering the Drawer Divan, hard work at first because the base unit was one piece ie 4’6" and doing it on our own. Later the base was split into 2 halves which then meant carrying 2 seperate boxes ( bases ) the Mattress and the headboard, which obviously slowed down the delivery times…
Keep them coming Mick! Do you have any pics of the Ford D series with the sleeper pod and the super cube trailer??
unfortunately not. I was allocated one of the first Ford D Series artics , they were on a R reg plate , I didnt particularly like it , was a tad slow and sluggish albeit a comfortable cab, and when the traffic office noticed my bonus targets were down due to slower running times I was then given a new R reg Dodge Kew artic which was zippier , hence bonus went back up to previous levels. I dont remember a Ford D series with a sleeper pod, we only had the 5 plus the bigger model/engine for Tony Bailey pulling heavier weight of headboards on the Sutton trunk… Again , as regards the super cube trailor, the biggest we had during my time was the 40 ft ,single axle shown on my photos.Unless they had one doing Aspatria trunk but I think they were just the normal 40 footers which were pretty large cube wise… Could do with some other member photos, I’ve sort of used mine up…
I wish now that I had taken lots of pics over the years but cameras in my younger days were really only used for special events such as weddings and personal memories…
My dad bought a W reg off them which was a daycab. He put a pod on it and it ran with a 43ft twin axle trailer that had single tyres and you could walk into the back without a tailboard and straight through between the independent suspension wheels.
I will ask Arthur Carlos if he and Brian have anymore.
Say hello to Arthur for me, we were young and innocent back in the days… havent seen him since I left in 83, nice lad …heck, he will be a pensioner like me now !!
He is still driving for SN, buoyant as self employed.
Hi Cold up north, just seen in Craven Herald, death of Norman Wellington age 69 from Barnoldswick… Ask Fred if this is the same guy was a Personnel Manager at Silentnight with Mrs Henderson in the early 70s ? I remember him being tall with a full moustache… Think he got sacked after failing to avert a strike by the drivers !!
He says he was MD when he started
He says he was MD when he started
didnt know they’d gone back to artics, the fleet since the early 80s has consisted of drawbar outfits with interchangeable /demountable boxes…