Casper68:
Casper68:
I also (don’t ask why) loved the 1982 film ‘Road Games’.Is that the Australian film with Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis? Great trucking movie.
Yep that’s the one. I even drove the same Merc truck when I first got my HGV licence. No Dingo though 
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Here it is on you tube
Used to be a fireman in London, emigrated to Australia and took brick carting job as a stop gap measure until the local firearmy was recruiting, but found that trucking suits my personality MUCH better than sharing a dorm with a bunch of workshy misfits. Best job I’ve ever had. 
My Dad, and his dad, were traders. Mechanics and drivers before that. My Mums side of the family are in the Civil engineering/road building/earth moving/plant machinery side of things. So it was inevitable really! Wanted to drive since I was a child, as I was always a Daddy’s girl! Best thing I’v ever done, its in my blood!
Juddian:
Loved lorries from a kid, when other boys bought New Musical Express or Autocar, i bought Commercial Motor and Headlight.
+1!
Not the biggest lorry fan (on here!), but opportunities to travel (& earn at the same time) and have a certain degree of freedom is what appealed to me.
Always wanted to have my class 1 and 6 years as a hgv fitter making vacuum tankers decided it left a permanent position to do agency class 2 saved for class 1 and back in permanent position now.
Sounds easy but it was far from it lol.
My dad. From the very first moment I stepped foot in a truck as a five year old boy in his E reg DAF 2800 I was hooked. I then spent every possible school holiday with him until the age of 16 and his bosses who from the age of 7 or 8 would say “There’s always a job for you here when you’re old enough to drive” honoured their word when I turned 21 and I spent 3 and a half years working at the same firm as my dad before moving to Canada and my enthusiasm for the job has gone somewhat downhill ever since.
My uncle ran a Guy (Big J) reg *** SOW *, that he called “The Old Pig” , during the early seventies. I was 12, living in Rhoslefain, Merionethshire. He phoned one Sunday evening telling my mum to get me to Shrewsbury the next morning and he’d take me to France for a week, including Paris.
When we arrived in Shrewsbury, he asked if I’d remembered my passport, mum realised I didn’t have one. She made a phone-call to the local office who told her to get some photos and get them to him in an hour. When we arrived he looked at the ID she had in her handbag and issued a visitors passport to me. Red tape? Yeah, right, he had a big pair of scissors!
The truck was not a sleeper - my uncle used to sleep across the two seats and the engine hump, (looked really uncomfortable and I don’t remember seeing curtains!) and he hung a piece of wood across the back of the cab with a couple of hinges and a couple of bits of chains for me to sleep on.
We went to “Les Halles” in Paris, anyone who went there (now disappeared) will remember the blood running in the gutters because it was a massive slaughter-house area… Because it was February and near freezing, it didn’t smell as bad as it’s reputation…
Biggest memories:- the fork-lifts with their hooks for carrying the sides of beef, being told off for asking for lemonade using “Si’l te plait” rather than “Si’l vous plais” by the most beautiful waitress in the world 
after I’d eaten the onion soup and travelling past the massive military graveyard in Verdun - I can still see the rows and rows and rows of white crosses in my minds eye…
But the biggest memory of the lot was being so admiring of my uncle because of what he did in his job. I’ve still got the ticket for the ferry that listed me as “co-driver!”
PS It’s amazing how good long-term memory can be - compare that with my current short-term memory:- when I arrived home tonight, I took my ruck-sack out of the car, put it on my shoulder and picked up my coat and towel, then went to pick up whatever else it was that I needed but had to work out what it was. Then I realised it was my ruck-sack that I was missing, but worked out I must have left it at the yard. I thought “Never mind now, I’ll pop and get it tomorrow.” Then as I got the fob out for the door entry system to the block I live in, I realised I was wearing my ruck-sack. I think I may have been tired. Yes, that’s it, I was tired.
Ste46:
Juddian:
Loved lorries from a kid, when other boys bought New Musical Express or Autocar, i bought Commercial Motor and Headlight.+1!
+2
Looooo:
if the drops are the work and the driving is the fun, you want to go for your artic asap so you won’t have to work anymore. Ha.
Lol,so true! I used to do 7.5T multi drop for white goods and it was 30 odd drops a day into houses. Up stairs,down alleys. Hard going some times. But get class 1 and its 80% driving,10% “other work” and 5% sitting about. Unless you do container work,in which case swap the driving and sitting about statistics around! 
All the men before me in my family worked at the pit and I followed suit. Now that’s another romantic job finished I was working as an engineer for Nissan and redundancy was offered to anyone who wanted it so I took it.
Walked into the job centre to sign on (never again!) and sat down with the useless pleb in front of me. She signed me on for job speakers and asked if I had a driving licence… She looked at it and mentioned the class D I had… I told her it had expired and she asked how I could get to back… Straight of the top of my head I said I needed another test and a HGV test would get it back along with a new licence. The dole paid for my class 2 and ADR licence
Paid for the class 1 upgrade myself and that’s me happy as Larry working night trunks now Working when I choose listening to planet rock all night… No hassle.
My choice was being made redundant or we can train you up, so I trained up. Turns out 7 year later I still got made redundant
took after my father,it was a natural progression from vans to hgvs,personally though I wish now I had followed my two brothers into the railways
Was a plant fitter, needed my ticket to get the low loaders and 8 wheelers to the MOT station and to do a bit of relief driving etc… I have been driving full time for a while now… earning better money 
Car mechanic for 10yrs, Joiner for 24yrs. Simply got bored as the job had become so familiar, and was hankering for a change. Truck driving was the only thing that was man enough to handle me, so i made my bed accordingly!
Cage fighting was my second consideration, but being of modest size (and a pacifist) i veered away from that one.
The old cliche of its ‘in the blood’.
Drove my first tractor at 8, first car at 10 round Cyprus, first joyride at 12, first police chase at 14 (me in a landrover, rossers in a rover V8- lost them over fields and a stream). Then a sensible college break but the call of the road was too great and drove anything I could till I was 21- passed class 1 test first time (probably luck) and straight into a lowloader job. Then met wife and eventually had 10 years off doing internet stuff and then the road called me back- which is where I am now.
Theres a couple of ram raids and gettaway driving jobs I have missed out but have to be carefull what I say on the internet these days…
[The above maybe the drink talking, in reality I was a good girl and have just loved to drive. The open road- those moments of being in the zone at one with the truck a good tune on the stereo and a cup of tea in ones hand make it all worth it… I wasn’t designed to be stuck in some office - my mission is to be out on the road and having as many adventures as possible]
In the blood in my case, my Dad drove lorries for over 40 years, and that’s all I ever wanted to do.
My dad drove international, so when was 21 I went straight for my test, done a weeks course, past first time!
So started working for a fridge company based in Newark (whom my dad worked for, although he was based at a slaughter house near Annan).
I worked there for 12 months traveling from Carlisle to Newark on a weekend, things you do to get experience!!!
Then spent 5 years wearing a green shirt and tie, done a couple of trips to Holland, and 1 to Northern Ireland.
Got offered a job back at the Ford garage where I served my time as a Ford Technician, offered loads and delivered nothing, so went back to ES, where I was made redundant in 2000, so worked for Sealy beds, delivering into London every Monday, Tuesday, but due to having our first child born 3 months before being made redundant, took the first job I could (which was a fantastic job, only away 3-4 nights a week).
That was my last full time driving job, but I thing it’s definitely in the blood, as I still do occasionally do a bit, but only when I want!
My uncle worked for P&O out of Southampton, I had a difficult young life with my parents and after being taken out of their care my aunt and uncle took me in , during the holidays I would go with my uncle (usually to Taunton cider) and while he tipped I’d be in drivers seat pretending it was me … life took me in different direction but 20 yrs later achieved my dream and never looked back
Reef:
My Dad was a security guard for B&I line at Pembroke Dock and as a kid in the school holidays I used to go along with him on his night shift sometimes, one of the Irish boys offered to run me round the yard and that was it I was hooked, my whole employment future was mapped out there and then with only one end goal, to become a Class 1 lorry driver (only took me another 26 years
You realise that your name was on a card that for him from wherever he came from in Ireland to Roslare don’t you lol