Imagine if you set up 3 rows of 2 desks in the trailer facing the back doors with people sat behind each desk (these would be the pallets), now stick a teacher by the back doors facing the pupils (the customer/forkie), if the teacher told the front row to stand up which row do you think will get up? the row nearest him or furthest away?
Come back carryfast, all is forgiven.
Front of the trailer is the headboard end, back is the doors. Always has been, always will be and is that way regardless of where you are standing or which way you are facing. In 27 years in this game I have never heard anyone refer to it in any other way until I read Busby’s posts.
You are backed on a loading bay and have 1 pallet to load on an empty trailer. The loader appears with the pallet and asks where you want it and you say could you stick it at the front please mate. Where do you think he would put it? Every loader I have ever encountered would put it up against the headboard. If you asked him to drop it at the back he would leave it just inside the doors.
Is this like when wearing a coat inside out -
Your outside in now next to the coat outside which is now inside your outside but the coat inside is now outside unlike you because your inside is still inside and your outside is still outside but both of those are inside the coat but both insides are now further away from both the outsides than they would have been if the coat was not inside out because wearing the coat with the inside next to your outside would then make the senario different as your inside would stay inside, your outside would be next to the coat inside and the coat outside would be outside the lot!!
I hope that clears everything up 
Wonder why people call them back doors?
It was a French guy who loaded that right ? 
waynedl:
Wonder why people call them back doors?
Same reason Yorkshire folks had front rooms and back kitchens
Brentanna:
It was a French guy who loaded that right ?
Possibly but the instructions we received at GBE on groupage were “Please load the Manchester by the doors.”
Once fell out with a forklift driver and he called me a “BACK TO FRONT”.I hope it wasnt ryming slang!!!
I know the headboard is at the front of the trailer and the doors at the back, Im not that ■■■■■■■ dull
I am on about the position of the pallets in the trailer in relation to where I am standing not in relation to what direction the trailer travels… If I am stood at the back doors the pallets nearest me are at the front the ones near the headboard at the back.
front - The side or part of an object that presents itself to view or that is normally seen or used first; the most forward part of something
Obviously the headboard is the ‘most forward part’ but when you open the back doors the first row of pallets are ‘an object that presents itself to view or that is normally seen or used first’,
hope that is making some kind of sense 
I think I have been hanging around in curryfart’s threads to much
bubsy06:
I know the headboard is at the front of the trailer and the doors at the back, Im not that [zb] dull
I am on about the position of the pallets in the trailer in relation to where I am standing not in relation to what direction the trailer travels… If I am stood at the back doors the pallets nearest me are at the front the ones near the headboard at the back.
The pallets position is always referred to in relation to the trailer and not your position therefore the pallets at the headboard are the front ones and the back ones are nearest the doors. I have never heard anyone in this game refer to them as you do, and that includes drivers and loaders in many other countries.
If you say to any fork-truck driver, “Your 4 pallets are at the front mate,” he will go to the headboard end of the trailer to get them, regardless of where you are standing when you have this conversation.
Most of my work is side tipping so doesnt make a difference then, but if I have a pallet or two by the back doors I open them up and say to the forkie just these 2 at the front, never had a forkie telling me the error of my ways 
they obviously knew what I was on about and got on with it.
bubsy06:
… but if I have a pallet or two by the back doors I open them up and say to the forkie just these 2 at the front, never had a forkie telling me the error of my ways
They might have thought you were carryfast and decided not to say anything on grounds of safety. 
Can we just clarify something? Which end to you is the back end of the sheep?
44 Tonne Ton:
Can we just clarify something? Which end to you is the back end of the sheep?
That all depends at which end hes standing
what really confuses the ewe is when hes stood at the rear and wants a bj, the ewe says ‘youll have to come round the front for that cos i cant move this lamp-post’ an he says ‘but im at the front’ 
Just get on with it, you could have been there and tipped by now… LOL
44 Tonne Ton:
Can we just clarify something? Which end to you is the back end of the sheep?
The end you get Leg of Lamb from.
So for clarification, you are driving to Timbuktoo or Tonbridge, the engine seems a bit sluggish and you see smoke trailing behind you. You stop to investigate and find an injector pipe leaking.
The leaking pipe is on the last but one cylinder, do you tell Daf Aid that it is number 2 or number 5
And your car is off on number 3 cylinder, where are you stood? 
Wheel Nut:
And your car is off on number 3 cylinder, where are you stood?
On the phone to my son as he serviced it just last week!
Coffeeholic:
44 Tonne Ton:
Can we just clarify something? Which end to you is the back end of the sheep?The end you get Leg of Lamb from.
But the legs are on the bottom, not the front or the back and you would only get 1 pallet on a sheep anyway so it wouldnt really matter what end he said it was on