jmc jnr:
Hello Dennis. Hope your recovery is gaining pace. That post about the “Big-un” made me wonder what happened to the sort of men that ran haulage outfits. The sort of guys who took the job by the scruff of the neck and would never allow anybody to talk down to them? A different breed who dealt directly with Bank Managers and frowned on any hint of delay that might let a customer down. We need them back - NOW! Jim.
Thanks for that Jim, but times have changed since those times but I was privileged to have got a start in those times and also to have been in receipt of “passed on” knowledge from the likes of Jack and Bob Brady and in particular Malc Woodhouse Snr (RIP), and Malc knew a few strokes that weren’t necessarily in the “text books” either ! Cheers Dennis.
With regard to the shot of the Brady Comet standing in the BCL loading bay I have to say that at 19 years old, one day, in the late 60’s I was taught a lesson in breath taking stupidity concerning a four-in-line trailer dropped in ready to load in that very bay. What transpired that day influenced my opinion of Unions for the rest of my working life even though I was not a union member at that time. I’m obviously not just 100% sure what had erupted but the Brady shunter at BCL had some sort of dispute with Brady’s and “withdrew his labour” and went home, now as BCL were red hot unionised they gave him their full support. So far so good then, however the Big’un and Jack not being inclined to back down from any problem and on that day I was just in the yard as Possy was off sick for a couple of days so The Big’un comes out of the office and says “Son get that Car (a near new Triumph 2000) and go up to Cellophane, there is a trailer that needs loading”. So not being party to what had transpired I duly shot up Park road to BCL and walked into the loading bay and said I’m here to load this 4 in-line for where ever. So one of the lazy ■■■■■ that passed for loading bay staff said “Sorry mate that trailer is Blacked” So I says well how do I unblack it then ? " Well you’ve got to take it off site and then bring it back and we’ll load it" So I had to couple it up with the Comet shunter and whip it up onto Park Road ,spin it around and take it back into BCL and the ■■■■■■■ loaded it !! From then on it was ■■■■ the unions and IIRC the Shunter was back as large as life next day !!! But there was a little bonus for me that day from the Big’un when I got back into yard he says ! “Good job Son so if you want you can go home to Kendal in the 2000 to-night, save your own juice in your motor” Great ! Like a dog with a street full of lamp posts and a belly full of ■■■■ !! Cheers Dennis.
oreet denis ive been off on another channel but have had to come back to read this sucess story of an ireby lad frae ■■■■■■■■■■ that done well and im gonna have to git this strickland brothers sorted out but i think L600 will come back wid that all the best lall tom frae flecky iverybody up here will be chuft if you write a book
Ha ha great stuff Dennis im just catching up keep em coming 
Next instalment as we moved into the 80’s.As many of our older TN members will recall there was bit of a turn down in the economy in early 1980 and although we never lost any customers we did notice a general slackening off across the board however it wasn’t all doom and gloom as I was presented with a new opportunity by our main paper mill customer Henry Cooke at Beetham. For a number of years we had been delivering paper to a firm in Garstang called Clyde Paper Converters ( certainly Clyde was the first word in their title and their Reg office was in Glasgow). However it transpired that Clyde were on the brink of going bust during 1979 and it happened that they owed Henry Cooke a great deal of money for the paper that had been supplied so without ado Henry Cooke bought Clyde out and changed their name to Henry Cooke Converters Ltd and sent their own management team in to run it. Clyde had used the services of a local haulier at Garstang who had been basically ripping them off and crowing about it so guess what ! They got punched straight out and I was told to get down to Garstang PDQ and sort the job out which we did. Cookes quickly turned the firm around but had no intention of remaining long term so in about April 1980 they sold Henry Cooke Converters for a handsome profit to United Paper Mills of Finland and the new operators were UPM’s Walki Converters Ltd their paper converting division. I had an early meeting with the new Finish management and got on with them well and from then on Walki’s became a very valued customer and tonnage grew year on year from a low 5000 ton per year to upwards of 20.000 tons and the Finns really were great to deal with, honest as the day is long provided you were straight with them, which we always were! So we began the 80’s with an improved Customer list which spread our eggs across number of baskets with our main customers being Henry Cooke Ltd, Libby McNiell & Libby (Nestles), Bowater Scott, Walki Converters, Brabys Drums Aintree and a host of smaller regular jobs in our area. From the South east we had large tonnages of wood pulp and imported paper as well as a good regular customer in Aylesford being Reed Transport the “in house” operation of the Reed Paper Group. Our main traffic from Reeds was Core Board to Barrow, loads to Reed Corrugated at Wigan and loads to Reeds Corrugated in Hartlepool where after we tipped the motors went into the Dock and reloaded woodpulp straight back to Milnthorpe . I had also picked up a regular job from Royal Portbury at Avonmouth as a subcontractor for TDG subsidiary Western Transport which was regular more-or-less daily loads of pulp back to BCL Barrow. So as a result of the fine balance of traffic we had managed to create our laden mileage was IIRC steady at around 90% and at worst dropping into the high 80’s but this was usually caused by bursts of high activity from our main customers when we were forced to run motors back M/T to cope with the traffic. On a sad note the W. ■■■■■■■ drum traffic started to dry up and cease during 1982 as Albright & Wilson cut back on their packaged products and went over to bulk deliveries, but again the effect was almost negligible to our operation as all our other major customers were getting busier by the month. The next major surge came in early 1985 again via our Henry Cooke connection and the creation of the Bibby Paper Division of J. Bibby & Son PLC ( Henry Cooke’s parent). What had happened was Bibbys bought out the long established firm of J & J Makin who’s head office was in Rochdale and they also had two paper mills,one at Oakenholt Flint and the other at Disley near Stockport. So guess what, one day shortly after the takeover I was summoned to Rochdale by the Bibby Paper Group CEO and told we were required to take over all the Makin transport as their current operation was a shambles from the fact that they, Makins, ran a small fleet of their own consisting of a couple of 8LXB Sed/Atks and a couple of 6 wheeler flats and a 4 wheeler but the two Paper mills hated their “in house” transport and insisted on using local hauliers nearby to each Mill. Oh! and we want you to buy the Makin fleet (on advantageous terms of course ) . Enough for to-night, I will expand on the Makin operation in the next episode ! Bibbys takeover appetite didn’t stop at Makins though as 1987 produced another surge but in among the Paper mill traffic we continued to pick up other very useful smaller seams of traffic and spread our net even wider. Cheers Bewick.
All excellent posts replys, plesure to read them ,i would be here all night in agreeing with you all, it pleases me that when it was rough! although we never thought it as that -did we,there were times i used to think ohh F—K that, but kept going week after week ,made us all what we are now, calm granddads who have done a bit unnoticed pillars of society. pdb.
Enjoying the stories Dennis - looking forward to the next installment.
Sean
This is turning out to be a jolly good thread 
. Take your time, Dennis! Robert
Hi Dennis I take it that this is the Reeds you are referring to.photos courtesy of transportphotos.com/road/photos
Really interesting and fascinating stuff, Dennis. Thank you for sharing it with us. I have always been passionately interested in the history of haulage companies. Didn’t know that you had bought Makins, I remember them well.
Keep up the story, it,s really interesting Dennis. Was the pulp out of Hartlepool from Linkflow? Used to load there with my dad quite often for Arthur Sandersons it was usually for trunk down to Avonmouth. Remember fork truck loaded bales from the side so when they got to the last one disconnected airlines and fork truck used to put last one on from the rear ramming it into remainder of load to close all bales up!
Stanfield:
Hi Dennis I take it that this is the Reeds you are referring to.photos courtesy of transportphotos.com/road/photos
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One and the same John ! Cheers Dennis.
jshepguis:
Keep up the story, it,s really interesting Dennis. Was the pulp out of Hartlepool from Linkflow? Used to load there with my dad quite often for Arthur Sandersons it was usually for trunk down to Avonmouth. Remember fork truck loaded bales from the side so when they got to the last one disconnected airlines and fork truck used to put last one on from the rear ramming it into remainder of load to close all bales up!
Yes it was Linkflow and we loaded direct for our two Paper Mill customers one at Milnthorpe and the other at Disley we used two regular subbies as well as our own motors, Sam Ostle and Sons to Milnthorpe and Mancunian Transport to Disley. It used to get right up Linkflow’s nose as they thought they should have all the traffic and sub it to the likes of us, no chance, the Main buyer at Henry Cooke, Wilf Robinson, would have non of it as he bought it “net ex Dock” and besides the Mill only wanted so many loads per day spread across the day and there was no way could Linkflow give that sort of service. I can recall in the early 70’s before we got into gear on the pulp there could be half a dozen of say Robsons roll up at teatime and want tipping. Whereas when we started bringing all the pulp in we just dropped the trailers in the depot and one of our shunters tipped it as required, worked a treat for years after that. Cheers Bewick.
gingerfold:
Really interesting and fascinating stuff, Dennis. Thank you for sharing it with us. I have always been passionately interested in the history of haulage companies. Didn’t know that you had bought Makins, I remember them well.
I bought the fleet at W.D.V. which was actually a bit higher than what I valued them at but it kept their books looking straight and they hadn’t shown a loss on disposal which was all Bibbys were interested in, plus they got shot of the drivers and Foreman ( who turned out to be a first class employee) Cheers Dennis.
Hi Dennis,
Hope you are feeling better, Linkflow was it part of the TDG? and did they have a depot opposite Tebay truckstop Jcn 38? Cheer’s Pete
pete smith:
Hi Dennis,
Hope you are feeling better, Linkflow was it part of the TDG? and did they have a depot opposite Tebay truckstop Jcn 38? Cheer’s Pete
Thanks for that Pete but my right arm and shoulder are still giving me gyp from when I jarred it in my fall it’s a real pain, literally! going to physio regular but it will just take time, the X-rays showed nothing serious though it’s just nagging ■■■■■■■ pain especially of a morning after being layed in bed. Anyway, enough of my aches and pains! No, Linkflow weren’t part of TDG but they could have had some Scandinavian connection they did take the Portbury job over off Western Transport and we continued to haul the Barrow pulp through them but then BCL at Barrow closed so the job fizzled. The TDG you were on about at Tebay was originally John Russell and then Williams Bros. took over and used the warehouse to store Thames Board pallets from Workington. Both Russells and Williams were both TDG Group companies. Cheers Dennis.
Hi Dennis,2 things to try on the shoulder, 1. Dog Oil. don’t laugh,most herbalists sell it,no odour. 2. Tiger Balm red, smells a bit and smarts a little. worth a try. regard,s john.
WOW Tiger balm! now that is powerful stuff , any one who visited the far east for any reason, would know of “the cough colds and scabby holes” treatment ,the green was the normal, did not know you could get it here…never needed it again? good luck Bewick. pdb.ps The history story is very good.
peggydeckboy:
WOW Tiger balm! now that is powerful stuff , any one who visited the far east for any reason, would know of “the cough colds and scabby holes” treatment ,the green was the normal, did not know you could get it here…never needed it again? good luck Bewick. pdb.ps The history story is very good.
Dennis, Pernaton rub is great stuff, Ive used it many times, Its made from Mussel Shell fish extract It worked wonders for me, 
, Regards Larry.
