Bewick:
Richard R:
Hello Bewick are there anymore tales to tell?I’ll get my thoughts together and pick the story up in the early 80’s still a few tales to impart ! Cheers Bewick.
Good I am sat in Crete with nothing to do but drink beer and read the forum, it’s a hard life.
Richard R:
Bewick:
Richard R:
Hello Bewick are there anymore tales to tell?I’ll get my thoughts together and pick the story up in the early 80’s still a few tales to impart ! Cheers Bewick.
Good I am sat in Crete with nothing to do but drink beer and read the forum, it’s a hard life.
Could you use some help with that hard job, Richard?
Before we leave the '70’s there is one episode involving the drivers strike in '79 that will stick with me forever and it occurred during the depths of the strike when nothing was moving and all our drivers were “out” at the behest of the T&G and drivers from Carlisle and Penrith who had brought a bit of pressure to bear on our Lads, but I wasn’t unduly concerned as I wanted to get the strike over with rather than run any gauntlets and try to be a martyr together with those of my employees who would have worked but also for the harm to the firm I had built up over the previous ten years ! However, back to the tale ! one day in the depths of the strike I was sat in the Board room at the Paper Mill in Beetham with the sun streaming through the windows and giving the then Mill MD ( Geoffrey Thompson) an up date on the strike, when out of the blue he says to me " What ever happens Dennis there is no way that I will allow you to be put out of business, now then, what ever you need in the way of finance to see this strike through we will provide it! If you want £100,000 immediately I will sign the cheque now!" “Anything we do provide will, of course, have to be repaid but we can deal with that later once this ridiculous strike is over”. In the event I didn’t have to take AGT up on his very generous offer but it did go to show how much the Mill thought about Bewick Transport ( and how much we valued them as our favourite customer!) Just a short episode this evening but as far as I am concerned one that was a very important milestone along the almost 30 years of my business career. Cheers Bewick.
That’s a great compliment to you and your business Dennis, but a typical reaction from an old-school, blue chip company that values a genuine business relationship with its customers and suppliers. There are a dwindling number of such companies these days, unfortunately.
Retired Old ■■■■:
Richard R:
Bewick:
Richard R:
Hello Bewick are there anymore tales to tell?I’ll get my thoughts together and pick the story up in the early 80’s still a few tales to impart ! Cheers Bewick.
Good I am sat in Crete with nothing to do but drink beer and read the forum, it’s a hard life.
Could you use some help with that hard job, Richard?
I never say no to help!
Sat in sunny Macclesfield waiting for the postman to deliver my first-class ticket.
You did remember to post it, didn’t you?
This is a superb thread, I was driving in the mid to late 70’s and all of the 80’s and remember your motors well, I think it’s a crying shame that the likes of you and Henleys are no more. As a kid and even now, at the grand old age of 60 I have had afascination for Lorries, I bloody hate them being called trucks, I can live with strange northern folk calling them Wagons. one that I used to go out on many years ago as a kid in their Thames Traders at first then Albions was John Jempson, good to see them still going but they have gone the boring white route. Strange question from me, and if I have missed the answer in this or your other thread sorry! How did you choose your colour scheme? It seemed to stay pretty much the same over the years.
ExMilkTank:
This is a superb thread, I was driving in the mid to late 70’s and all of the 80’s and remember your motors well, I think it’s a crying shame that the likes of you and Henleys are no more. As a kid and even now, at the grand old age of 60 I have had afascination for Lorries, I bloody hate them being called trucks, I can live with strange northern folk calling them Wagons. one that I used to go out on many years ago as a kid in their Thames Traders at first then Albions was John Jempson, good to see them still going but they have gone the boring white route. Strange question from me, and if I have missed the answer in this or your other thread sorry! How did you choose your colour scheme? It seemed to stay pretty much the same over the years.
Regarding the change of livery “EMT” it was really as a result of the Henry Cooke mill at Beetham spending a fortune with a London design firm who did some rebranding for them and at that time they were still running a couple of artics and by chance we were supplying them with a new Seddon 32/4 and a new 36ft York tandem axle LD trailer so they sent me a folio of there proposed design with the deep white band around the cab and plain black lettering. I didn’t think much of the white chock rail on the trailer though but that’s what they wanted. However, I had been looking to improve our own image at that time and I took a liking to the design these “hot shot” image creators from London had produced and also at that particular time I had agreed with the mill to livery some of our motors with their name so bingo ! We adopted the new style for all our fleet which we kept for the next 20 odd years. Cheers Bewick.
If you think that looks bad I had to drive a Scania 213M that was painted yellow and black to look like a can of Pedigree Chum ( it went to all the big dog shows and like) and if I was really lucky when that was in for service I got the FH12 Purple made up like a can of Whiskas. I wish I had taken some photos at the time but I was in denial! I will always remember when I had started driving for a living my wife asked me why I was so tired at the end of the day (women) so I decided to take her on a night run from Peterborough to Lowerstoft to do a trailer exchange (palletised steel coils) after the journey she still didn’t realise what I did other than drive about she spent the whole journey site seeing…"
Thanks a lot Bewick, keep em coming, I love your vehicles
I like the red scheme but I really like that Green colour scheme on the Seddon, looks very traditional to me.
Anyone know when Dennis is going to continue his story, i’m getting withdrawal symptons.
1982 was quite an interesting year for me for all the wrong reasons ! Early in the year I got a call from ■■■■ Howarth of D & RF Howarth asking if I would call to see him which I duly did but was not in my wildest dreams expecting to be met with " David and me have had enough and we want to sell out" “and we would like to offer you the business on whatever favourable terms we can arrange” " we will make the deal as easy as we can for you as we know brass doesn’t grow on trees but you’ve been reet with us so it’s only fair we give you first chance which we hope will be the outcome". So I said, after the initial shock " Let me have a think for a day or two and we’ll see what can be done". Now the Howarth Lads used the same external Accountancy firm as we did at that time, they dealt with one senior partner and I dealt with another so my next call was to my man Richard Davies ( RIP) and he said he was aware that the Howarths were wanting out and he was quite happy to advise me and deal with his Partner if necessary. So without anyone else knowing at Bewick Transport other than my Financial Director who I employed ( he was not a shareholder in Bewick Transport) we set about putting a deal together although I was not for reasons I can never explain fully committed to the deal! At that time in 1982 fuel prices were increasing and we were still feeling the effects of the first recession and IMHO the Howarth business had just been “drifting” and was going to need some serious investment into the fleet and their customer profile was a bit vulnerable apart from their main customer Angus Fire Armour in Bentham. However, to cut a long story short I was stood in Howarth Bros warehouse one wet Saturday in mid year with my Accountant Richard Davies ( he was up for the week-end staying in his holiday cottage in the Lakes) so he says, "Right Dennis there is a deal which can done and is acceptable to both sides, it only needs your “go ahead”) From memory I was going to buy the fleet outright and the property over an agreed period of years, but something was still nagging at me which was not like me as on the face of it the deal looked fine and it would have been a real feather in Bewicks cap ! So we parted company on that Saturday on the understanding that I would speak to David Howarth on the Monday morning ! So over the rest of the weekend I pondered and wrestled with what I was going to do ! Monday morning came and I sat down at my desk at Milnthorpe having come to my decision so all I had to do was pick up the phone to David ! Enough for to-night there is plenty more to this tale for another episode! Cheers Bewick.
Dog tired:
Anyone know when Dennis is going to continue his story, i’m getting withdrawal symptons.
How did you guess 
Cheers Dennis.
WHAT !!! how can you possibly expect me to sleep tonight monsieur Bewick??
Patrick
p.s hope you’re feeling much better 
Blimey Dennis leave us in suspense why don’t you, actually 82 was a bad year for me.
I had been having back trouble for quite a while, kept slipping disc in lower back due to ■■■■■■■ heavy sacks in a animal feed mill
2-2 1/2 cwt in weight, anyway this year don’t know what i did but ended up in a real state.
To cut a long and boring story short i managed to slip 2 disc’s and had to have fair op to remove them, since then i have back ache every day
with varing amount of discomfort.Enough of my problems, hope your well and i await your next instalment.
Cheers Norman
Anyway, rightly or wrongly, I picked up the phone on Monday morning as I had promised and spoke to David Howarth, I told him that after giving the opportunity a great deal of thought I had reluctantly decided not to go ahead with a deal to acquire Howarth Bros. David’s response was " Thous med the reet decision Dennis", make of that reply what you will !! However, what unfolded during the next couple of months culminating in August of 1982 left a very very nasty taste in my mouth and terminated my relationship with the Howarth Bros. In 1977 I had employed a Financial Director who had been at one time Financial controller at the Mill at Beetham ( he had left them in 1970 so there was no conflict of interest) and this individual was the only other person to have privy to my dealings with Howarths , apart from my external Accountant at Preston who was entirely trust worthy. At the time this FD who I employed was a bit puzzled as to why I had decided not go ahead with the deal but it was my decision and that was that. Anyway at the end of August I got a call from John Anthony my local Bowmaker Commercial manager whom I’d dealt with since I bought my first new motor in 1968,Bowmaker were also the firm that the Howarth Bros used for vehicle finance. John said to me on the phone " Dennis you and I have done business for many years and I have taken great pleasure in your achievements to date and Bowmaker are proud to have helped you along the way, however I cannot stand by and condone what has been going on with your Co Director and Howarth Bros. my allegiance to you does not allow me to become part of the deal that I have been asked to finance. Your man has asked me to help him with HIS acquisition of the Howarth Bros. business with the full knowledge of the two Howarth Bros." I obviously thanked John and assured him I knew nothing of this development and of course whatever happened from now on I would not divulge as to how I found out about this unacceptable development! I was at our depot in Milnthorpe when John had called and my F D worked from my Kendal admin office with the female staff. So, I put the receiver down and steam literally came out of my ears I was ■■■■■■■ blazing ! I will finish the tale off in the next episode ! Cheers Bewick.
Bewick:
Anyway, rightly or wrongly, I picked up the phone on Monday morning as I had promised and spoke to David Howarth, I told him that after giving the opportunity a great deal of thought I had reluctantly decided not to go ahead with a deal to acquire Howarth Bros. David’s response was " Thous med the reet decision Dennis", make of that reply what you will !! However, what unfolded during the next couple of months culminating in August of 1982 left a very very nasty taste in my mouth and terminated my relationship with the Howarth Bros. In 1977 I had employed a Financial Director who had been at one time Financial controller at the Mill at Beetham ( he had left them in 1970 so there was no conflict of interest) and this individual was the only other person to have privy to my dealings with Howarths , apart from my external Accountant at Preston who was entirely trust worthy. At the time this FD who I employed was a bit puzzled as to why I had decided not go ahead with the deal but it was my decision and that was that. Anyway at the end of August I got a call from John Anthony my local Bowmaker Commercial manager whom I’d dealt with since I bought my first new motor in 1968,Bowmaker were also the firm that the Howarth Bros used for vehicle finance. John said to me on the phone " Dennis you and I have done business for many years and I have taken great pleasure in your achievements to date and Bowmaker are proud to have helped you along the way, however I cannot stand by and condone what has been going on with your Co Director and Howarth Bros. my allegiance to you does not allow me to become part of the deal that I have been asked to finance. Your man has asked me to help him with HIS acquisition of the Howarth Bros. business with the full knowledge of the two Howarth Bros." I obviously thanked John and assured him I knew nothing of this development and of course whatever happened from now on I would not divulge as to how I found out about this unacceptable development! I was at our depot in Milnthorpe when John had called and my F D worked from my Kendal admin office with the female staff. So, I put the receiver down and steam literally came out of my ears I was [zb] blazing ! I will finish the tale off in the next episode ! Cheers Bewick.
Did he get employee of the month?