marky, you allways come up with the goods old pal! 
i love the old scenes as well, god knows why, but rough yards appeal to me, rough yards mud all over the place and garages with tea making gear a bomb wouldnt clean, scrap wagons all over the place, you get the picture im sure!
Mal:
marky, you allways come up with the goods old pal!i love the old scenes as well, god knows why, but rough yards appeal to me, rough yards mud all over the place and garages with tea making gear a bomb wouldnt clean, scrap wagons all over the place, you get the picture im sure!
Thank you Mal - anyone who ever visited the yards of Walter Southworth and Tommy Caunce in Rufford in the late eighties will have seen exactly the sort of thing you describe.
Both latterly ran Ergo-cabbed fleets and there were piles of their remains in both. Southworth ran Leylands and Caunces ran AECs. They all dissolved gracefully together until they got so far gone no more could be done with them, and both firms seemed to suffer with the same problem of not wanting to throw anything away - regardless of it’s condition.
I can quite clearly remember a 24-cabbed Leyland Octopus being cut up in front of me at Southworths while I sat on my bike leaning on the gate one Saturday. I got shooed out of Caunces on many Saturday afternoons by Harry Caunce’s wife after climbing all over the wreckage behind the garage. Many of the cabs I’d sat in as a kid when my Dad drove for them at least 10 years previously.
I stumbled across a treasure trove of Atki wreckage one Saturday when out adventuring on Burscough Airfield. The first industrial units were being built and the gates had been left open, so in we rode. As we made our way round the perimeter track, we saw the yard of R Barker & Sons just next to the old control tower. They had a bit of a dutch barn in the corner which was all over-grown so we went to investigate, only to find a couple of Mk II Silver Knights and the Seddon tractor unit that has been photographed by Peter Davies in a couple of books, both as an eight-wheel flat and latterly as a chopped-down chinese-six tractor. We got shooed out of there too - I almost got my first Atki memorabilia that day, I was one bolt off getting a big A off a grille that was leaning against the Seddon.
they sound like a few yards ive worked in! theres nowt better i think. not too long ago, about 18mths, i went for a job at butlers in oldbury, i thought great, i like this outfit all the yard was like that, and a rough drivers room you could relax in not a ■■■■■■■ place like a clinic twhere you cant put your boots up!. but they could only give me about 2 nights out a week maximum and ai wanted 4, so i didnt start. shame really, that was a proper haulage firm. you know what, anything called “logistics” is in my experiendes a total bag of ■■■■■■■■ firm! 
ive always liked the look of an atki borderer rigid them bostocks ones from cheshire were really smart do ya know i could run around in one of them today as long as it were day work .my bed wins over engine cover every time
marky:
Here we are - this is one of 240’s pictures that he thought he hadn’t scanned.I’ll leave the description to him.
ah, one from the aborted slide show??
The one time that TC and I visited there, that one was just part of the furniture on the way onto the yard and, to be honest, I don’t know anything about it. I kick myself now for not photographing the KV ERF in the background - there were loads of them about in those days and I didn’t bother because it wasn’t an Atki!!
scantheman:
I don’t know if they were originally from Delph Mal but i do know the time i speak of they were in Greenfield (only about two miles from Delph) as thats were i used to live as a kid.I moved to Anglesey in '86 and seem to remember them still there…but not to sure
Scan
Curiously enough, the ex-Barratt Viewline now lives on Anglesey! It is liveried as "Britannia Services!, and painted blue.
[quote="marky
I can quite clearly remember a 24-cabbed Leyland Octopus being cut up in front of me at Southworths while I sat on my bike leaning on the gate one Saturday. [/quote]
Meanwhile, while you were watching the hot spanner treatment, I was walking through the Atki factory every night after getting off the school bus, and seeing people building them!
Perhaps you remember Atkinson doing their testing at Burscough Aerodrome? They used to rent part of a perimeter track for the purpose.
Cheers for the pic Marky …brings back some memories
Curiously enough, the ex-Barratt Viewline now lives on Anglesey! It is liveried as "Britannia Services!, and painted blue.
Where is it on Anglesey Gardner■■?..I’d love to see it 
Scan
The ex-Barratt Viewline belongs to a chap called Bleddyn Williams who also owns a Bow-front Atkinson eight-wheeler, a Scammell Rigid Eight and an Albion Chieftain
if you track that fellow down scan, please post the pics! 
Anglesey’s not such a big place as you probably know Mal so i’ll definately have a go at tracking them down and if i do find them and have permission i’ll take as many pics as possible and would be more than happy to share them.
Marky do you or Gardner know of this fellows address 
Scan
good luck finding it scan!
ive just been looking thruogh a book ive got and its got a photo of aatki with a steel cab made by krupp of germany its a small photo but the reg isxtj 889h and the initials dpb with a number 57 below them anyone any more knowledge on this motor.que marky
ive got a pic of that as well carl, i think the cab looks pretty good meself, but the borderer is still the best looking to me overall. that krupp cab looks pretty good though!
it’s intersting to note that quite a few continentals put their own cabs on brit chassis. i dont know a great deal about that, but someone here will i have no doubt, so for educations i might start a thread in the old timers about it.
marky:
The ex-Barratt Viewline belongs to a chap called Bleddyn Williams who also owns a Bow-front Atkinson eight-wheeler, a Scammell Rigid Eight and an Albion Chieftain
And I presume this is the ex-Barratt Viewline!
A few more!
whoa! look at the size of the sleeper on that viewline! 
scantheman:
Anglesey’s not such a big place as you probably know Mal so i’ll definately have a go at tracking them down and if i do find them and have permission i’ll take as many pics as possible and would be more than happy to share them.Marky do you or Gardner know of this fellows address
Scan
No but we both know a man who does. He made some of the panels that are on the cab of that particular wagon. I believe Bleddyn will be at the Llandudno show again this year and at the Cheshire Steam Fair at Tabley Hall, so we’ll speak to him and find out where he hails from. KV seems to have produced the goods in terms of pictures already though.
I have pictures of the Viewline from the back as well (Llandudno 2002) and I have a picture of it when it was at Barratts pulling a tanker. It looked well in Barratts livery.
It looks like Holyhead thats written on the door if so i think i know where it could be now or could quite easily find out.
Marky i would love to see the picture of the viewline in Barratts livery
Scan
scantheman:
Marky i would love to see the picture of the viewline in Barratts liveryScan
that makes 2 of us!
