Without a doubt, Somerfield on Berwick Street , Soho W1 at 2300 on a Friday night.
The only trucks we had that could get in were the Volvo FL220 four-wheelers. It was very, very tight. But that, in itself did not make it the reason why I’ve nominated it.
You had to park on the street with the front of the truck level with the entrance of the store so that the bouncer (like you get at a club) could see the tills and your cab from his position. The traffic warden knew what time the delivery was on a day-by-day basis (it did change slightly on different days of the week) and would always give you a parking ticket. No, really - every single day the truck was ticketed. We never fully understood how the Borough of Westminster expected us to deliver to the store without actually stopping. Exel used to cost the price of the ticket into the job anyway, so we didn’t really care too much - Somerfield, or at least their customers paid for it in effect.
You waited for the staff to come out of the store before unlocking the cab, then ran to the shutter door at the back of the truck before the looney across the road in the flat next to the brothel on the second floor, got his aim right and hit you with something. Most of the time he was drunk / high enough to miss you by a ‘safe-ish’ distance. But he very nearly got me with a microwave oven once. That made a bang when it hit the deck!
Then, the trick was to get the cigarettes and booze off first and then the locals would not threaten you, the driver. Instead, they would now threaten the store staff. Sounds really harsh I know, but I didn’t choose to be there and I was not willing to be stabbed over a few hundred B&H. The store staff knew the local ‘clientele’. Who was really dangerous, and who wasn’t too bad. I didn’t.
After this it was just a case of stopping people urinating into the cages of cardboard that the store was returning. The whole area stunk of this, by the way. To defecate in the street was quite acceptable, also.
When you had tipped and reloaded empties and cardboard, you removed your parking ticket from the near-side wiper, got back in the truck and '‘gently nudged’ (
) the cars, that had boxed you in while you’d been unloading, out of the way and got out of there as quick as you possibly could.
I have witnessed police drug raids, straight and ■■■■■■■ in the street and I once had a transvestite try to entice me out of the cab. When I told ‘her’ I just didn’t fancy ‘her’ and that ‘she’ just wasn’t my type, she turned quite violent towards the front off-side wheel and started kicking it.
The worst (and certainly most heart-breaking) thing about the job, however, was the young girls that used to come up to the vehicle and offer their ‘services’ to you. Many could have hardly been into their teens. Absolutely tragic. 
Glad I don’t ever have to do that one again.
,Tesco Kiln Farm, Tesco Magor, and as for the NDC 
