Found this Cadwallader article that fits nicely with the diary so thought i would add it on !
Are there any ex Cadwallader drivers on here that have any stories/pictures to share ■■
Hello, found this long distance diary in a Truck magazine from 1975 about a Cadwallader motor.
Thought this would bring back some memories !
You may have to push control button on keyboard and push wheel forward on mouse to magnify
article so you can read it.
Article from Trucking International March 1991
I’ve down-loaded this article but still can’t read it. I read somewhere on these threads (I think ‘zbAnorak’ posted it) a simple instruction for sharpening up the print once you’ve down-loaded a scanned article like this one. Can anyone remind us what to do? Robert
PS I see this is from TRUCK August 1975. If anyone has a spare copy of TRUCK JUNE 1975 I’d like to buy it! Cheers. Robert
robert1952:
I’ve down-loaded this article but still can’t read it. I read somewhere on these threads (I think ‘zbAnorak’ posted it) a simple instruction for sharpening up the print once you’ve down-loaded a scanned article like this one. Can anyone remind us what to do? Robert
Robert. If you left click on the article you should then get a + sign and then just click on + and it will enlarge the article for you or it should do.Give it a try.
robert1952:
I’ve down-loaded this article but still can’t read it. I read somewhere on these threads (I think ‘zbAnorak’ posted it) a simple instruction for sharpening up the print once you’ve down-loaded a scanned article like this one. Can anyone remind us what to do? Robert
You click on each page to open it in your browser. Then you click on the picture and it grows to its full size. If it is too big, right click on it, save it somewhere and open it with Paint. You then use Stretch/Skew to reduce it in size. I don’t remember it being this complicated, the last time I explained it 
, but this is the result, 55% original size:
http://www.onlineocr.net/ Online OCR will extract text from images:
Here Goes - the full article
LONG-D1STANCE DIARY
DEATH WAGON
Bored to death, tired to death, scared to death - Philip Llewellyn tries the meat run to Belgium
I DON’T MAKE A HABIT OF quoting 17th-Century poets, but one of John Milton’s most famous lines—They also serve who only stand and wait—could easily have been penned as a heartfelt tribute to Haydn Richards and all the other drivers whose work takes them from Britain to the Continent. A cheerful 29 year-old from the North Wales village of Rhosllanerchrugog (that’s what I said, too), Haydn drives an F88 Volvo for Cadwallader Brothers and gave me my first glimpse of the waiting game, European style, on a recent run to Belgium and back. It went like this:
Tuesday: It’s just after nine on a grey, muggy morning when I arrive at Cadwalladers’ spacious modern yard on the outskirts of Oswestry, Shropshire. Russell Cadwallader, who runs the business with his brother Gordon, sketches in the background while two Telex machines peck away like demented hens. It all started in 1954, just another one-truck outfit, and expanded slowly until 1972, when the brothers decided to raise their sights and aim beyond the English Channel. They were immediately inundated with work. But sub¬contractors proved inefficient and, rather than risk their hard-earned reputation,
Russell and Gordon opted for buildiing up their own fleet with the accent on Volvo. They now have 46 trucks on the road—twice as many as three years ago. Runs range from Sweden to Italy, and they claim to be the biggest independent transporters of meat to Europe. Haydn Richards arrives, anxious to be on the road as soon as possible because we’re due to load at Leanstock’s abattoir in Shrewsbury, 20 miles away, at 10 o’clock. ‘Welcome aboard the death wagon,’ he grins as I heave myself into the cab. Ye gods—have I landed myself with a latterday Jack the Ripper? But he’s talking about the tons of chilled meat that dangle in the Crane Fruehauf trailer on every outward run, kept cool by Thermo King fridge.
‘There’s no chance of loading you until late this afternoon. The meat’s too warm,’ says the literally bloody character who greets us at the slaughterhouse. I laugh—he’s got to be joking. But Haydn’s philosophical sigh immediately tells me we are indeed due for a long wait. I pace around, muttering darkly about why the hell the abattoir couldn’t have rung Cadwalladers’ and told them the score first thing in the morning but Haydn knows only too well that delays of one sort and another are as inevitable as sunrise and sunset. Only the patience of a meditating monk saves him from Everest-high blood pressure and enough ulcers to keep the Royal College of Surgeons busy for a month of Sundays.
It turns out he left school a few months before his 16th birthday and went straight into the Merchant Navy for seven globe-trotting years. Back on shore he married and signed on at the steelworks, but the mind-dulling routine and regulations—‘You had to ask permission to go for a ■■■■■’—almost drove him crackers. After drifting from drive to drive he joined Cadwalladers’ team last year and enjoys the job enormously.
‘I get the best of both worlds. I go abroad every week, which is interesting and educational, and I see my wife and three sons every week as well. My wife wasn’t too keen at first, but she soon changed her tune when she saw the difference in the bank balance.’
We spend an hour in a Shrewsbury pub, where Haydn sips a breathalyser-conscious shandy. Then it’s back to Leanstock’s canteen for a cuppa enlivened by the fleeting appearance of a slender secretary who wiggles through a tumult of wolf whistles in a pair of white slacks that must have been applied with a spray gun. 'There’s a nice little bum for you says the old dear behind the counter, wistfully remembering her own shapely past.
At seven o’clock Haydn is asked to shunt the truck to get the 25,808Ib of beef well forward, thus making room for 50 lambs. We trundle maybe 20 yards before he stands on the brakes and then reverses back to the bay. It’s hardly a transcontinental marathon, but at least we’ve moved. Three-quarters of an hour later, after waiting for an office wallah to return from his tea and complete the paperwork, we finally hit the road.
A long-awaited meal is wolfed down at The Hollies, near Cannock, while we watch TV firm of the astronauts taking off for history’s most expensive handshake. A glutton for punishment, I compare the speed of the spacecraft with fact that we’ve taken 11 hours to cover 50 miles. We should have been in Dover by now, with a good night’s sleep ahead of us, before boarding the Townsend Thoresen ferry to Zeebrugge at crack of dawn.
Haydn, the phlegmatic realist, points out that thanks to the delay we will have an easy run through London. PRT 620M is soon storming down the M6 and M1, reeling in the miles and passing just about every other heavy we encounter on the hills. Haydn chuckles and gives the engine cover an affectionate pat. ‘In my book there’s just two kinds of truck,’ he says. 'Volvos and ■■■■■■■■
There’s only one motor for me, and this is it. She’s fast, quiet, and above all she’s reliable. That’s what really matters; there’s enough aggro in this job without breakdowns.’ Midnight finds the death wagon and its crew bowling down London’s Commercial Road. We’re soon through the Blackwell Tunnel and into Kent. A brief stop on the M2 for coffee and then, groggy with fatigue, into Dover shortly after two’ having clocked an overall average of just under 17mph since leaving Oswestry.
The Volvo cab is not the best in the world when called upon to act as a mobile home for two-1 really must get into training with a few nights on the top shelf of the bookcase. But I’m tired enough to sleep through a mortar barrage. Wednesday: Earthquake!
The whole house is moving! 1 snap up like a flick knife, smash my head against the roof and then realise that Haydn is already easing us into throbbing bowels of Free Enterprise IV after a 150minute kip. We stake our claims to a couple of cabins, go upstairs for a coffee, then back down again in the hope of snatching another three hours. At this stage I realise that I’ve put myself in a cabin with ‘Senior Steward’ written on the door—too bleary-eyed to notice when we boarded—and can only hope he doesn’t prove a bar steward. The prospect of being turfed out defeats any attempt to get even 39 winks, though the cabin’s rightful occupant fails to put in an appearance.
The formalities at Zeebrugge are over in less than an hour, but for some reason or other we have to clear customs at Ostend, a few miles down the coast. I steel myself for more aggro. Like countless others, I’d imagined that joining the Common Market virtually abolished the time-consuming menace of paperwork.
But it’s already obvious that on a run like this — ‘A local job,’ according to Haydn — you seem to divide your time fairly evenly between the fundamental business of driving and the frustrations of waiting for red tape to untangle itself. I fail to see why the visual checks of the load, which takes all of 30sec., is not sufficient. But we spend exactly three hours in Ostend before our papers are handed back by a young lady who appears to have a couple of plump, lively ferrets inhabiting her sweater.
Our destination, 73 miles away to the north-west of Brussels, is a small,thriving, privately-owned abattoir in Opwijk, which looks more like a printing error than a town. On the way there we pass through Asse, which is good for a laugh if nothing else. Mr Hemelaer, the abattoir’s owner, tells us we can’t tip until first thing tomorrow morning, but he and his family make the British ‘chauffeur’ and his weary companion welcome with coffee and food. Then the spirits take another dive. Haydn puts a call through to Oswestry and is told that instead of crossing the Dutch border for cheese we’re to load apples at St Trudien, halfway between Brussels and Liege.
On Friday morning! In the evening we go for a stroll and then sink a few beers in a bar with the quaint old Belgian name of The High Chaparral Drive-in Disco. You can’t drive in and there’s no sign of a disco, but time passes pleasantly.
The truck is parked outside the abattoir and our return is greeted by one of the Hemelaer pets —a black alsatian, roughly the size of a Shetland pony, that looks and sounds mean enough to devour a couple of Britons between supper and breakfast. Haydn has just got into the cab when this slavering monster comes howling across the yard.
Nothing if not a coward. I break the world’s standing high jump record and hang from the mirror while Haydn almost ruptures himself laughing. The prospect of losing a leg to those glistening fangs dripping with rabies-infested saliva has a remarkably sobering effect.
Thursday: At six o’clock Mr Hemelaer is hammering on the cab and telling us to get the fridge running. It’s been switched off overnight, thanks be, because the neighbours complained about the racket last time Haydn called.
As the abattoir is right alongside a busy railway line I assume that the good people of Opwijk objected to the motor spoiling the dulcet tones of all those passing expresses.
Haydn has failed to tell me that Mr H is a wheeler-dealer who just imports the meat and sells it straight to a supermarket chain. It never even crosses the threshold of his own premises and all he gets out of the transaction is a fat profit.
This arrangement means that we must deliver the beef and lambs to the supermarket’s depot, and Haydn is off down the road before I’ve struggled down from the top bunk and started to get dressed. During the next few frantic minutes I become Belgium’s first Volvo-powered streaker—not a pretty sight first thing in the morning.
By nine o’clock the meat has gone, the van has been hosed out and we’re en route for St Trudien in the hope of loading 24 hours early. There’s an anxious wait while the Telex clatters in the fruit exporter’s office, then we get the OK as long as temperature control is guaranteed and Haydn understands he must not tip at London’s New Covent Garden until one o’clock on Monday morning.
The regular loaders are off on another job, so Haydn volunteers our services to help the bossman’s sons. I point out that the National Union of Journalists does not have a work-sharing agreement with Belgium’s National Union for Blokes Who Stuff Boxes of Apples into Volvo Trucks, but am soon sweating out the last of the previous night’s beer.
At a conservative estimate we load enough Golden Delicious to keep the teacher sweet and the doctor away for the next 10,000 years. The task takes just under two hours, but another 65 minutes pass before documentation is complete. I’m convinced, by now, that even the most simple of Continental runs involves enough paperwork to choke a hungry pelican.
Townsend Thoresen’s Free Enterprise V. The prospect of a few hours in something like a real bed is attractive (although I’ve slept remarkably well in the truck), but Haydn casually tells one of the officers that I’m a journalist and we get the VlP treatment instead.
Drinks and a meal with the captain are followed by an invitation to the bridge to watch the ship docking. Haydn, recalling his years at sea, is fascinated by all the latest gadgets. We both try to come to terms with the fact that the captain, deftly steering his craft into her berth, admits he can’t drive a car.
Friday: ‘Dover’ Haydn spits out the word as if it’s a particularly foul taste. ‘This is where you get the real aggro. It’s the worst bloody port in Europe, if you want my opinion. They all seem to enjoy being right ■■■■■■■■■■
We trundle up the ramp shortly before two o’clock and soon discover that one set of papers gives us 1,345 cases of apples while another set puts the figure at 1,343. The bloke behind the desk obviously regards this as a matter of world-shattering importance and promptly drags a colleague out of bed on the end of the phone. We leave them to it and topple into our bunks, but are awoken a couple of hours later by a driver who has already been cleared — miracles can still happen — and wants us to ease up to let him out.
The prospect of getting any more sleep is on a par with Marty Feldman’s chances of becoming Miss World, so we stagger to the ferry terminal for a coffee and eventually get the go-ahead at seven o’clock, after a five-hour wait that Haydn regards as being quite good by Dover standards.
He has no intention of staying in London over the weekend, so arranges to leave the truck at the Eldridge Brothers’ yard in Canning Town, where the fridge can be left running and the Goldens kept Delicious. We roll in shortly after 11.00, following a good breakfast at The Hollies on the A2, say farewell to PRT 620M and board the homeward train at Euston.
During the journey I notice, for the first time, that Haydn doesn’t wear a watch. He laughs, 'You should have realised by now that time doesn’t mean all that much in my job. You move off when you’re loaded, tip when you can, catch a ferry when it’s available. Hands crawling round a dial don’t have a lot to do with it.
'Watching all those minutes dragging past would only make it worse .
Thanks everyone! I’m sure you’ve put DEAN’s mind at rest, and you’ve certainly made my life easier and taught me new tricks into the bargain! 
Robert
robert1952:
Thanks everyone! I’m sure you’ve put DEAN’s mind at rest, and you’ve certainly made my life easier and taught me new tricks into the bargain!
Robert I thought you were the teacher for us old reprobates who used to run all over the place and make out we were working 
cheers Johnnie 
sammyopisite:
robert1952:
Thanks everyone! I’m sure you’ve put DEAN’s mind at rest, and you’ve certainly made my life easier and taught me new tricks into the bargain!Robert I thought you were the teacher for us old reprobates who used to run all over the place and make out we were working
cheers Johnnie
Ha! I used to stand on playground duty and watch the top of a TIR-tilt go by, sigh, and think ‘Time I went back on the road’. And that’s exactly what I would do!
Then I’d find myself lying under a lorry in the frost at 4:30 on a dark winter’s morning trying to free the draw-bar coupling - or sitting astride the cant-rail of an artic tilt in the pouring rain - and I’d think, ‘What the zb am I doing here?’ Robert
Thanks whisperingsmith ,Robert and everyone else thats better ! Bloody annoying as when i scanned it
onto my computer i could read it but when i transfered it on to here it went a bit out of focus !
Stanfield your method seems the easiest just click on the pic like you say and it magnifies up nicely !
Evening all,
I am reminded of just what a great writer Phillip Llewellyn , (RIP), really was. Pat, and Andrew Frankl picked him up quite by chance, yet if one considers all of his works for the Truck title, (let alone those for Car, in the same stable) as a collection they are quite remarkable.
He had the “knack” of making the mundane exciting, the most bland character interesting, and with good research the journeys captivating.I am surprised that those who hold the copywright to his work have not seen the potential in releasing as a published work an omnibus edition. For his writing covers a period that will never return, and opportunities that are beyond the grasp of the “digital” age.
Phill was great company, enjoyed a drop, and had a tremendous sense of humour. His note taking was really brief…yet from that skeleton he could weave a spellbinding story…I personally do not think that , (despite the imitators of his style), we have ever had anyone who could pull all the threads together into such an interesting dialogue.
And the only person who I would consider had such ability, is the Blogger on this site, Newmercman , Mark…try and re read his Brandt Trucking Blogs… the ability is there, and the skill is there…he should be doing writing…not driving!!!
And as a footnote…anyone who knew Russell, and Gordon, (both sadly now departed), as well as I did, would be able to read all sorts of different themes in Phills dialogue…boy did we have some laughs vis a viv reality/truth, and the published word!!!
Cheerio for now.
Hi everyone.
John, I most certainly agree with your comments on Phil and Mark Lee ( Newmercman). I bought and read Truck from its early days right up until the end, paying my subscription to have it mailed to the States. I read it back to front , upside down and inside out, quite a highlight of the month when it arrived.
I followed Marks writing from his days there, through him emigrating to Canada. His blog with Brant trucking was excellent, content spot on, it was almost as if you were in the truck with him sharing the experience one on one.
His articles for Truck & Driver, Across the Pond were informative and humerous getting his point over, potraying Canadian and Americans culture to fellow Brits not forgetting the ex-pats.
Mark still does a column for a Canadian magazine which can be read on line. Through this website I was able to set up a meeting with Mark when he was working with Paul Brant on a trip to South Florida. Mark was waiting for a return load out of Florida and we met for a couple of hours and talked trucks and lorries.
He really is knowledgeable about many aspects of the business and as you say a good author, and a bit of a character also.
Perhaps in your retirement John, you can put pen to paper also.
Regards to all, Paul.
Many thanks for posting the article Dean, and if you’ve got any more I will gladly read them. This is one example of why I always awaited the latest issue of TRUCK. The combination of excellent technical articles, the best comparison tests in the business and Phill Llewellyn’s LDD meant was (IMnot veryHO) the best magazine ever published (for us British at least). I am in full agreement with M. Saviem (I’m sure there’s been a similar conversation on how excellent TRUCK was on these boards): Phil Llewellyn had a knack very few others possess, and I can see that - as M. Saviem points out - he had the respect for his profession and that of the long-distance driver to do his research. Llewellyn was a master craftsman - he rarely wrote harshly, even when he found something he didn’t like; but when you got used to his subtle style, his criticisms were very effective.
Hi all, just read my earlier post and realized I had my magazine titles backwards, Oops. Now corrected! Truck was my first magazine to read after Headlight. Showing my age now, hopefully no harm done.
Regards Paul.
Have added a Cadwallader truck article to this thread.
