gunnerheskey:
Think, iirc there was a cafe on both sides of the carraigeway at the top of the hill at a place called stretton upon dunsmore, just about where thw M6 crosses it. One was called Tubbys cafe the bigger one on the south bound side, the one on the north bound side was i think owned by the same bloke but was a bit smaller. I heard a rumour that Tubbys lad opened a cafe on the i think the A426 J20 M1, to Mkt harborough, in a big sweeping layby just after the village of walcote called Tubs cafe, it was open 24hrs, but thats long gone now…
Tubby’s was the big cafe on the left going south on the A5 just before you got to the M1.The other cafe you talk about is just north of Tubby’s a mile or so and was the Jet at Clifton -on -Dunsmore and was owned and operated by the Turton family.The cafe and a filling station were on the southbound carriageway and the pumps were run by "Tufty"Turton who literally worked 23 hrs a day(a more obnoxious individual I have yet to meet!)His mother/brother & sister(I think it was a sister)ran the very good and well supported cafe.The north bound filling station was run by another brother Michael Turton and his wife(again on 24hrs)now Mike was a differen’t go to work than his brother,he was always friendly and polite and I dealt with him for a few years(68/71) when I only ran 5 or6 motors.Unfortunately he must have got into some lumber and did some “porridge” in Liecester.But a twist to the tale was when he came out he started work again on the northbound side and within a few weeks won the treble chance on the football pools ,about 70odd £’000.This was a lot of money in circa 72’ and he immediatley packed up work in the family buisiness and went to live in Worcestershire somewhere.He was formally “airbrushed” out of the Turton family and if you ever enquired after him you recieved “a gobfull of abuse”!!! Happy Days.Bewick.
hiya,
Hello Dennis, plenty of information there, all i know about the place is that i’ve had more breakfasts in Tubby’s than most people have had hot dinners, thats no fairytale and i do have the waistline to prove it, one thing that tickled me when running the A5 was when in the area of Reliant Motors was how the guy used to stop traffic until the movement of rolling chassis was completed they were manually pushed from one part of the factory across the road (A5) to another part to be finished off, it did’nt cause too much disruption though “the lads used to run with them”.
thanks harry long retired.
GAZ70:
is there any one on here that remembers a transport cafe called tubbys,i was only 5 or 6 but remember my dad stopping here in the early 70’s,but have no clue where it was
Wasn’t it Tubby’s that became the Rendezvous, before being demolished to build the BP Lorrystop?
I remember it well only because I never stopped there when I heard from several drivers that it was a bit of a grease pit.
You can still see it now from the M1 and it looks much bigger thes days with what looks like plenty of trucks in there.Are they customers or is it used as a change over point?
GAZ70:
is there any one on here that remembers a transport cafe called tubbys,i was only 5 or 6 but remember my dad stopping here in the early 70’s,but have no clue where it was
Wasn’t it Tubby’s that became the Rendezvous, before being demolished to build the BP Lorrystop?
Thae’s the one.many visits whilst in my dads passenger seat, George’s was further down (where Eddy is now) & the best 1 was back up the hill behind the garage near the M6 bridge,then there was The Island, which is now the posh hotel at the junction of the A5 & the M69,that was another fave haunt
GAZ70:
is there any one on here that remembers a transport cafe called tubbys,i was only 5 or 6 but remember my dad stopping here in the early 70’s,but have no clue where it was
Wasn’t it Tubby’s that became the Rendezvous, before being demolished to build the BP Lorrystop?
Thae’s the one.many visits whilst in my dads passenger seat, George’s was further down (where Eddy is now) & the best 1 was back up the hill behind the garage near the M6 bridge,then there was The Island, which is now the posh hotel at the junction of the A5 & the M69,that was another fave haunt
easily distinquishable by its red and white striped frontage iirc.
regards dave.
harry:
I remember the Reliants parked at the side of the A5. Was Tubby’s busted for a massive diesel thing that had been going on for years? bit hazy now.
As mentioned in another thread I remember well the Reliant factory at Two Gates on the A5,and the chassis being pushed across the main road in between the traffic! I was on my way down the A5 one morning and as I got up to the traffic lights past the factory the traffic was stopped.There had been an accident! a cockney trade plater had jumped the lights and got caught between a double decker and an 8 wheel tipper(no one injured).The cockney was sat in a 2ft.gap on what was left of the “puddle jumper” and he was ■■■■■■ and blinding and shouting that all he wanted was “my ■■■■■■ plates” and a lift back darn’ the smoke!!! A gang from the factory came up with a couple of wheel-barrows/brushes and shovels and cleaned the mess up!But the “cockney sparra’” was well p****d off I can tell you.But it was hilarious at the time!! Dennis.
Hiya …tubby,s cafe is where the BP truckstop is/was.That place was about as good as the airport on the A38.
Tubbys was still open in 75/76 it was the 0nly time i stopped their. The good thing that it was open 24 hours.
The old cafe was knocked down but when they tryed to rebuild there was big problems.
I can,t remember how things went but the water supply was northampton the sewer was leicester and the rates was
coventry or something stupid. I belive BP paid silly money to buy the land and then spent a fortune to get all the
services into place as all the counties would,nt work together.the cafe closer to the top of the hill was 10 times better.
Geoges was not so good.Malc Harrison made it slightly better and Stobart knackered it altogether.
John
3300John:
Hiya …tubby,s cafe is where the BP truckstop is/was.That place was about as good as the airport on the A38.
Tubbys was still open in 75/76 it was the 0nly time i stopped their. The good thing that it was open 24 hours.
The old cafe was knocked down but when they tryed to rebuild there was big problems.
I can,t remember how things went but the water supply was northampton the sewer was leicester and the rates was
coventry or something stupid. I belive BP paid silly money to buy the land and then spent a fortune to get all the
services into place as all the counties would,nt work together.the cafe closer to the top of the hill was 10 times better.
Geoges was not so good.Malc Harrison made it slightly better and Stobart knackered it altogether.
John
As a part of the aforementioned aggravation, I also had the pleasure of meeting Keyfuels in the County Court and stuffing them for eveything they owed, including all costs
We always had our motors fitted with an extra tank or two(cat walk tanks) which allowed them to do a round trip but when we started basing some away from home we had to make other fueling arrangements.Our first bunker was in London Colney 1972,long before bunkering caught on.Although we always had a few Shell Agency cards we very,very rarely used them mainly because of the extra cost.In later years we tried the Shellserve system but it was a joke as the sites regularly ran out of fuel but their control centre would maintain that there was fuel in the particular tank(even though the driver was on the phone and adament the Bunker was M/T)We finally settled on a combination of Exelby/M6 diesel/BP Truckstops as well as our own bulk supply.At one time when we dealt with Shell even our own depot tanks were connected into their nationwide system so wherever the driver bunkered it was recordedon our computer system.In theory the idea was OK but in practice it was a shambles!I stopped dealing with Shell when they tried to persuade me to pay 1p a litre more for their S.A.D. Derv! Fifty % of our Derv was going into bunkering systems throughout the UK so I was blowed if I was going to pay to put Shell Derv into other firms tanks when they might have only been putting --say—■■■■ poor Phillips derv into the system!The Shell salesman hadn’t thought of that angle so went away with a flea in his ear didn’t he!! I never ever dealt with Keyfuels as I did think they were a shower but plenty of firms I knew did but they never had a good word for them.Bewick.
