W.H.WILLIAMS (spennymoor)

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
2501

mizzo:
Carl, I must agree with Harry and others, I really enjoy your stories and always have a look at this thread, but I’ve spent so much time on here I’ve missed E.S.L trucks etc on the telly!!! Regards, Mizzo.

Hi Mizzo
Thank you very much for your kind comments, and I hope you continue to enjoy my tales from the past.

I must admit I have never watched E S L Trucks on the telivision, which is strange because in my youth I would have read about and watched anything about road haulage and commercial vehicles.

Maybe I am romanticising the past but I think in my day I saw and experienced the last of the hand made commercial vehicles and have been told directly from my father and grandfather about experiences with very early vehicles and the progression from the railways to UK long distance work as we would know it today.

For instance about as late as 1979 my dad had a guest tour of ERF at Sandbach. They had just got their first windy gun to put the wheels onto the chasis during manufacture. Before that time they were put on by hand.He also saw a vehicle leave trhe production line and be taken on its first short test drive. When it came back the driver said the handbrake was catching against the cab floor, so they simply filed away a bit to make it easier.

I realise its progress with robots and automnation making machines, which are designed by computor and for instance there are no more ‘Friday afternoon cars’ or wagons for that matter, and we as an example would have been better off if we had not purchased disaster vehicles from Leyland, Dodge etc.

However I enjoyed seeing and hearing of drivers who had to use their skills and indinuity to do their work often having to do their work with vehicles and equipment that was totally inadequate and unsuitble for their work but was all that was available. I like vehicles that would go wrong because human beings have done their best to design as best they could instead of relying on computer technology.

My son says I’m a relic of the past and no one could critisise a transport operation like ESL with their beautifully painted vehicles.

Everyone is entitled to their views but I much prepare a vehicle where a painter has looked at a vehicle and decided how to adapt the livery to best suit that vehicle and where a human signwriter had set out the writing as best as he can do on a vehicle.

Sorry if you don’t agree and like my son you think I’m past my sell by date.

Best wishes
Carl

2502

kevmac47:

Carl Williams:
amongst the strange things we have carried on our vans were racing pigeons.

In the mid to late sixties each weekend we had four to five vans taking loads of pigeons in their baskets to racing destinations.The job involved traveling round and collecting baskets from various collection points,on usually on a Friday evening and taking them ,early Saturday morning to places usually ajacent to the A1 where they were released. The driver would then return the following morning to the same collection points as he had collected from.In those days although there were driving restrictions each day there was no weekly limit to the number of working hours and no law that said a driver had to have a continuous 2 hour rest each week. So drivers could, if they chose, work seven days a week.

This happened for about four years until they bought their own purpose built pigeon carriers.

I used to think it was a nuisance to us as more than often we had to unload the vans on the Friday afternoon (as they were often loaded with their Monday’s work) and then reload on the Monday morning. Also by that time we had equiped each van with 120 white blankets supplied by Morson Products to be used for Furniture packing with the idea that they remained on the vans at all times to keep them in a clean usable condition, and they were geting dirty by being removed onto concrete flooring.

However we had no shortage of volanters from our drivers that did the work and it was making our use of these vehicles more efficient. So perhaps I was wrong and we should simply have charged a little extra to cover the inconveniences. After all it must have cost a tremendous amount less for using us than their own vehicles which they did later.

Strangley there was no noticable smell in the vans after they had carried the pigeons. Even so Eddy Ramsey, for one ,always put pieses of a colone smelling soap to ensure his van smelt fresh inside.

Carl, did you encourge the pigeons to fly after they where loaded ? just think of the improvement in the fuel consumption. :smiley: :smiley:

Hi Keymac

We never thought of that.

Perhaps we could have found a circus bird trainer to show the how to fly inside a van and we might have found a way to solve this so called global warning

Best wishes
Carl

2503

Security at our site on Green Lane Industrial Estate was always an issue. We had security staff from 6-ooPM at night until 8.00AM next morning but it was a large area to cover.

When we first moved in we bought an Alsatian puppy, Judy, but as she grew up she knew to walk around the perimeter fence and would have gone wild if anyone was inside who shouldn’t be there and it was strange how she got to recognise all our drivers and accepted them. However the only problem was she liked to go out. Often we were up scouring the area looking for her late at night. There were gaps under the fence so we concreted all round under the fence. One night she got out and we couldn’t find her and we were telephoned that she had been shot dead by a local farmer.

So we did without a dog for a time. Our next effort was buying two Pyrenean Mountain Dog pups, brother and sister, which grew up to be huge dogs. Everyone was careful as they were frightened by them but they were really soft. We had them over eight years and thefts of batteries from the vehicles commenced. Making things worse they did not merely steal the batteries but cut through wiring at the same time. We looked at buying a trained guard dog, but we had the two Pyreneans and were told the male would kill any other dog brought onto the premises. He would be jealous of any dog being near his sister and could kill another dog easily by breaking its back with his immense weight.

However the ■■■■■ took ill and the vet had to put her to sleep. Apparently with us not letting her breed it had caused problems and she had cancer of the womb. It is said you cannot die of a broken heart but our remaining dog did within a month.

We bought a trained Alsatian Guard dog which after instruction our two security staff learnt how to control. This dog was very alert and knew its job. It seemed to know our vehicles and continually patrolled the site checking each vehicle was closed up, and we had no more people breaking in through the perimeter fence and stealing batteries.

Throughout our time there all vehicles were parked unlocked with the keys in the ignition, the thinking was if ever a fire broke out, which fortunately it didn’t we could quickly pull out vehicles from a row to stop fire spreading from vehicle to vehicle.

When we finished my dad found a good home for the guard dog and gave him away. What I could never understand was why steal our batteries when vehicles when some other companies had their vehicles parked all over in much easier places.

2504

Carl Williams:

mizzo:
Carl, I must agree with Harry and others, I really enjoy your stories and always have a look at this thread, but I’ve spent so much time on here I’ve missed E.S.L trucks etc on the telly!!! Regards, Mizzo.

Hi Mizzo
Thank you very much for your kind comments, and I hope you continue to enjoy my tales from the past.

I must admit I have never watched E S L Trucks on the telivision, which is strange because in my youth I would have read about and watched anything about road haulage and commercial vehicles.

Maybe I am romanticising the past but I think in my day I saw and experienced the last of the hand made commercial vehicles and have been told directly from my father and grandfather about experiences with very early vehicles and the progression from the railways to UK long distance work as we would know it today.

For instance about as late as 1979 my dad had a guest tour of ERF at Sandbach. They had just got their first windy gun to put the wheels onto the chasis during manufacture. Before that time they were put on by hand.He also saw a vehicle leave trhe production line and be taken on its first short test drive. When it came back the driver said the handbrake was catching against the cab floor, so they simply filed away a bit to make it easier.

I realise its progress with robots and automnation making machines, which are designed by computor and for instance there are no more ‘Friday afternoon cars’ or wagons for that matter, and we as an example would have been better off if we had not purchased disaster vehicles from Leyland, Dodge etc.

However I enjoyed seeing and hearing of drivers who had to use their skills and indinuity to do their work often having to do their work with vehicles and equipment that was totally inadequate and unsuitble for their work but was all that was available. I like vehicles that would go wrong because human beings have done their best to design as best they could instead of relying on computer technology.

My son says I’m a relic of the past and no one could critisise a transport operation like ESL with their beautifully painted vehicles.

Everyone is entitled to their views but I much prepare a vehicle where a painter has looked at a vehicle and decided how to adapt the livery to best suit that vehicle and where a human signwriter had set out the writing as best as he can do on a vehicle.

Sorry if you don’t agree and like my son you think I’m past my sell by date.

Best wishes
Carl

Hello Carl, no I agree entirely with you, I am also a relic of the past! I don’t watch E.S.L, but it I think it does do something for the haulage industries image, but I would rather reminisce about the past looking through my ‘rose tinted glasses’, things getting done by proper craftsmen etc. Like you I spent many a happy hour at Darlington test station as an apprentice diesel fitter!! Woe betide if I came back with a failure! Regards, Mizzo.

2505

mizzo:

Carl Williams:

mizzo:
Carl, I must agree with Harry and others, I really enjoy your stories and always have a look at this thread, but I’ve spent so much time on here I’ve missed E.S.L trucks etc on the telly!!! Regards, Mizzo.

Hi Mizzo
Thank you very much for your kind comments, and I hope you continue to enjoy my tales from the past.

I must admit I have never watched E S L Trucks on the telivision, which is strange because in my youth I would have read about and watched anything about road haulage and commercial vehicles.

Maybe I am romanticising the past but I think in my day I saw and experienced the last of the hand made commercial vehicles and have been told directly from my father and grandfather about experiences with very early vehicles and the progression from the railways to UK long distance work as we would know it today.

For instance about as late as 1979 my dad had a guest tour of ERF at Sandbach. They had just got their first windy gun to put the wheels onto the chasis during manufacture. Before that time they were put on by hand.He also saw a vehicle leave trhe production line and be taken on its first short test drive. When it came back the driver said the handbrake was catching against the cab floor, so they simply filed away a bit to make it easier.

I realise its progress with robots and automnation making machines, which are designed by computor and for instance there are no more ‘Friday afternoon cars’ or wagons for that matter, and we as an example would have been better off if we had not purchased disaster vehicles from Leyland, Dodge etc.

However I enjoyed seeing and hearing of drivers who had to use their skills and indinuity to do their work often having to do their work with vehicles and equipment that was totally inadequate and unsuitble for their work but was all that was available. I like vehicles that would go wrong because human beings have done their best to design as best they could instead of relying on computer technology.

My son says I’m a relic of the past and no one could critisise a transport operation like ESL with their beautifully painted vehicles.

Everyone is entitled to their views but I much prepare a vehicle where a painter has looked at a vehicle and decided how to adapt the livery to best suit that vehicle and where a human signwriter had set out the writing as best as he can do on a vehicle.

Sorry if you don’t agree and like my son you think I’m past my sell by date.

Best wishes
Carl

Hello Carl, no I agree entirely with you, I am also a relic of the past! I don’t watch E.S.L, but it I think it does do something for the haulage industries image, but I would rather reminisce about the past looking through my ‘rose tinted glasses’, things getting done by proper craftsmen etc. Like you I spent many a happy hour at Darlington test station as an apprentice diesel fitter!! Woe betide if I came back with a failure! Regards, Mizzo.

Hi Mizzo

Probably you like me are in a time warp, but I suspect we are not alone as many people who read about the old vehicles and old companies operating them and drivers who drove them think similarly.

But in my eyes those times were much better and will ubfortunatly never come back

Best wishes
Carl

2506

Between the 1920’s and 1955 part of our work was the carriage of cattle. And this one particular story comes to mind.

Apparently in 1950’s The Milk Marketing Board were experimenting in Artificial Insemination at their premises in Langley Moor near Durham and often hired us to take prize bulls to and from their premises.

On this one specific occasion my mother was with my dad in the Bedford O Model cattle truck and I don’t know where they had collected this one particular bull from but on their journey to Durham the cattle truck started bouncing up and down and from side to side and they could hear the breaking of wood from inside.

Dad stopped and looked underneath to see if the bull had got one of his feet through the wooden flooring but could see nothing so he quickly carried on his journey to Langley Moor.

On arrival when they opened up the container everyone was amazed at the sight greeting them. The bull was standing on four small pieces of flooring, and the remainder of the floor had been completely destroyed. They had to carefully slide planks of wood into the cattle truck to enable them to get the bull out.

When he arrived home he told his mother (My grandmother), who answered all phone calls that if the Milk Marketing Board rang and asked if we could collect a bull to go into them it was OK but if they had a bull to collect from them we were fully booked up.

Next time dad went to deliver a bull to them he was told he had missed out by not collecting that bull as it ha gone completely mad and wild and they had to arrange for a marksman to come from Brancepeth Army barracks which was about three miles away and shoot it.

Years later my mam was listening to the home service (now radio 4) and they had a speaker from Milk Marketing Board explaining what they were doing and he went on to recount the story of the cattle truck that had arrived with a bull that had completely destroyed the floor and was only standing on four small pieces of wood. Mam knew first hand of the incident.

2507

Carl Williams:
A photograph of our stand at an exhibition of employers and businesses in County Durham to promote trade in that area in the newly completed Recreation Centre at Spennymoor. The young lady in the background was Linda Turnbull one of our office staff at that time around 1978.The offuce staff took turns to be on the stand along with myself to greet guests and perhaps give them a cup of coffee and answer any of their questions.I well remember the girls from Metro Radio together with presenters who were airing their programs live. Linda Turnbull used to live in Kelloe and I’m sure will have married and changed her name since that time, but if anyone from Kelloe, Coxhoe area recognises her I am sure if they let her know she would be pleased to be able to look back at this photograph, and who knows but it is possible she has photos from her time at W.H.Williams she could share

Linda Turnbulls sister maxine lives next door to a pal of mine in kelloe i,ll pass this info to him just in case she doe,snt know about this forum i,m sure she would be interested & hopefully have some old photos, i will post again when i get an answer.

2508

PHMOTORS:

Carl Williams:
A photograph of our stand at an exhibition of employers and businesses in County Durham to promote trade in that area in the newly completed Recreation Centre at Spennymoor. The young lady in the background was Linda Turnbull one of our office staff at that time around 1978.The offuce staff took turns to be on the stand along with myself to greet guests and perhaps give them a cup of coffee and answer any of their questions.I well remember the girls from Metro Radio together with presenters who were airing their programs live. Linda Turnbull used to live in Kelloe and I’m sure will have married and changed her name since that time, but if anyone from Kelloe, Coxhoe area recognises her I am sure if they let her know she would be pleased to be able to look back at this photograph, and who knows but it is possible she has photos from her time at W.H.Williams she could share

Linda Turnbulls sister maxine lives next door to a pal of mine in kelloe i,ll pass this info to him just in case she doe,snt know about this forum i,m sure she would be interested & hopefully have some old photos, i will post again when i get an answer.

Hi PHMotors

I would appreciate you telling Linda, It would be nice to know how she is keeping

I’m sure she’ll remember many of the names mentioned

if she has any photos that would be great, but also could you ask the names of who she worked with in the office and also if she can name any drivers or other employees names

Best wishes
Carl

2509

Carl have you thought about putting some of these stories in some kind of order then into a book to be published :question:

There are plenty that do / have done & just sold them on the internet there is at least 1 member on here that has done

2510

animal:
Carl have you thought about putting some of these stories in some kind of order then into a book to be published :question:

There are plenty that do / have done & just sold them on the internet there is at least 1 member on here that has done

Hi Animal

Strange that you have mentioned that.

My daughter Alexis has two young boys, my grandchildren, Lucas and Jenson and altough Alexis and Paul, my son have spennt many hours talking to my father and no doubt been told of these tales over and over my grandchildren have not and so about three years ago when Lucas was born I decided to try and write a book. It was long before I knew aboutn this website and I completed chapter one that explains how the business came about until 1921 when my dad was born.

However try as I might I could not motivate myself to carry on. Only the other day I thought that when I dried up of all recolections to put on this website I might carry on and complete it. So you never know

Best wishes

Carl

2511

One Sunday evening my father got a phone call at home from Spennymor police to say they had a report that one of our vehicles, HUP376H had been stolen. Dad rang up our depot at green lane and established it was still there.
Ringing the police back and telling them, they asked could he meet them at Green Lane and make sure.

The van was parked in our depot loaded with a load of domestic appliances for the Leicester area. I think I can remember the drivers name but will not name him incase I am mistaken.

He left Spennymoor at about 8-30 on the Monday morning and on the Tuesday morning strolled into a Leicester Police station and reported the van as stolen. He claimed he had travelled down to Leicester and parked up booked into lodgings and gone to the cinema on the night and then had a drink at a pub and when he had gone to collect the van the next morning it was missing. He still had the keys. We asked Leicester Police was the driver still with them and they replied that he was.

We told them to arrest the driver, and went on to explain what had happened on the Sunday night. We were told that it must just be a coincidence and were advising the driver to make his way back to Spennymoor. We rang Spennymoor CID who had come out to see the van on the Sunday evening and they agreed with us that it was suspicious and rang Leicester police and asked them to keep the driver there.

It transpired that our driver had picked the van up on the Sunday Morning and gone home where he had taken the van keys and got another set cut and had taken his son with him to Leicester. He had then as he said gone to the pictures etc., while his son had continued his journey and taken the van to London. The Metropolitan police had followed the van and raided just as the receivers were starting to unload. As a result arrests were made that resulted in a criminal gang being arrested who had been wanted by the police for years.

After a few days we were asked to collect the van from London and I went down by train. The Metropolitan police handed me the van keys and asked if I could ring the Leicester police, who asked me to call at their police headquarters near Leicester on my way back.

I had never driven a fully loaded HGV before that time and was shocked as I turned off the M1 to go into Leicester the brakes were not slowing me down as I would have expected and to stop at the rapidly advancing roundabout I had to stand up and put my full weight on the footbrake pedal to avoid driving onto he roundabout.

At Leicester police HQ they said they needed to inspect the load and when I opened up the shutter and tailboard they had a fit at the thought of manually unloading and loading again. They were delighted when I suggested that as I was taking the van back to Spennymoor to be unloaded and the Spennymoor police could inspect the load as it was unloaded. It transpired at that time no police force were speaking to each other and although Leicester Police were not friendly with Durham County, but trusted them a lot more than the Met.

2512

Guy Big J with Gardner 180 pulling unusually for us one of our 40ft platform trailers The driver is I believe Ken Hardy who I have spoken about a week ago on this thread

Big J 2.jpg
Big J 2.jpg1232×704 85.5 KB

2513

Several years ago when he was Leader of the opposition William Hague made claims to the amount he used to drink as he worked delivering crates of lemonade and other soft drinks to pubs for his family’s soft drinks business. The press thought he was making it up to make himself more ‘one of the lads’ my dad said, from his experiences he could well believe him.

Andrew Hall had several shops in Spennymoor and were licensed to sell ales as wholesalers. Where the breweries used to supply mainly draft beers to the pubs Andrew hall supplied crates of bottled ales such as Guinness
And Newcastle Brown Ale.

If and when their own vehicle broke down they used to hire us to do their deliveries. Dad said the landlords took a pride in how they cleaned out their systems and the quality of the beer. At almost every pub they delivered to they were asked to sample a free pint, and if you refused they could take it as an insult. However dad said no matter how much he had to drink because you were virtually running in and out with the crates and using so much energy and sweating you never were drunk.

2514

Traditionally a young lad would leave school and get a job at 14 years old with my grandfather as a van lad. He learnt his trade of loading and unloading and handling furniture so that when he reached the age of 17 he would learn to drive and after he had passed his driving test he would drive a small van. By working as a van lad for three years he would have learnt his way around and basic map reading, but more important he would have been woken up into working life.

As he gained experience he would progress onto a larger vehicle and because he now would have a van lad with him he could again pass on his knowledge and experience.

During my early years, after leaving school, we had one prime example that comes to mind was Norman Snowball. Coming from Spennymoor he had worked for my grandfather and father all of his working life, and better packer of furniture you could never meet. He had worked conscientiously and in his forties had skills and experience that enabled him to do his work. Some others like him had been lost because of them being called up during the Second World War, and eventually Norman suffered nervous breakdown because of matrimonial problems, from which he never recovered and was unable to work for several years until his early death at about 60 years old. His only employment during his life was with us and this system of training basically stayed with us until the end.

To my knowledge it served well for people like Eddy Worthington, John Willetts, Dale Harrison and Eric Nelson, plus many others. At eight years old I was taught by my father that I had to count ahead the house numbers so that I could tell the driver at which house he had to stop. My dad told me a van lad’s job was to do this and be out of the cab and have the tailboard down before the driver could get out of the cab.

In the late sixties or early seventies the Government introduced The Road Haulage Industrial Training Board with a Levy of 1.5% of our wage bill as our contribution to it. We took little notice to this and put it out of our minds until the day the levy/bill for 1.5% of our previous years wage bill landed on my desk.
Dad for one went mad and rang them up telling them there must have been a mistake, and was told we if we met a criteria could get a basic grant which at least would reduce the amount we had to pay.

We applied telling of our basic type of training to be told we did not qualify. A representative from the RTITB came and told us what we had to do, mostly form filling. One requirement was we had to have a job description for every employee, From those of you reading this who are drivers will realise there is no one who could write a job description of your work, as so much happens which is unaccountable. A drivers job is much more complicated than a simple civil servant who goes to work and sits at his desk taking one or two phone calls and writing a letter or two, and more than often doing as little a possible,

Anyway to get our block grant I had to write out a load of rubbish for each employee. I’m afraid it was a case of if you can’t beat them join them.

2515

RTITB made various requirements for us to obtain the block training grant and one of these was that we had a driving accessor.

Any driver that came to work for us during the sixties and seventies will well remember was that my fathers approach to interviewing a prospective new driver was a brief talk and then take them out for a test drive in any vehicle that was available on the day, so infact he was assessing their driving. Already and once more thought it was a waste of time and money but we had no option.

The course was a two week residential course at Motec High Ercoll in Shropshire. High Ercoll was an ex RAF airport that RTITB had acquired out of the levy’s they had charged hauliers like us and once they had it and staffed it they had to create a use for it and this course therefore was mandatory.

The thought went then onto who should we send. If we sent one of our drivers the chances of him being there when a driver needed assessing was remote and also once we had spent what seemed a fortune on this course what would happen if he left. We could not afford to chose one employee and increase his pay packet as it would cause trouble with others so there was only one choice it had to be me who took the course.

So off to Shropshire I went for two weeks like a lamb to slaughter. I had no idea of what I had volunteered myself for and no idea of what would be required of me.

Although I resented the costs of Motec of which there were two, one at High Ercoll and the second at Livingston in Scotland, I must admit the staff I met that did the HGV training were excellent as were the facilities.

At this stage I must point out that as I was 21 before HGV licence came into legal requirements I could certify myself for ‘Godfather Rights’ which enabled me to get an HGV licence without any training or having to pass a test. I hadn’t been greedy and just applied for class 3, and my most difficult task I had to endure was to have a Medical. I went to see Dr Corrigan, my local doctor who at first questioned me as my medical records showed I was possibly epileptic. ‘Do you really need this, Carl? He asked and when I replied I did he signed the form for me without any further checks.

When I arrived at Shropshire I found to my shame that most of my fellow students were middle aged experienced drivers from BRS. Things went worse when we were told before we could access anyone else they had to be sure of the standard of our driving,

First we went onto the manoverabiliy area. Thank God I had not got myself a class 1 licence, or I would have been kicked out on day one. I kept out of the way when they asked ‘Who goes first’, and in fact I was the last to take this section. What I did do was watching everyone else and see where they started to turn etc, and miracularly I managed when my turn came.

I did quite well on the class work and got 100% on the Highway Code which was helped by me working out how they had originally calculated the thinking and stopping distances at the various speeds they had set and I could quickly work these out without having to try to learn them parrot fashion.

The vehicle me and a colleague used with our trainer was a Ford D series, which fortunately had a modified handbrake from our D series in our fleet and in their vehicle it was obvious whether or not the handbrake was applied and I really enjoyed driving round Shropshire and over Ironbridge. I even was taught and had to perform a commentary drive, which is more difficult in an HGV than is required by the police in a car. The only thing I found difficult was they insisted we slowed down using the brakes, instead of changing down, as they said brakes were cheaper to replace than a gearbox, clutch or dif, I had always been told to use the old fashioned method of changing down and holding in a low gear, which I still do today rather than risk brake failure…

One of the vehicles they had in High Ercoll was an old Scammell (Normal Control) coupled to a tanker trailer with the gate gearbox and as an add on piece of fun we were given a lesson on driving this and coping with the gearbox, which proved very handy when I ha to drive our Scammell.

I passed and all in all enjoyed the experience. Whether or not it improved my driving is debatable especially by my son, but I do know I passed a driving course that was much more comprehensive and difficult than any advanced driving course.

2516

As you drove into Durham down North Road through the traffic lights at the New Inn through Church Street turning left at the bottom onto New Elvet on the Left hand side just before you passed The Three Tons on right was Mathew Fowlers Saleroom.

In 1959 Mathew Fowler had bought two Bedford TKs with 1600 cu ft bodies built by Adams and Gibbon’s own body shop. (This was not renowned for good bodywork). I used to often walk past them whilst at Bow school as we walked to either the swimming baths or the cricket club along the sands. To me they were two beautiful vans in two tone grey and green. Probably the reason for this was the TK had just been introduced and looked so modern.

Mathew Fowler had used them to transport items to and from his saleroom and the occasional removal, and about 1964 decided to part with them. Dad was approached by Adams and Gibbon to see if he would buy them at a price which was very reasonable. So he bought them. I remember seeing them reversed tight up to the left hand wall in the garage in Marmaduke Street to use as little space as possible when I was off school on one occasion.

I assumed he was going to paint them and use them but instead he sold them to people out of the area, assuming it would reduce competition in Durham, . Usually my grandfather used to take care of vehicle sales until I started doing it when my grandfather was too old. However dad maintained he sold them at a good profit, which is hard to imagine as he hated selling, saying he was no good at it.

Years later when I asked him why he sold them he said they were petrol and a little small for us but the main reason was the poor mechanical condition and also the bodywork rained in all over the place. The bodies as I have explained were built by Adams and Gibbon which explained the raining in, but from my memory they were always standing in Elvet outside the saleroom, so they could have only done a few miles.

Dad told me the last one to sell was to an owner driver who was over the moon to have bought it and dad explained the steering was so worn that you ha to turn the steering a full turn before there was any movement below on the wheels.

I think this sums up vehicle maintenance in many cases, before plating and testing was introduced. They probable had not been inside a workshop during the years that Mathew Fowler owned them. Never had a grease gun ever near them and probably never had the engine oil changed. And operators could get away with that provided they were lucky and not pulled in for a roadside check

2517

George Hardy

Before the war each driver had basically looked after his own vehicle. Greasing changing oil etc. My grandmother’s brother my uncle Jim did anything technical and he were very good apart from being oh so slow. Although vehicles only lasted for about four years so everything was newish.

During the war my uncle came into his own repairing and making everything himself as parts were unavailable. I always remember him telling me off for pulling on a handbrake. He told me I would wear the ratchet, and I replied I liked to hear I had put it on, but his memory would have gone back to hours of remaking a ratchet.

In the early sixties Uncle Jim was getting older and there just wasn’t the time for him to do his work. My dad and his cousin Jack Kempsey did all servicing on a Saturday, but we needed extra help for engine changes etc. The answer was a driver mechanic.

We employed George hardy who lived at Ferryhill Station. Commonsense should have told us that a good mechanic does not need to drive. George was the most versatile and willing person and very likeable but he tended to be unreliable with his work. Things started dropping off and on one occasion he put an engine in without putting in the back main bearing. Dad till his death couldn’t understand how he managed to get the back main in without taking out the engine again but he did.

One thing George specialised in was that you never could tell he had done any work on a vehicle. My uncle Jim would spend hours underneath with a paintbrush and can of petrol cleaning off everything before he started to do anything. In his life he had all the time in the world. He would number every bolt, screw or washer to make sure he put them back exactly from where they had come off. George on the other hand had the knack of putting things back dirtier than when he started and no one could tell he had done anything until the leaks started or things fell off. He always made the concrete floor cushioned with piles of dirt so he could lie amongst it comfortably and drop and loose nuts bolts washers and split pins amongst it.

One day we had a van broken down on the main road at Kirkby Lonsdale right on a bend. George picked up the tools he needed that were littered all over the workshop floor and I drove him in my car. George had his good points and got the van away and on his return complained to my dad of how quick I had driven. They hatched a plot.

When I as 17 my grandparents bought me a Rover 2000 which had just been introduced into production. I learnt to drive on it and for the next 10 years or so I had a series of these cars. It was one of these I took George in. I knew the car and what it could do and I knew the road like the back of my hand knowing where to look and see if there was traffic coming round a bend and when and where it was safe to pass, but George thought I drove too fast and told my dad.

Somehow I don’t know how but under my dad’s instruction they governed the car so it would not exceed 60 MPH and as a result achieved 48 mpg.

If you are reading this George I mean no harm and how I wish we could go back to the days I drove you to Kirkby Lonsdale and back.

2518

One morning Bob Hobson left Spennymoor with a load of Courtaulds yarn for delivery in the Leicester area. He was driving LPT865J a Bedford Marsden Luton van that he had driven from new and which was still only a few months old .Bob would only be about 25 years old. On the A!M Doncaster bypass he came across Brian Sheldon who was driving Ford D series boxvan FPT721G broken down on the hard shoulder.

Bob pulled in in front of Brian to see if he could help and as he walked along the side of his van a left hand drive car driven by a foreigner who was on holiday in UK hit Bob. A chrome strip that had been detached fro the side of his car for some weeks went right through Bob’s leg and almost detached Bob’s leg.

Bob was taken to Huddesfield hospital where fortunately they managed to save his leg. I took some of his family down to see him and he was really ill.
Eventually Bob was transferred to Dryburn Hospital Durham where the standards were not as high as Huddesfield and he had a set back which once again brought back into question if his leg would be lost. Mercifully he recovered.

Shortly after discharge from hospital Bob got married and rented one of our houses in Marmaduke Street. He came back to work for a few months until he left as his new wife didn’t like him doing long distance driving.

Bob only lived about 5 years tragically dieing so young.

2519

About three months after the accident happened that I referred to on the previous post one of our Bedford TK was pulled in round about the same area on the A1M and given a GV9 for black smoke.

The major problems we had with Bedfords was black smoke. In those days there were no testers for exhaust emissions and the method they used was to put your foot flat down on the throttle let it off and then straight down again then you had an ‘opinion’ of whether or not the smoke was black or grey…
The first diesel 330cu in we put on the road was 1372UP and it had an inline pump which was very efficient and reliable, but for wisdom not explained they introduced the rotary pump which emitted grey smoke at the best of times. The only theory for changing to a rotary pump that seems sensible was cost cutting.

There were two problems about this GV9 issued on A1m was it was about 11.30AM on a Monday morning and the vehicle had just left Darlington Test Station just over an hour before being stopped, where it had just passed its annual test. It might have been more helpful if the driver had the test certificate with him but I had let him go whilst I waited for the paperwork to be completed.

Also as we had already a few weeks earlier had an accident on the hard shoulder of this same motorway it was very dangerous and irresponsible that a ministry inspector had pulled a vehicle in for inspection on the hard shoulder. Not only was he putting his life at risk but our driver’s life also. This just demonstrated how attitude to health and safety has changed over the years.

I immediately rang placing a person to person call to the Minister of Transport. I doubt if you could get whoever holds this post today on the phone but in those days it was possible. I complained directly to him and he asked me to put a complaint directly into him stating what had happened.

The next morning we rang and arranged for a local inspector to come and remove the GV9 and when the van came back it was tested and found to be ok without us touching it and the GV9 was removed.

Within days I got a letter back from the Government Minister agreeing with me that it was wrong to pull a vehicle onto the hard shoulder and they would inform the Yorkshire Inspector to immediately stop these practices. However he withheld the GV9 saying something could have happened between Darlington and A1M that caused the vehicle to emit black smoke.

We then started to have a surge of vehicles getting pulled in but not on motorways. I rang back and said what was happening and felt we were being victimised for making a complaint. That stopped it.

It is interesting that the local inspectors we had were a chap called Cant (many hauliers claimed he had wrongly spelt his name) Ronnie Kiplling who lived in Spennymoor and the third a youngster called Whittaker. We found them to be fair, after all they only had their job to do and if our staff were as thorough we would have no problems. As I said Whittaker had just started and I heard the other week he is shortly to retire. Time passes.

2520

Carl Williams:
We had worked for Freemans the mail order people from Peterborough since 1961…

Carl, can you help with my enquiry regarding Freemans livery from the 60’s?.
I have just posted a new topic on the subject!.