Continuing about our Mail Order Tale and the Depots.
Story So Far:
We have been delivering the mattresses for GUS Catalogues and Kays successfully for about 4 months putting them onto our loaded vans as part loads.
We have been offered all UBU mail order deliveries
I have been introduced to Clive O’Gorman who has had many years’ experience of mail order deliveries.
UBU (Universal Bedding and Upholstery) manufactured divan beds and mattresses at their factory at Team Valley Trading Estate Gateshead and 3 piece suites many with recliner chairs at their factory at Chirton, North Shields. For older drivers perhaps they will remember Lunarest vans on the road in the fifties which became the UBU vans that many will no doubt remember. The volume of the production at UBU’s factories were spread into two areas. The first being deliveries to high street retail shops, the majority being GUS owned under names like Woodhouse Furniture. Cavendish furniture and Times Furniture and also small independents that were scattered in every town in UK. UBU were to carry on doing this work themselves using their own vehicles. However we were over the next year or two given several test loads of this work and I have no doubt if we had continued and made a success of the Mail order side they would have given these retail deliveries and closed their own account operation.
The other part of UBU business was the delivery of beds and 3 piece suites to private households throughout the UK and off shore islands. This consisted of approx. 5,000 divan beds per week 500 three piece suites per week and 2,000 mattresses. This was our new work and I had less than 2 months to plan and arrange the deliveries.
Over the next few weeks the Managing Director of UBU invited me to both their factories where I was shown the production facilities, and another most strange occurrence was that myself and my wife were taken out for a meal at the Black Knight restaurant, Lumley Castle Hotel where we were entertained by the Managing director and his wife ad Transport Manager and his wife of UBU, at UBU’s expense. I suppose this was a bonding session so we got to know each other to facilitate a better working relationship, but for me it was so nice not having to pick up the tab, and must have been the only occasion that I was entertained by one of our customers.
Clive O’Gorman proved to offer invaluable help as not only was he geared up to do all the Southern deliveries taking in London and the South coast but also introduced me to sub-contractors who had the capability to do Yorkshire, Lancashire, Midlands and South West. This left us doing all the trunking and North East and ■■■■■■■ together with Scotland deliveries directly to the homes with our own vehicles.
In these days before the use of credit cards had court on the less well-off families thrived off the simple credit offered by the mail order companies so the larger percentage of deliveries were to the North of the country and the more well off Southern areas , although still large number of deliveries, did not use Mail Order as much.
We also had to take care of Northern Ireland and off shore deliveries but fortunately we soon found sub-contractors where we could deliver to affect these deliveries to the house door.
When the tap was turned on it was a shock and tested us to breaking point but we coped and soon got used to the volumes and were ready to expand our operations
Hi Carl was trying to remember where the sheffield depot was,speaking to a friend of mine, he seems to think it was off Foxhill road i think sheffield 6 on a small estate across the road from a pub [the name of i cannot remember].which for an ex removal man is a sin.
Regards Jeff
jeffreyk:
Hi Carl was trying to remember where the sheffield depot was,speaking to a friend of mine, he seems to think it was off Foxhill road i think sheffield 6 on a small estate across the road from a pub [the name of i cannot remember].which for an ex removal man is a sin.
Regards Jeff
Hi Jeff
Foxhill Road rings a bell and it was on a smal industrial estate
pbsummers:
Carl, Eddie & Gorden
Name the time and place and I will be there
Peter
Hi Peter,
Not heard from you for a while. Hope you are OK.
Will Frog and Ferret be ok with you? Gordon thinks there will be more space there and on a Tuesday night it should be quieter, so we’ll be able to hear each other speak better.
Also None W.H.W employees who might be interested like Angie jeffery and Harry and perhaps Victor or any others please let me know if you can attend and I will call at the Frog and Ferret and make sure with the land lord that we can pull some tables together
Hi Carl
I am ok the Frog and Ferret is ok by me. It will be nice to see all the old faces again they might even remember me, I was a lot younger too when the garage was at marmarduke street. As I said before I enjoyed every minute of my times there. Its good to know that you too Colin are ok
I hope Eddie is not suffering too much
All the best to you all Peter.
Three more names from the past Gordon Elsom John Mortimer Jeff Cooper.
I cannot say on the last photo of old Atkinson for if you remember my HGV was revoked on medical grounds in 1983 hence I was on the sick and then in the warehouse office and then the caravan office for the mail order until I went to Westbury and Wellingborough.
Parcelman can you let Jim know that we are asking after him.
Three more names from the past Gordon Elsom John Mortimer Jeff Cooper.
I cannot say on the last photo of old Atkinson for if you remember my HGV was revoked on medical grounds in 1983 hence I was on the sick and then in the warehouse office and then the caravan office for the mail order until I went to Westbury and Wellingborough.
Parcelman can you let Jim know that we are asking after him.
Hi colin,
i’ve added them. Thanks.
I don’t know where I was from 1983 t0 1986. I was sure you had driven the Atkinson till the end. Where has my memory gone!
Hi Everyone…Bloody hospitals, lost my scan card records, now waiting for another scan anybody want any kidney stones, no charge,called to see static caravan, it is a Willerby Westbury 1998 and is stunning, cannot believe how good the codition is. only been used 4 weeks a year, hope everyone is keeping well, I can just see everyone at the Frog & Ferret and Colin and Roger sitting in the corner like them two in the muppets (Waldorf and ■■?) it will be brill.
Eddie
Continuing the story of how our depots came about:
As I explained in the last post we had a network of sub-contractors where we could deliver to with our vehicles and they were delivering to the houses on housing estates and other often remote areas. With our own vehicles we were able to deliver directly in the Northern areas that were best suitable to us. We also could use our own vehicles to ensure there were no bottlenecks in any area and ensure we were providing a good service.
We were attracting the notice of all the other mail order companies, with the exception of Littlewoods and I was soon visiting Grattons, Empire Stores and Freemans and discussing and being given work by them. GUS were also offering us more work including flat pack furniture deliveries.
Just a note at this time when dad and me travelled down to Bradford to attend a meeting with Empire stores brought laughter to both of us. In those days there were no Satnavs and we needed to ask the way. Empire Stores were very large employees in the town and you would have thought anyone would know where they were. I was passenger in the car and every time we saw someone and I asked direction were black and none could understand English. So dad saw a taxi office and suggested I go in and ask there. When I went in I was spellbound, as again no one understood me. I suppose that was Bradford.
Nothing goes smoothly and we encounter problems we never contemplated. The first was administration. Every delivery had a delivery note, and doing about 3,000 deliveries per week generated a lot of filing and we had difficulties as the mail order companies expected and needed immediate replies as to who was the signatory and when the delivery was affected. We needed and had to recruit and train a lot of admin staff and needed a lot of extra storage space.
Secondly all the goods that came into us had to be unloaded and sorted into destination areas and we needed extra warehousing. All consignments wherever they came from came to Spennymoor resorted and taken to our subcontractors depots. Which meant that some products which were made in London came back to Spennymoor and small proportion went back to London, as we had no facilities to sort and redeliver from other areas.
On the good side we were able to easily obtain warehouse space in Spennymoor and we had sufficient empty vehicles always returning to Spennymoor, and if you worked out a central location in UK based on population that used mail order, Spennymoor was about the right location.
Every day we had visitors coming to see us mostly from Manchester or Worcester to assess how we were doing. One of these was Ron Husband who ran the department who ‘checked on us’ and I had first come across him in the ‘Marmaduke Street ‘ days. We had a company who used our services who imported table tennis tables and these were stored by us and delivered by us as part loads, and some of these were sold in mail order catalogues. Ron had come to see me in those days and I did not understand the importance he had in the GUS organisation. Fortunately I had dealt with him in a good manner and he was warm towards us, but he had done his job for years and knew where to look for mistakes and problems and you couldn’t pull the wool over his eyes.
He suggested an administrator we could employ to sort out our admin, and to keep the peace we did so, but we had the additional cost to pay for furnished accommodation for him and his wife whilst they kept their home in Lancashire.
As I said things were starting to go OK then Clive O’Gorman who did our southern deliveries went into liquidation.
To be continued
I am passing out the message that we are going to the F/F but i would ask at what time please day or night
Colin
Hi Colin
Tuesday 10 aPRIL 8-00pm
Carl
Hi Colin,
I am sorry I am useless and don’t know but I am sure someone will tell you
Can you remember back to about 1969-70?
You came in about 5-00pm loaded for one drop Padiham, and at the time they were going slow and taking several hours to unload.
We were desperately short of vans to put into Smart & Brown (Thorn EMI) for them to keep their loaders ‘busy’ the following day and I said to you that if you got back by dinner time I would give you £10. I went on to say that by dinner time I meant 12.00.
Next day dad and I were just going to get into the car to go for dinner, when I heard the familiar sound of VPT828F coming up Marmaduke Street. You had made it goodness knows how.
Also, Colin do you remember how from new VPT828F had a ‘noisy’ engine, rackety against the other SBs and yet it still did wonderful mileage with its first engine
edworth:
Hi Everyone…Bloody hospitals, lost my scan card records, now waiting for another scan anybody want any kidney stones, no charge,called to see static caravan, it is a Willerby Westbury 1998 and is stunning, cannot believe how good the codition is. only been used 4 weeks a year, hope everyone is keeping well, I can just see everyone at the Frog & Ferret and Colin and Roger sitting in the corner like them two in the muppets (Waldorf and ■■?) it will be brill.
Eddie
Hi Eddie,
I hate going to hospital. They keep you waiting so long and I get so annoyed when I can hear the nurses laughing and joking, and carrying on in the background. I often think that they have forgotten that they are supposed to be working.
I love the thought of spending time in a caravan. There is something about them and I think if I lived on my own I would buy one and move into it. They are big enough to look after and you don’t need to make an effort to go out and on a site there are always people about.
Hoping you are soon better
Eddie
See you have not lost your sense of humour cosidering the worry you are going through, how does anyone lose records if they are important.
We have just returned after four days in Threlkeld in the Lakes to celebrate my 70th birthday coming up and it was in a pub.
Gordon
edworth:
Hi Everyone…Bloody hospitals, lost my scan card records, now waiting for another scan anybody want any kidney stones, no charge,called to see static caravan, it is a Willerby Westbury 1998 and is stunning, cannot believe how good the codition is. only been used 4 weeks a year, hope everyone is keeping well, I can just see everyone at the Frog & Ferret and Colin and Roger sitting in the corner like them two in the muppets (Waldorf and ■■?) it will be brill.
Eddie
We had two Bedford Marsden painted in Godfrey Syrett livery. Black with silver writing. Here is the only photo I have, which is rather poor quality.I thought they looked dreadful and boring, but my son, on seeing it says that today the black with silver writing would have been modern.
If anyone has any photos, please post them, and if you are having dificulty please let me borrow, I promise i will return immediatly so tat i can scan and post
goggietara:
Eddie
See you have not lost your sense of humour cosidering the worry you are going through, how does anyone lose records if they are important.
We have just returned after four days in Threlkeld in the Lakes to celebrate my 70th birthday coming up and it was in a pub.
Gordon
edworth:
Hi Everyone…Bloody hospitals, lost my scan card records, now waiting for another scan anybody want any kidney stones, no charge,called to see static caravan, it is a Willerby Westbury 1998 and is stunning, cannot believe how good the codition is. only been used 4 weeks a year, hope everyone is keeping well, I can just see everyone at the Frog & Ferret and Colin and Roger sitting in the corner like them two in the muppets (Waldorf and ■■?) it will be brill.
Eddie
Never lose your sense of humour this has killed most things as it seems a lot of people have had it by passed
Hi Carl
The last time I heard about Ray Russell was in December and he was working for Katem.
Eddie I am still available to do your kidney stones I have a plasma cutter and a hammer and chisel,I don’t need anything like scans to tell me where your kidneys are I can just have a good guess. Joking apart I hope it’s not to long before you are sorted
Peter
Have any of you watched Eddie Stobart: trucks and Trailers Chanel 5 Friday nights?
What a load of rubbish.
My son was staying and he put it on.
One driver was taking a load on a trailer with 2 drops Livingstone near Edinburgh.
He had new Scania with sleeper cab, curtainsider trailer and Sat Nav which would cruise up the M6 at 59mph.
He was trying to say it was difficult to do in his time. Not to get there and back, just to get to his second drop.
The driver was saying he was cold, tired and hungry, and then complaining of sleeping in his sleeper cab. The television program was dramatising it and trying to be sorry for him.
These drivers don’t know they are alive and how Stobart survive being so inefficient no one would know.
Had Stobart’s been in business in the sixties and early seventies they wouldn’t have survived and the drivers!!!
They should have been given one of our old Guy’s with the 4 cylinder Gardner engines they would have died of heart attacks, and they certainly would have been cold as the heaters hardly worked. At one point he got he got held up a while on M6. If he had been driving a Guy it would have been him that was holding up the traffic.Finally when they came to the delivery points they wouldn’t simply have had to open the curtain and let the fork lift driver unload it for them but having to unload themselves defiantly would have killed them.
Incidentally the Guys were only about 1600 cu ft. and couldn’t carry as big a load as our Bedford Marsdens but even the Guys with a load packed into the body would carry more than they had on their curtain sider trailer.
By the way I apologise for any bad spellings as I often forget to spell check, but today I did and realise I have it se on English (USA) and don’t know how to correct it.
anybody want any kidney stones, no charge,called to see static caravan, it is a Willerby Westbury 1998 and is stunning, cannot believe how good the codition is. only been used 4 weeks a year, hope everyone is keeping well, I can just see everyone at the Frog & Ferret and Colin and Roger sitting in the corner like them two in the muppets (Waldorf and ■■?) it will be brill.
