Continuing the story of how our depots came about:
Every now and then things go wrong at the right time.
When Clive O’Gorman went bankrupt Thorn had a strike so we had a surplus of vans and drivers we could immediately send down to try to sort things out.
Kays and British Mail Order Corporation, as GUS were trading their mail order side sent management staff to sort things out at Clive’s warehouses and we sent vehicles to empty them. At the same time we made contact with all the owner drivers that Clive had been using to deliver our goods.
Clive had warehouses full of return goods (As I previously had stated) that he had collected and our vans set about taking these back to the various manufacturers and all together with GUS staff we all worked well together and averted what might have developed into a calamity. The problem we had was how we were going to get our goods to the 50 or so sub-contractor owner drivers. Sorting into even smaller lots and taking loads or part loads to their home was not a long term answer, as often they had no space to receive, but we did do so for a few days. Then two of the sub-contractors volunteered that if we opened a warehouse in London, one, Jim Wilson, would run it and with the help of the owner drivers from his area would cover South coast, London, Kent and Essex and another couple (I cannot remember their names but man and wife) would cover Hertfordshire north to Nottingham and Derbyshire if we opened a warehouse for their area.
Jim wanted somewhere near the Isle of Dogs where he lived arguing that delivering to Essex and Suffolk was easy without the congestion of somewhere either further north like Hatfield (where I would have chosen)and located a newly built warehouse in North Woolwich, which we negotiated a lease on within 7 days. Again we were able to get a warehouse in Wellingborough within a week. Again I would have chosen Leicester where I had wanted to open a depot 10 to 15 years earlier. But with the staff who knew the trade and could turn the tap on immediately we couldn’t argue and chose those two locations.
Although good new warehouses which were adequate in size for our immediate need they did not have sufficient space for much extra increase in work but both were very secure and fitted the immediate need.
Underneath I show a photo of Wellingborough depot and London.
We now had our own depots at London and Sheffield, with sub-contractors near Bristol, North Wales, Doncaster and Manchester and Edinburgh, so altogether we had the outline of a good depot system.
To be continued
I found this photo on Flicr
It is the remnants of a van front, taken at Stanley in Co.Durham. I suspect it is a boxvan body that was used for storage in a garden and survived until now.
The lettering has been transfers,that are partly coming off.
Anyone any ideas of which van?
Come on Peter, you must know
Carl
Another name Steven (Stevie) Newcombe from Bishop Auckland he did very well after we closed he set up on his own Skip Hire & is now very well known, he has a villa in Spain or somewhere & his next door neighbour is no other than Freddie Starr.
I met Stevevie when i was still driving some 8 years ago so hope his still well.
Hope everyone is OK - Gordon.
Carl Williams:
Continuing the story of how our depots came about:
Every now and then things go wrong at the right time.
When Clive O’Gorman went bankrupt Thorn had a strike so we had a surplus of vans and drivers we could immediately send down to try to sort things out.
Kays and British Mail Order Corporation, as GUS were trading their mail order side sent management staff to sort things out at Clive’s warehouses and we sent vehicles to empty them. At the same time we made contact with all the owner drivers that Clive had been using to deliver our goods.
Clive had warehouses full of return goods (As I previously had stated) that he had collected and our vans set about taking these back to the various manufacturers and all together with GUS staff we all worked well together and averted what might have developed into a calamity. The problem we had was how we were going to get our goods to the 50 or so sub-contractor owner drivers. Sorting into even smaller lots and taking loads or part loads to their home was not a long term answer, as often they had no space to receive, but we did do so for a few days. Then two of the sub-contractors volunteered that if we opened a warehouse in London, one, Jim Wilson, would run it and with the help of the owner drivers from his area would cover South coast, London, Kent and Essex and another couple (I cannot remember their names but man and wife) would cover Hertfordshire north to Nottingham and Derbyshire if we opened a warehouse for their area.
Jim wanted somewhere near the Isle of Dogs where he lived arguing that delivering to Essex and Suffolk was easy without the congestion of somewhere either further north like Hatfield (where I would have chosen)and located a newly built warehouse in North Woolwich, which we negotiated a lease on within 7 days. Again we were able to get a warehouse in Wellingborough within a week. Again I would have chosen Leicester where I had wanted to open a depot 10 to 15 years earlier. But with the staff who knew the trade and could turn the tap on immediately we couldn’t argue and chose those two locations.
Although good new warehouses which were adequate in size for our immediate need they did not have sufficient space for much extra increase in work but both were very secure and fitted the immediate need.
Underneath I show a photo of Wellingborough depot and London.
We now had our own depots at London and Sheffield, with sub-contractors near Bristol, North Wales, Doncaster and Manchester and Edinburgh, so altogether we had the outline of a good depot system.
To be continued
goggietara:
Carl
Another name Steven (Stevie) Newcombe from Bishop Auckland he did very well after we closed he set up on his own Skip Hire & is now very well known, he has a villa in Spain or somewhere & his next door neighbour is no other than Freddie Starr.
I met Stevevie when i was still driving some 8 years ago so hope his still well.
Hope everyone is OK - Gordon.
Carl Williams:
Continuing the story of how our depots came about:
Every now and then things go wrong at the right time.
When Clive O’Gorman went bankrupt Thorn had a strike so we had a surplus of vans and drivers we could immediately send down to try to sort things out.
Kays and British Mail Order Corporation, as GUS were trading their mail order side sent management staff to sort things out at Clive’s warehouses and we sent vehicles to empty them. At the same time we made contact with all the owner drivers that Clive had been using to deliver our goods.
Clive had warehouses full of return goods (As I previously had stated) that he had collected and our vans set about taking these back to the various manufacturers and all together with GUS staff we all worked well together and averted what might have developed into a calamity. The problem we had was how we were going to get our goods to the 50 or so sub-contractor owner drivers. Sorting into even smaller lots and taking loads or part loads to their home was not a long term answer, as often they had no space to receive, but we did do so for a few days. Then two of the sub-contractors volunteered that if we opened a warehouse in London, one, Jim Wilson, would run it and with the help of the owner drivers from his area would cover South coast, London, Kent and Essex and another couple (I cannot remember their names but man and wife) would cover Hertfordshire north to Nottingham and Derbyshire if we opened a warehouse for their area.
Jim wanted somewhere near the Isle of Dogs where he lived arguing that delivering to Essex and Suffolk was easy without the congestion of somewhere either further north like Hatfield (where I would have chosen)and located a newly built warehouse in North Woolwich, which we negotiated a lease on within 7 days. Again we were able to get a warehouse in Wellingborough within a week. Again I would have chosen Leicester where I had wanted to open a depot 10 to 15 years earlier. But with the staff who knew the trade and could turn the tap on immediately we couldn’t argue and chose those two locations.
Although good new warehouses which were adequate in size for our immediate need they did not have sufficient space for much extra increase in work but both were very secure and fitted the immediate need.
Underneath I show a photo of Wellingborough depot and London.
We now had our own depots at London and Sheffield, with sub-contractors near Bristol, North Wales, Doncaster and Manchester and Edinburgh, so altogether we had the outline of a good depot system.
To be continued
Hi Gordon,
Great minds think alike!
I was just thinking of Steven the other day and just couldn’t remember his name. The last time I met him was in the lift in Bishop Auckland Maternity Hospital on 1 May 1984 when I was visiting my newly born son.
Its surprising how much you can discuss on a lift. He had left us two or three years before and had joined his father in the skip business.
Thanks Gordon for remembering his name and I have added it onto the list
Carl
For those that were around late 1966 and remember the arrival of BSO172C will notice the similarities with the photograph below.
BSO172C was bought from Fyffes of Forres, and this vehicle ESO175E will have probably been the van Fyffes replaced it with. The livery is certainly identical. It is difficult to make out on the photo, but on BSO and I suspect ESO the bottom panels were split with an aluminium moulding that curves down on the front of the cab. Also BSO had two lights on the top of the luton similar to those on ESO.
When we got BSO172C it was less than two years old. Fyffes ran two vehicles with another Bedford SB identical to BSO. In fact when there driver dropped BSO off with us the sister vehicle with another driver called to pick his mate up and take him back to Forres.
BSO172C had then to be made so it was identical with our other Bedfords of the time, so off came the aluminium dividing strip which dad been riveted on, off came the additional lights. The problem that faced us then was that under the aluminium strip had not been painted, so we removed all the paint on the aluminium panels with Nitromors paint remover. It was a massive task. We found we could not touch the cab or the luton as Nitromors reacted with the fibreglass. Once all the paint was removed the bare aluminium was washed down with filler and the whole van was painted in grey primer, and then painted with two coats of Dulux Coach Finnish undercoat and one coat of enamel and then signwritten by Peter Butler.
After all this effort when the sun shone in the right direction you could still make out Fyffes of Forres lettering.
The other thing was that BSO had for some reason been fitted with 900x20 tyres whereas 825x20 were standard on Bedford SB. Perhaps as they did high mileage trips from North Scotland they thought the larger tyres might make the fuel consumption better, but when fully (overloaded) they cought the wheel aches, so 825x20 were exchanged for the larger tyres.
BSO172C must have been very photogenic as it has appeared on here three times, and in my search for photographs I came across this Fiffes of Forres.
I know it will also bring back memories to Harry Gill, who on one occasion collected a return load from them, and had asked on another thread what had happened to them.
Hi Carl
You are perfectly correct about BSO172C, even down to the tyre size. Your memory isn’t as bad you think. It’s a blast from the past as I travelled many many miles in it. I can remember one of my trips down to Headingly cricket ground with a load of light fittings from Thorn Lighting and, no, it wasn’t with uncle Jim. It was with Joe Carpenter because we got back early in the afternoon and reloaded with cookers. I can recall the first driver was Norman Snowball then it was given to Joe after him. I always thought it looked heavier than the other SBs because of the tyre size. It was also the second of the SBs to have a 5 speed gearbox (David Brown), RPT 440D being the first (BSO bought after RPT).
After going to one of my customers in Consett on Tuesday I went to Anfield Plain to get a photo and reg no if possible of the van body which you mentioned in one of your earlier posts but, unfortunately, it had gone. I saw it late last year and it still looked in fair condition.
Hope you are ok Carl and you too, Eddie.
Peter
pbsummers:
Hi Carl
You are perfectly correct about BSO172C, even down to the tyre size. Your memory isn’t as bad you think. It’s a blast from the past as I travelled many many miles in it. I can remember one of my trips down to Headingly cricket ground with a load of light fittings from Thorn Lighting and, no, it wasn’t with uncle Jim. It was with Joe Carpenter because we got back early in the afternoon and reloaded with cookers. I can recall the first driver was Norman Snowball then it was given to Joe after him. I always thought it looked heavier than the other SBs because of the tyre size. It was also the second of the SBs to have a 5 speed gearbox (David Brown), RPT 440D being the first (BSO bought after RPT).
After going to one of my customers in Consett on Tuesday I went to Anfield Plain to get a photo and reg no if possible of the van body which you mentioned in one of your earlier posts but, unfortunately, it had gone. I saw it late last year and it still looked in fair condition.
Hope you are ok Carl and you too, Eddie.
Peter
Hi Peter,
My memory from fifties, sixties and seventies is great it’s after that it seems to be wiped.
How did you end up going with Joe Carpenter in BSO? That must have been an experience for you as Joe was a flogger? I bet you never realised Bedfords went that fast after travelling with Uncle Jim.
I wonder why Fyffes got rid of it when it was so young. I suppose they thought as they were doing high mileages Leyland was a better choice. However I dare bet that old BSO did more weekly miles with us than they ever did and I dare bet that when it was eventually laid to rest in a scrapyard it had done almost twice the mileage the Leyland in the photo had done when its days ended.
Dad had two regrets. The first being when he bought CDJ in about 1954 from Crosby Springs he had not bought a sister Bedford Marsden that they were also selling. CDJ turned out to be an excellent buy, and then with BSO, he wished he had also bought the identical Bedford that they went on to sell.
I always remember dad saying, that although we bought lots of new vans he had always made more money out of second hand ones he had bought.
Anyway Peter hope you are keeping well, and looking forward to seeing you and as many others as possible a week on Tuesday
Carl
pbsummers:
Hi Carl
You are perfectly correct about BSO172C, even down to the tyre size. Your memory isn’t as bad you think. It’s a blast from the past as I travelled many many miles in it. I can remember one of my trips down to Headingly cricket ground with a load of light fittings from Thorn Lighting and, no, it wasn’t with uncle Jim. It was with Joe Carpenter because we got back early in the afternoon and reloaded with cookers. I can recall the first driver was Norman Snowball then it was given to Joe after him. I always thought it looked heavier than the other SBs because of the tyre size. It was also the second of the SBs to have a 5 speed gearbox (David Brown), RPT 440D being the first (BSO bought after RPT).
After going to one of my customers in Consett on Tuesday I went to Anfield Plain to get a photo and reg no if possible of the van body which you mentioned in one of your earlier posts but, unfortunately, it had gone. I saw it late last year and it still looked in fair condition.
Hope you are ok Carl and you too, Eddie.
Peter
Hi Peter,
Going back to the boxvan at Anfield Plain, from the radius and profile of the roof it isn’t a Marsden or Vanplan, and I think it must have been one we built with a Coachskill label.
to survive that long and remain so staight indicates it hasn’t been a bad body and the mahogony frame lasted well.
What do you think
Carl
I know it’s not it, but looking through photos it looked remarkably similar. However the one in the photo had single rear wheels, which would indicate it, had been built for military, and no crane is visible on rear. Whereas our Scammell was built new as a breakdown in about 1932 for Pickfords, and although a ‘four wheeler’ had twin rear wheels. Also the lifting equipment although as old as the chassis had been built to last, as had the Gardner engine and both were in full almost perfect working order. As a breakdown it had never been registered so as we did not keep the chassis number I never could positively identify it.
However when we got it dad rang Scammell in Watford and they soon found the full specification from when it was built. Dad’s question to Scammell was, how could we modify it to make it go faster? Could we change the diff for a higher ratio, for instance? No one could ever make that vehicle go faster, he was told.
The sad thing was that we realised at the time we had a remarkable vehicle in our possession that represented so much of the wonderful engineering that made British Commercials before and during the war so great. The Scammell we had was designed and built as a breakdown to recover the large low loader tractors operated by Pickfords. It would pull a house down, at its own speed, because it didn’t need to go fast as the vehicles it was designed to recover crawled along the road like it.
Why we never took a photo, I will never know. We were going to repaint it and then no doubt we would have photographed it, however the Bedford TK breakdown was available and we bought it, but remarkably during the six months or so we had the Scammell as our only breakdown it never needed to be used and perhaps we should have kept it longer as once the TK came it was never off the road.
A great deal of thought had gone into how the Scammell would have been painted as our cream and brown livery didn’t adapt and it would have looked silly all cream so it was going to be painted brown with the top of the cab cream. It never happened but if it had I am sure it would have made a great photograph
Carl Williams:
For those that were around late 1966 and remember the arrival of BSO172C will notice the similarities with the photograph below.
BSO172C was bought from Fyffes of Forres, and this vehicle ESO175E will have probably been the van Fyffes replaced it with. The livery is certainly identical. It is difficult to make out on the photo, but on BSO and I suspect ESO the bottom panels were split with an aluminium moulding that curves down on the front of the cab. Also BSO had two lights on the top of the luton similar to those on ESO.
When we got BSO172C it was less than two years old. Fyffes ran two vehicles with another Bedford SB identical to BSO. In fact when there driver dropped BSO off with us the sister vehicle with another driver called to pick his mate up and take him back to Forres.
BSO172C had then to be made so it was identical with our other Bedfords of the time, so off came the aluminium dividing strip which dad been riveted on, off came the additional lights. The problem that faced us then was that under the aluminium strip had not been painted, so we removed all the paint on the aluminium panels with Nitromors paint remover. It was a massive task. We found we could not touch the cab or the luton as Nitromors reacted with the fibreglass. Once all the paint was removed the bare aluminium was washed down with filler and the whole van was painted in grey primer, and then painted with two coats of Dulux Coach Finnish undercoat and one coat of enamel and then signwritten by Peter Butler.
After all this effort when the sun shone in the right direction you could still make out Fyffes of Forres lettering.
The other thing was that BSO had for some reason been fitted with 900x20 tyres whereas 825x20 were standard on Bedford SB. Perhaps as they did high mileage trips from North Scotland they thought the larger tyres might make the fuel consumption better, but when fully (overloaded) they cought the wheel aches, so 825x20 were exchanged for the larger tyres.
BSO172C must have been very photogenic as it has appeared on here three times, and in my search for photographs I came across this Fiffes of Forres.
I know it will also bring back memories to Harry Gill, who on one occasion collected a return load from them, and had asked on another thread what had happened to them.
Hi Everyone…I am still kicking, still no appointment from James Cook Hospital so have gone to the static and the weather is great, bet Gordon had a good weekend in the lakes with the weather, am on laptop and is very slow over here, Carl, did Ronnie Wensley drive BSO for a while, I remember rubbing the body down in marmaduke street it was a bloody nightmare, was pleased when I had to go and do a removal or load a van anything was better than preparing it, use to go home with no finger prints left on my hands with the wet & dry…one for Peter which van was the first to have the back door lift up and on its first winter the tubes on each side froze with water in them so we had to lift it in stages as not to break anything, think I will be calling for you to do my kidney stones, think James cook have given my appointment card to the original James Cook to deliver .
all the best everyone, Eddie
Eddie
Good to see you are OK & resting at the static you cannot beat it and to recover after your minor Operation when it goes ahead.
Yes Eddie we had a nice time in the Lakes i climbed Blencathra for my 70th birthday the views were fantastic.
I managed to track down Stevie Newcolm & he was pleased to hear about the site so with any luck he will come up with some stories he told me one about you Eddie but i wont say what, only its clean ha ha.He will i am sure will tell it.
And the night do in the F&F is his birthday so cannot make it but would love to see us ALL again @ the next meetup a nice bloke.
Gordon.
edworth:
Carl Williams:
For those that were around late 1966 and remember the arrival of BSO172C will notice the similarities with the photograph below.
BSO172C was bought from Fyffes of Forres, and this vehicle ESO175E will have probably been the van Fyffes replaced it with. The livery is certainly identical. It is difficult to make out on the photo, but on BSO and I suspect ESO the bottom panels were split with an aluminium moulding that curves down on the front of the cab. Also BSO had two lights on the top of the luton similar to those on ESO.
When we got BSO172C it was less than two years old. Fyffes ran two vehicles with another Bedford SB identical to BSO. In fact when there driver dropped BSO off with us the sister vehicle with another driver called to pick his mate up and take him back to Forres.
BSO172C had then to be made so it was identical with our other Bedfords of the time, so off came the aluminium dividing strip which dad been riveted on, off came the additional lights. The problem that faced us then was that under the aluminium strip had not been painted, so we removed all the paint on the aluminium panels with Nitromors paint remover. It was a massive task. We found we could not touch the cab or the luton as Nitromors reacted with the fibreglass. Once all the paint was removed the bare aluminium was washed down with filler and the whole van was painted in grey primer, and then painted with two coats of Dulux Coach Finnish undercoat and one coat of enamel and then signwritten by Peter Butler.
After all this effort when the sun shone in the right direction you could still make out Fyffes of Forres lettering.
The other thing was that BSO had for some reason been fitted with 900x20 tyres whereas 825x20 were standard on Bedford SB. Perhaps as they did high mileage trips from North Scotland they thought the larger tyres might make the fuel consumption better, but when fully (overloaded) they cought the wheel aches, so 825x20 were exchanged for the larger tyres.
BSO172C must have been very photogenic as it has appeared on here three times, and in my search for photographs I came across this Fiffes of Forres.
I know it will also bring back memories to Harry Gill, who on one occasion collected a return load from them, and had asked on another thread what had happened to them.
Hi Everyone…I am still kicking, still no appointment from James Cook Hospital so have gone to the static and the weather is great, bet Gordon had a good weekend in the lakes with the weather, am on laptop and is very slow over here, Carl, did Ronnie Wensley drive BSO for a while, I remember rubbing the body down in marmaduke street it was a bloody nightmare, was pleased when I had to go and do a removal or load a van anything was better than preparing it, use to go home with no finger prints left on my hands with the wet & dry…one for Peter which van was the first to have the back door lift up and on its first winter the tubes on each side froze with water in them so we had to lift it in stages as not to break anything, think I will be calling for you to do my kidney stones, think James cook have given my appointment card to the original James Cook to deliver .
all the best everyone, Eddie
edworth:
Carl Williams:
For those that were around late 1966 and remember the arrival of BSO172C will notice the similarities with the photograph below.
BSO172C was bought from Fyffes of Forres, and this vehicle ESO175E will have probably been the van Fyffes replaced it with. The livery is certainly identical. It is difficult to make out on the photo, but on BSO and I suspect ESO the bottom panels were split with an aluminium moulding that curves down on the front of the cab. Also BSO had two lights on the top of the luton similar to those on ESO.
When we got BSO172C it was less than two years old. Fyffes ran two vehicles with another Bedford SB identical to BSO. In fact when there driver dropped BSO off with us the sister vehicle with another driver called to pick his mate up and take him back to Forres.
BSO172C had then to be made so it was identical with our other Bedfords of the time, so off came the aluminium dividing strip which dad been riveted on, off came the additional lights. The problem that faced us then was that under the aluminium strip had not been painted, so we removed all the paint on the aluminium panels with Nitromors paint remover. It was a massive task. We found we could not touch the cab or the luton as Nitromors reacted with the fibreglass. Once all the paint was removed the bare aluminium was washed down with filler and the whole van was painted in grey primer, and then painted with two coats of Dulux Coach Finnish undercoat and one coat of enamel and then signwritten by Peter Butler.
After all this effort when the sun shone in the right direction you could still make out Fyffes of Forres lettering.
The other thing was that BSO had for some reason been fitted with 900x20 tyres whereas 825x20 were standard on Bedford SB. Perhaps as they did high mileage trips from North Scotland they thought the larger tyres might make the fuel consumption better, but when fully (overloaded) they cought the wheel aches, so 825x20 were exchanged for the larger tyres.
BSO172C must have been very photogenic as it has appeared on here three times, and in my search for photographs I came across this Fiffes of Forres.
I know it will also bring back memories to Harry Gill, who on one occasion collected a return load from them, and had asked on another thread what had happened to them.
Hi Everyone…I am still kicking, still no appointment from James Cook Hospital so have gone to the static and the weather is great, bet Gordon had a good weekend in the lakes with the weather, am on laptop and is very slow over here, Carl, did Ronnie Wensley drive BSO for a while, I remember rubbing the body down in marmaduke street it was a bloody nightmare, was pleased when I had to go and do a removal or load a van anything was better than preparing it, use to go home with no finger prints left on my hands with the wet & dry…one for Peter which van was the first to have the back door lift up and on its first winter the tubes on each side froze with water in them so we had to lift it in stages as not to break anything, think I will be calling for you to do my kidney stones, think James cook have given my appointment card to the original James Cook to deliver .
all the best everyone, Eddie
Hi Eddie
Sorry James Cook are keeping you waiting so long, perhaps they have read in the paper that Thomas Cook are not doing so well and all gone on holiday with them?
Anyway you are lucky to have been away to enjoy our Summer weather. Yes I remember Ronnie Wensley driving BSO, I wonder if he is still around? I remember him coming in to see me in those days complaining he wasn’t earning much and I explained that he was not doing much. I told him if he planned how he did his work more carefully, by leaving earlier and getting through more drops each day he would do what he was doing in three days in two and his wage would go up. After that he used to come and see me to see what he could do, and although his earnings went up considerably he still could not make the kind of wages others were. He was just a steady plodder, at the best. JUP975C with Tommy Stoddard driving it. It was a mistake and we never again used that for the rear opening, and really over the years we had very litte trouble with the shutters.
I wouldn’t recommend Peter for kidney stones ,as his knife might not be sterile, but if ever you need an iron lung, well maybe then.
Anyway keep feeling well
Carl
Hi Carl/Eddie
You beat me to it Carl. It was JUP945C with the lift up door. You had to be very careful when you opened it as it could take you up with it. I don’t know how BSO lasted so long especially after Joe Carpenter drove it. You were right - he drove it hard, fast and took chances where no-one in their right mind would. How he never wrote it off or blew it up I’ll never know. It just shows how good Bedfords were for taking abuse. Come on Carl I would use a clean knife on Eddie: I would follow Uncle Jim’s example and wash it off in petrol first.
Looking forward to seeing you all Peter
goggietara:
Eddie
Good to see you are OK & resting at the static you cannot beat it and to recover after your minor Operation when it goes ahead.
Yes Eddie we had a nice time in the Lakes i climbed Blencathra for my 70th birthday the views were fantastic.
I managed to track down Stevie Newcolm & he was pleased to hear about the site so with any luck he will come up with some stories he told me one about you Eddie but i wont say what, only its clean ha ha.He will i am sure will tell it.
And the night do in the F&F is his birthday so cannot make it but would love to see us ALL again @ the next meetup a nice bloke.
Gordon.
edworth:
Carl Williams:
For those that were around late 1966 and remember the arrival of BSO172C will notice the similarities with the photograph below.
BSO172C was bought from Fyffes of Forres, and this vehicle ESO175E will have probably been the van Fyffes replaced it with. The livery is certainly identical. It is difficult to make out on the photo, but on BSO and I suspect ESO the bottom panels were split with an aluminium moulding that curves down on the front of the cab. Also BSO had two lights on the top of the luton similar to those on ESO.
When we got BSO172C it was less than two years old. Fyffes ran two vehicles with another Bedford SB identical to BSO. In fact when there driver dropped BSO off with us the sister vehicle with another driver called to pick his mate up and take him back to Forres.
BSO172C had then to be made so it was identical with our other Bedfords of the time, so off came the aluminium dividing strip which dad been riveted on, off came the additional lights. The problem that faced us then was that under the aluminium strip had not been painted, so we removed all the paint on the aluminium panels with Nitromors paint remover. It was a massive task. We found we could not touch the cab or the luton as Nitromors reacted with the fibreglass. Once all the paint was removed the bare aluminium was washed down with filler and the whole van was painted in grey primer, and then painted with two coats of Dulux Coach Finnish undercoat and one coat of enamel and then signwritten by Peter Butler.
After all this effort when the sun shone in the right direction you could still make out Fyffes of Forres lettering.
The other thing was that BSO had for some reason been fitted with 900x20 tyres whereas 825x20 were standard on Bedford SB. Perhaps as they did high mileage trips from North Scotland they thought the larger tyres might make the fuel consumption better, but when fully (overloaded) they cought the wheel aches, so 825x20 were exchanged for the larger tyres.
BSO172C must have been very photogenic as it has appeared on here three times, and in my search for photographs I came across this Fiffes of Forres.
I know it will also bring back memories to Harry Gill, who on one occasion collected a return load from them, and had asked on another thread what had happened to them.
Hi Everyone…I am still kicking, still no appointment from James Cook Hospital so have gone to the static and the weather is great, bet Gordon had a good weekend in the lakes with the weather, am on laptop and is very slow over here, Carl, did Ronnie Wensley drive BSO for a while, I remember rubbing the body down in marmaduke street it was a bloody nightmare, was pleased when I had to go and do a removal or load a van anything was better than preparing it, use to go home with no finger prints left on my hands with the wet & dry…one for Peter which van was the first to have the back door lift up and on its first winter the tubes on each side froze with water in them so we had to lift it in stages as not to break anything, think I will be calling for you to do my kidney stones, think James cook have given my appointment card to the original James Cook to deliver .
all the best everyone, Eddie
Hi Gordon
Pleased you go in touch with Steve Newcolm, I hope he joins and posts a few tales. If he doesn’t I hope you remember what he was saying about Eddie and post it
Carl
Carl & Colin
The story about Eddie is a good one.
I remember many years ago when Colin Watson liked a bevvie & he was freinds with a man who had a pub on the opposite end to the Frog & Ferrett one saturday lunch when we finished work he invited a few of us to have a drink with him as his freind was on holiday & Colin looked after the pub,i ordered a beer from a pump but it tasted much different to what i ordered, he said its the same beer in every pump so enjoy it he he.
Colin is a changed man by the sound of it.
Gordon.
Carl Williams:
goggietara:
Eddie
Good to see you are OK & resting at the static you cannot beat it and to recover after your minor Operation when it goes ahead.
Yes Eddie we had a nice time in the Lakes i climbed Blencathra for my 70th birthday the views were fantastic.
I managed to track down Stevie Newcolm & he was pleased to hear about the site so with any luck he will come up with some stories he told me one about you Eddie but i wont say what, only its clean ha ha.He will i am sure will tell it.
And the night do in the F&F is his birthday so cannot make it but would love to see us ALL again @ the next meetup a nice bloke.
Gordon.
edworth:
Carl Williams:
For those that were around late 1966 and remember the arrival of BSO172C will notice the similarities with the photograph below.
BSO172C was bought from Fyffes of Forres, and this vehicle ESO175E will have probably been the van Fyffes replaced it with. The livery is certainly identical. It is difficult to make out on the photo, but on BSO and I suspect ESO the bottom panels were split with an aluminium moulding that curves down on the front of the cab. Also BSO had two lights on the top of the luton similar to those on ESO.
When we got BSO172C it was less than two years old. Fyffes ran two vehicles with another Bedford SB identical to BSO. In fact when there driver dropped BSO off with us the sister vehicle with another driver called to pick his mate up and take him back to Forres.
BSO172C had then to be made so it was identical with our other Bedfords of the time, so off came the aluminium dividing strip which dad been riveted on, off came the additional lights. The problem that faced us then was that under the aluminium strip had not been painted, so we removed all the paint on the aluminium panels with Nitromors paint remover. It was a massive task. We found we could not touch the cab or the luton as Nitromors reacted with the fibreglass. Once all the paint was removed the bare aluminium was washed down with filler and the whole van was painted in grey primer, and then painted with two coats of Dulux Coach Finnish undercoat and one coat of enamel and then signwritten by Peter Butler.
After all this effort when the sun shone in the right direction you could still make out Fyffes of Forres lettering.
The other thing was that BSO had for some reason been fitted with 900x20 tyres whereas 825x20 were standard on Bedford SB. Perhaps as they did high mileage trips from North Scotland they thought the larger tyres might make the fuel consumption better, but when fully (overloaded) they cought the wheel aches, so 825x20 were exchanged for the larger tyres.
BSO172C must have been very photogenic as it has appeared on here three times, and in my search for photographs I came across this Fiffes of Forres.
I know it will also bring back memories to Harry Gill, who on one occasion collected a return load from them, and had asked on another thread what had happened to them.
Hi Everyone…I am still kicking, still no appointment from James Cook Hospital so have gone to the static and the weather is great, bet Gordon had a good weekend in the lakes with the weather, am on laptop and is very slow over here, Carl, did Ronnie Wensley drive BSO for a while, I remember rubbing the body down in marmaduke street it was a bloody nightmare, was pleased when I had to go and do a removal or load a van anything was better than preparing it, use to go home with no finger prints left on my hands with the wet & dry…one for Peter which van was the first to have the back door lift up and on its first winter the tubes on each side froze with water in them so we had to lift it in stages as not to break anything, think I will be calling for you to do my kidney stones, think James cook have given my appointment card to the original James Cook to deliver .
all the best everyone, Eddie
Hi Gordon
Pleased you go in touch with Steve Newcolm, I hope he joins and posts a few tales. If he doesn’t I hope you remember what he was saying about Eddie and post it
Carl
pbsummers:
Hi Carl/Eddie
You beat me to it Carl. It was JUP945C with the lift up door. You had to be very careful when you opened it as it could take you up with it. I don’t know how BSO lasted so long especially after Joe Carpenter drove it. You were right - he drove it hard, fast and took chances where no-one in their right mind would. How he never wrote it off or blew it up I’ll never know. It just shows how good Bedfords were for taking abuse. Come on Carl I would use a clean knife on Eddie: I would follow Uncle Jim’s example and wash it off in petrol first.
Looking forward to seeing you all Peter
Hi Peter,
You must remember you need to use an old paint brush, about 50 years old to brush the petrol on with first before rubbing it off with and old rag, but , most important you have to keep on saying whisht all the time so you can hear Eddie when screams.
More seriously, those old Bedford SB’s were wonderful. Many of our drivers tested them to extreme and until we experienced the likes of Leyland we never fully realised how good the Bedfords were.
Dad always said the SBs were like the Routemaster bus so simple with nothing much to wrong and they just run and run. I do believe with workshop facilities and resources like we had at Green Lane we could have kept them going until this decade, doing about 1300 miles per week particularly the ones with fibreglass bodies, and they would still have had lower running costs and be more reiable than anything we could buy today.
It was a sad day when plating and testing came along and they were restricted to 9.5 ton GVW. As they weighed about 4 .5 ton unladen and we regularly ran them (As you will remember) with about 8 ton loads on they were often running 3 ton overloaded. Overloaded and flogged they still went on and on.
Incidently JUP945C was also the first fully fibreglass body we had, and I think that is why we decided to try a fibreglass overhead canopy rather than a roller shutter over the tailboard.
Carl
It’s strange how your mind goes back and remembers things from the past. It must have been with writing about JUP945C, but just remembered an occasion from the early seventies when one night about half six we were just finishing to go home when someone phoned to say they had broken down at the bottom of Park Head bank on the road from Bishop Auckland to Spennymoor. I cannot remember who it was or which van, but they had run short of diesel and dad told me to find a rope and him and me would go and tow him in
The easiest van to take was one of the Guys with the four cylinder Gardner engine as they didn’t have drop wells and were high at the back and better for towing. In fact dad had never been in the cab of one of them before, so I got in the passenger seat and off we went. Commenting on the way that he didn’t know how anyone could drive them as it was so slow we eventually went down the bank and turned round at Coundon Gate. Pulling in front of the broken down van we tied on the rope. Starting up the Guy and tightening up the rope we found it wouldn’t move, so I was told (rather abruptly) to tell the other driver to take his hand brake off. When I got to the cab of the other van the driver confirmed the hand brake was off. The Guy wouldn’t move, so back to Spennymoor we went and came back with a Bedford and towed the broken down van back home.
Next morning dad was telling everyone of his exploits and how useless the Guys were saying ‘We must get rid of those bloody things’ when he found out it had been fully loaded with 6 ton of Courtauld’s yarn. That was reprieve for the three Guys and they survive a year or two longer.
Carl Williams:
It’s strange how your mind goes back and remembers things from the past. It must have been with writing about JUP945C, but just remembered an occasion from the early seventies when one night about half six we were just finishing to go home when someone phoned to say they had broken down at the bottom of Park Head bank on the road from Bishop Auckland to Spennymoor. I cannot remember who it was or which van, but they had run short of diesel and dad told me to find a rope and him and me would go and tow him in
The easiest van to take was one of the Guys with the four cylinder Gardner engine as they didn’t have drop wells and were high at the back and better for towing. In fact dad had never been in the cab of one of them before, so I got in the passenger seat and off we went. Commenting on the way that he didn’t know how anyone could drive them as it was so slow we eventually went down the bank and turned round at Coundon Gate. Pulling in front of the broken down van we tied on the rope. Starting up the Guy and tightening up the rope we found it wouldn’t move, so I was told (rather abruptly) to tell the other driver to take his hand brake off. When I got to the cab of the other van the driver confirmed the hand brake was off. The Guy wouldn’t move, so back to Spennymoor we went and came back with a Bedford and towed the broken down van back home.
Next morning dad was telling everyone of his exploits and how useless the Guys were saying ‘We must get rid of those bloody things’ when he found out it had been fully loaded with 6 ton of Courtauld’s yarn. That was reprieve for the three Guys and they survive a year or two longer.
Just remembered when we went back we picked up 4479PT Bedford SB Marsden 1961 and four years older than the Guy. Also it was fitted with the 300 CU in Diesel, so still under powered. but dad always had a soft spot for this our first diesel Bedford, and spent the journey praising the van, saying what a pleasure it was to drive.
The poor driver who had run out of diesel had to climb right underneath to put the robe round the back axle as the back of the Bedford was flush with nowhere to fasten a rope.
The Bedford pulled away up the hill as though there was nothing behind.
A few months ago Keymac posted this photo on another thread saying I would know the driver as he worked for us, saying he was Jack Mortimer. I assume it is John Mortimer.
I have blown the part of the photo up. Does anyone recognise him and does anyone know how he is keeping.
Perhaps Gordon or Colin might know, as I don’t think Eddie was there when John was. Or perhaps someone else reading this can tell me
Thanks for the comments …Carl your uncle jim would have been calling me Eric instead of eddie he never got anybodys name right, you are so right about when someone mentions something from the past and it sets other memories away, now I am wondering what Gordon knows …anybody remember how Joe Carpenter use to backcombe his hair, I thought I was seeing things the first time I saw it :he was a good laugh…Red hot last week over here in ■■■■■■■ and bloody snowing last night, still nice and cosy in van…Gordon, think if I climbed any of these mountains or whatever they are, would not see my seventy birthday, all the best everyone.
Eddie
![London[1].jpg](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/uploads/trucknetuk/original/3X/d/3/d3b067e4dc32a419b0e2d34478cbd610f5ed8658.jpeg)
