825christineh:
Yes Carl, I can remember doing the wages on the old Kalamazoo system. Then we got the accounting machine that was the size of a small truck. Chris
Hi Christine,
Remember this? Here is a photo of Linda Turnbull, sat at the Burroughs Accounting machine almost 40 years ago. No doubt you will remeber Linda.
It makes you feel old, doesn’t it? I should have kept it as it no doubt would be a collectors item today
Carl
Hi Carl, of course I remember Linda. We used to be friends out of work as well and she is godmother to my eldest daughter. Chris
825christineh:
Hi Carl, of course I remember Linda. We used to be friends out of work as well and she is godmother to my eldest daughter. Chris
Hi Christine,
I believe that photo of Linda with the Burroughs accounting machine was a press photo that was put in a trade magazine as it was revolutionary for its day. Unfortunately I don’t know which magazine it was and never saw it or read the write up but it would have been an interesting read. How things have progressed, now and mobile phone will have so much more ability and it was only two or three years until it was replaced with our computer with its massive discs.
Shortly after that we bought a Commodore (designed by Sinclair) with a program to analyse tachograph charts. None of us had the ability to work it and it was put in the cupboard where it remained until Malcolm Marsden found it and tried to adapt it to keep some mail order records, but it was so slow. Again how times changed, such a pity ‘Windows’ hadn’t been discovered ten years earlier.
With regard to the tachograph charts, we had a legal opportunity to check them and sign them on a weekly basis, so that was another task I was left with. There was so many there was no way I could do it correctly, and just looked over them and had a type of circular slide rule that I could put them in and check the driver had not driven over his hours and taken his correct breaks etc. They were all signed by me and from time to time the Ministry Of Transport asked to see them but fortunately they never found anything wrong and never needed to question me about my checking, or I would probably have found myself in court with the driver. If the Comodore computer idea had worked I could have allocated one of you lot in the office to do that and I would then have known everything was OK when I signed.
Never the less I think our accounting machine could have been on one of these antiques television programs like Dickinson’s big deal. The Sinclair Comodore Computer could have been the same. In fact our Computer with the big disks would be an antique that showed what first computers were like.
Carl
Hi Carl, I can remember that big computer too. It used to take 30 minutes to boot up on a morning and even longer to back up at the end of the day. Chris
825christineh:
Hi Carl, I can remember that big computer too. It used to take 30 minutes to boot up on a morning and even longer to back up at the end of the day. Chris
Many of us would have lit a fire under the fuel tank on a cold winter’s morning!
825christineh:
Hi Carl, I can remember that big computer too. It used to take 30 minutes to boot up on a morning and even longer to back up at the end of the day. Chris
Hi Christine,
I remember one occasion when we were using the Burroughs Accounting machine I had been down to London for a couple of days, and when I was collected from Darlington Station on the Thursday night at about 7.00PM, by who ever had been allocated the job, told me the wages had not been done, and I wold have to do them.
It probably would have been you who was wages clerk, and perhaps had gone off sick on the Wednesday afternoon, or perhaps you had been on holiday and your stand in had gone off.
In any event the hours and expenses had been calculated and just needed putting through the machine to calculate PAYE& Ni and give the breakdown of the wages, which if you remember we had to ring into Barclays by 9-00AM the following morning so they had the cash ready for me to collect about 11.00AM.And although, thank god the hours and expense had been calculated there was still a day’s work on the accounting machine.
Now my dad had the belief that I had to be able to do everything in the business, and I certainly was a jack of all trades, master of none, as I proved beyond all doubt when I had been given the job of attempting to take out a Guy gearbox. So I had to do the wages. If my memory serves me right the machine worked on a punch card system and although I had watched and knew briefly how to work the machine, I never had ever turned it on and prepared it to start calculating the wages.
So round about 8-ooPM I managed to get one of you out of the office to talk me through how to get the machine on and I worked through the night and got the wages done for the Friday morning, and everyone got their pay as normal, on time.
Carl
Hi Carl, I can remember one time I was just completing the payroll on that big computer and the electric went off before I’d backed it up and had to put all the data back in to print off the payslips. I think I got home about 9 pm that night. Chris
Prattman put the following posting on the Blood sweat and tears thread, together with these photos
If I remember correctly T.T. Liddles vans were dark red I can just about picture them, I remember Lewins removals better and have some photo’s as follows, they ran a couple of artics on a contract they had with the Clover Can company from Castleside.
Lewins were taken over I believe by Storemasters which in turn were part of the P&O group and Lewins relocated to their premises at Barr Hill Stanley.
Do you or anybody else out there know why furniture vans were called luton vans. regards prattman.
Tom Liddle a real character from the north east haulage industry had sold out his business T.T Liddle Stanley, Co.Durham to P & O or more specific their Storemaster division. He was over retirement age and decided to retire. Getting bored he bought out Lewins removals and developed the business, buying new Bedford TKs built by Northern Assemblies (Robsons body building side) and three Seddon Pennine pantechnicons.
Deciding that artics were more efficient for his new business, he sold us these rigid vans.
I thought it would be interesting to compare the vans I have photos of in our livery against how they were in Lewins colours and I will do so in my next post. I will follow this with stories of our dealings with Tom bot before and after his Lewins days and I’ll post these over the next week or so.
here are photos of two Bedfords before and then after painted in our livery. Unfrtunatly I have not got any photos of the Seddons but who knows one day one might turn up.
Tom Liddle’s main source of work in the 1950’s-60’s was for Vono the bed manufacturers whose factory was in Tipton. From a very early age I can remember seeing his ERF furniture vans running up and down the A1. He had three, all identical registered between 1948-50 with bodywork by Jennings of Sandbach, who used to build cabs for ERF, and were eventually taken over by them. Dad told me that when he was taken round ERF factory about 1980 they had a photo of one of T.T.Liddle’s ERF vans in the entrance of the offices and who ever was showing him round the factory could remember them being built. Unfortunately Tom had by then passed away long before, so we never had the opportunity to tell him.
As I said Tom stored new Vono beds in his warehouses at Stanley, keeping a large stock there and as orders came in from the many independent retailers over the North of England and Scotland as the delivery notes arrived at T.T Liddle’s office they were made into loads and delivered by their vehicles. So he collected daily loads of beds from Vono at Tipton, took them up to his warehouses at Stanley and then redelivered s necessary. This gave him regular traffic north from Birmingham allowing him an advantage up here in the North East with regard to southern traffic.
We did deliveries for Hardy & Co. who had furniture shops throughout the north east and from time to time when they needed beds urgently, rather than wait for scheduled deliveries by Tom’s vans they hired us to go to Tom’s premises to collect. I was about 7 years old when I went with my dad there on one such occasion. I was fascinated.
From what I later learnt Tom’s premises had been a quarry, which I believe he had moved all the stone etc. out on his vehicles. In the entrance as you came in on the left hand side he had built a large bungalow with an office on the side, where dad had to report to. In those days dad had never met Tom, and was just in the guise of one of our drivers. He was directed over to the warehouse where the beds were stored and told to report to the foreman, who got us loaded and away.
The warehouses were three buildings joined together, with each about the size of our garage at Marmaduke Street Spennymoor. The site was spotless and extremely tidy and in the distance further down the site I saw a row of thirty Bedford O model tippers. I was later told by several sources that Tom had been contacted to carry stone to a building project. (I think it might have been the construction of Team Valley Trading Estate) and the journey from the quarry had taken his vehicles over a bridge, which for one purpose or other had been closed and had necessitated a diversion of about one mile. Tom wanted paying extra for this they refused so he immediatly parked these thirty vehicles up and sacked the drivers. There they had stood and when I saw them they had been there about six months. It was a fascinating sight for a young seven year old.
Tom Liddle had his first TK built by Northern Assemblies Blackhill Consett about 1959 and continued until he had 16 by 1963, all identical. For the Northern Assemblies and Robson’s the Bedford agents that supplied and built the vehicles that must have been one hell of an order. And just to finish things off he had them build a recovery vehicle on a new TK short wheelbase chassis.
Kenmire’s had made furniture in Spennymoor since the eighteen hundreds and before the war had been the largest employer in Spennymoor. About 1961 times were changing and solid wood furniture was going out of fashion and they sold out to Vono. The factory was converted to making bed side cabinets, headboards etc. and they hired us to do the transport down to Tipton, which continued for about a year, and by that time they were making about a load a day. Tom Liddle must have found out about it as we immediately lost the work and every day a T.T.Liddle van was in Spennymoor loading for Tipton. When I think about it, it was logical as he had at least a load a day of beds to bring back up to Stanley.
Until that time neither dad or myself had met Tom, but we heard tales and stories through the grapevine from the likes of Peter Butler, our sign writer and Don Clegg a small removal contractor who lived in Stanley who was a friend of Toms. No doubt the tittle tattle went both ways as I found out from a remark I made. Tom operated on a ‘B Licence’ not like us an ‘A licence’ and talking to Don Clegg mentioned this. Within a month I read in Articles and Decisions that he had applied for an ‘A licence’ which was granted.
Thinking back now I was unaware of the conditions on his licence as to what he was allowed to carry and within what radius, and possibly the work he was undertaking for Kenmire’s at Spennymoor might have been illegal.
As I said Tom was a real character as one of the stories told to us illustrates. I don’t know why they were there, but one day someone who lived in Stanley, were at Tom’s premises and found they had a flat tyre. Going into his workshops they asked his fitter to blow it up for him. Tom’s bungalow and office was so positioned so that he could keep an eye on everything that was happening and seeing a car tyre being blown up, out he came. ‘That will be ten bob!’ Tom told the surprised chap, who went on to say ‘but you only blew up my tyre’ OK Tom said to his fitter, ‘Let it down again’ and made the chap drive off with a flat tyre.
As I said earlier dad or me had never met Tom Liddle and although through Don Clegg we knew each other quite well, our first dealings were during the mid sixties when we used him from time t time as a sub contractor. Apparently Tom had married relatively late in life to a lady who had worked in his office for many years, and they had taken few, if an holidays as Tom’s business was his life.
Ringing T.T.Liddle the phone was answered ‘Tom Liddle’ and you got a very definite reply. As Thorn’s production of fridges increased in the sixties, and particularly during the summer months we needed to hire large vans from nearly all the local operators, and in most cases they negotiated charges with us. Not in Tom’ s case. He had his price and that was that. The problem we had were that his TKs were about three inches too low against our vehicles and often we could not quite get our loads onto his leaving us with a small part load to deal with. So he tended to be a last resort, but his vehicles were always immaculate, always newly painted cream, inside the bodies, and drivers properly turned out in uniformed jackets.
Eventually dad and I got an invitation over to Stanley for a drink, to his bungalow, next to his warehouses and garage. The site, as I said had been a disused quarry, and was very level, yet all the vans were parked, as they always were in a neat square in the small area in front of the warehouses. It must have caused problems on a morning getting out if the driver parked in front of you slept in, and yet he owned this vast area which could accommodate 500 vans.
We immidiatly found we had so much in common and made a friendship that would last the rest of Tom’s life.
From memory Tom in TT Liddle guise ran three ERF’s, which I considered to be probably the best removal vans I ever saw. He had a Ford 4d in late fifties and then his 16 Bedford TK’s, which were so impressive and today I am sad I never kept a photo of one of them. Perhaps one day one will turn up but also perhaps on this site someone might remember other vans he ran in is T.T.Liddle days. I would be so interested.
I will continue to tell te story of how he sold out to P & O and then bought Lewin Removals but in the mean time, although it has been shown before, I cannot resist another showing of one of his beautiful ERF’s as a tribute to this true legend.
Next time, I remember that we went to Tom Liddle at Stanley was just after he had sold out to P & O and the business was being run by the newly formed Storemaster division. It was a logical step as Tom was probably in his early seventies and all his fleet would need replacing within the next few years. An expensive exercise as they were all about the same age gives a year or two.
If my memory serves me right Tom was working with the new managements in the transitional period when he showed them the ropes, and he told us he was planning to build a new bungalow as part of the terms of the takeover was that he would move out and his bungalow would be converted into offices. P & O had just got delivery of two new Bedford Luton vans (I think they may have been KMs). They had blue cabs with aluminium bodies, with P & O and Storemasters on the bodies, and were in the process of building a massive new warehouse must have been about 100,000 sq., at least possibly bigger.
I presume that they proposed to continue with the Vono operation, but it was obvious that they had much bigger plans and I suspect they bought Tom out mostly to get his vast site. During a drink dad asked what was happening to the two vans the new vans were replacing and Tom said that we could buy them if we wanted and without looking at them a deal was done. We knew what we were buying and although they were quite old and certainly much older than we ever would have considered, we knew Tom’s standards and they would have been in perfect mechanical condition.
As I said Tom was a straight direct talking type and there was no giggerypoky and the invoice came from Storemasters and we made out our cheque to them.
As I said the vans arrived in perfect condition and were repainted in our livery, how I wish I had kept photos of before we painted them and after, but like most taking photos never came into my mind as there was always too much happening otherwise and my mind was full. I cannot remember much about the two Bedfords and don’t think we kept them too long, because they were just a little small for our use but certainly were a good stop gap till they were replaced.
I wonder if anyone reading this remembers anything about storemasters, as I never heard anything about them in the trade, and am almost certain that today there is no evidence of where they were or where T.T.Liddle’s depot was as I think it is now a housing estate.
hiya.
Carl the old depot of Storemasters is long gone and is a new housing estate
the bungalow is still there surrounded by the newer properties, I remember
a driver coming to Siddle C Cooks or Tayforth as it was then having his job
at Storemasters having come to an end due to the company closing, the lad
although into his forties had only ever been involved in van traffic and didn’t
have a clue how to load or rope and sheet a trailer, I did show him how to
tie a dolly and the use of chains and tensioners and just hope he was kept on
the steel job until he got the idea he would only need the chains and a fly
sheet to do that job.
thanks harry, long retired.
harry_gill:
hiya.
Carl the old depot of Storemasters is long gone and is a new housing estate
the bungalow is still there surrounded by the newer properties, I remember
a driver coming to Siddle C Cooks or Tayforth as it was then having his job
at Storemasters having come to an end due to the company closing, the lad
although into his forties had only ever been involved in van traffic and didn’t
have a clue how to load or rope and sheet a trailer, I did show him how to
tie a dolly and the use of chains and tensioners and just hope he was kept on
the steel job until he got the idea he would only need the chains and a fly
sheet to do that job.
thanks harry, long retired.
Hi Harry
Thanks for the information. I wonder how many vans they ended up running, presumably they got rid of all of Liddle’s and added some. Vono stopped manufacturing beds in 1982, which is about the time that storemasters packed in.
I find it hard to understand how these large companies like P & O ever made any money, spending fortunes building massive premises only to knock them down a few years down the line. Perhaps they got government grants, and if they did that was a disgrace, taxing ordinary workers so they could squander the money.
Also I feel so sorry for the mental councillors who pass planning of industrial areas for housing and shopping developments. They obviously don’t understand that real people worked in these factories and warehouses, and when the day comes when they realise that we need people working making things, not just working in shops, where everybody buys off each other, there will be nowhere to build factories.
Also all the hauliers mentioned on this site started in a small way, even the likes of Guy and all other manufacturers had to start off. I feel so sorry for the youth of today, because anyone who wants to start a business needs cheap industrial premises, not new built buildings with big shiny glass offices. By demolishing the old buildings they are destroying the prospect of ordinary people having the chance to start up in business.
Carl
Coincidences happen. A day or two ago I was telling about Kenmir’s factory in Spennymoor, and today I’ve come across this advert from the about 1950.
Also is an early advert for another of our customers of the 1950’s R.W Toothill Upholstery.
The next time I went to see Tom Liddle he had severed hi links with Storemasters. He never went into the reason, but I suspect he was set in his ways, and wouldn’t like change. In any event he knew nothing of what was happening there, although he was still living in his old bungalow, and they were trying to hurry him along to move.
He had bought himself a Bedford CF tipper and had builders working building a new bungalow just behind the top road looking down onto his old depot. He was using the CF to collect the building materials which he was buying, no doubt to get the best discounts and employing the bricklayer joiner etc himself, and he was full of it, not giving him time to think back into his old haulage life.
The next time we went to see Tom Liddle was when we were invited to see round his new bungalow. Although it was adjacent to his old depot, and overlooked it, when we got there the entrance was from the top road and inside had incredible views looking well over the top, and you would have to look down to see it. No mention was made of Storemasters and he casually mentioned he had taken over Lewins Removals. Apparently the activity and excitement of buying and collecting building materials for the new bungalow had quickly died and he found himself bored and on a whim had decided to re-enter the transport scene.
From memory Lewins had traded in that name and also Stanley Removals, with Lewins based in Consett and the other company based in Stanley. From memory they had in total about four vans, and we had never had any dealings with them. I could remember that they delivered furniture for the Stanley branch of Hardy & Co, but knew little more about them. Perhaps someone reading this might remember more?
Tom’s new bungalow was beautiful, as it would be supervised by perfectionist Tom Liddle. From the back door, from memory there was a walk through to the front between the main building and the garage and he pointed out a wall where the precision brickwork was perfect. From what I understand bricklayers now use machines to assist them with such intricate work but in those days a skilled bricklayer needed all his skills. ‘I made them knock that down 12 times, before it was right’ Tom told us.
The other noticeable feature that comes to mind all those years ago was when Tom showed us into his new massive fitted kitchen. In those days fitted kitchens were not yet the vogue well certainly not in pit towns like Stanley, and I had seen nothing like it except in magazines. ‘This kitchen is just for show’, added Tom, as he showed us into the next room, which, about the same size contained the contents of his kitchen from the old bungalow and continued ‘This is where we cook’.
The next time we head from Tom was a telephone call to say he had decided to replace the rigids run by Lewins with artics and had bought new Dodge tractor units and trailers and asked would we be interested in buying the rigid vans he was replacing.
Armed with our cheque book we headed for the Stanley area. I think it was Anfield Plane whee he had a garage. Perhaps someone who knows the area might know where.
I cannot remember exactly, but I think there were four vans inside and he gave us the details of the others. Also inside, with under 5,000 miles on the clock was his TK breakdown, still painted in TT Liddle livery. A price was agreed and I gave Tom a cheque and arranged to pick the up.
This was the last time I met Tom Liddle. He bought the artics for the Clover Can work and a few months later, I was told, over the grapevine, someone cut his rates. Like wit the tippers all the years before, Tom wouldn’t budge and parked the vehicles up. A few months later he died.
I don’t know who took over the delivery of Clover cans, or if Clover Cans are still in production. Perhaps someone might know, and when they read this let me know?
The vans we bought from Tom Liddle from Lewin removals did not give us good service and did not live long in our fleet.
Two of the Bedfords were fitted with the 380 cu in engine, which for Bedford had been a failure and certainly did not suit our use.
Of the Seddon Pennine pantechnicons:
In life you are never too old to learn, and just recently I have discovered that Seddon, seeing a gap in the market when the Bedford SB, popular with many pantechnicon operators like ourselves, was plated at only 9.5 ton GVW, decided to use their passenger chassis as a base for pantecnicons. As it was plated at 13 ton GVW, it was a very attractive chassis to use. We had Marsden build us three and Vanplan one.
Seddon had introduced this into the marketplace as a complete vehicle, with the bodywork by Pennine their own bodybuilders. However in 1971 they had lack of space in Oldham and needed the space Pennine were using to extend their chassis production and subcontracted the work out to Boalloy.
The Boalloy van was still sold as a Seddon Pennine and available as such through their franchised dealers as a complete vehicle, but Boalloy had made several changes to reduce the unladen weight. They did use the same cab and front mould but whereas seddon had used flat steel panelling they replaced with ribbed aluminium with a plastic skirt below the wheel height.
The oldest of the Seddon Pennine’s we bought from Lewins was a one built by seddon, and had tremendous rust problems as the steel panelling oxidised. The other problem was the size, built to 36ft maximum legal length it was 14 ft. 6 in high. A huge van to manoeuvre in tight spaces, and very dangerous in windy conditions. It was a credit to our driver Ray Hornby that he managed with it and in fact got used to it. He used it on a weekly Northern Scotland run that took him up to the very north and onto one or two islands each week. Even with continual touching up the rust was a dreadful problem and it always looked shabby, which was a let-down in our fleet, although mechanically perfect and completely reliable. The final straw came when one day it was so windy that Ray had to park up. He chose an area which was sheltered next to a building and sought accommodation nearby. Next morning when he got up he found the van had blown over ad was stopped from going over completely as the top had wedged itself against the building next to it. There it was in an almost uninhabited part of Scotland laid against a building like to Leaning Tower of Pisa, and we had great difficulty finding anyone to pull it over onto its wheels. We sold it shortly afterwards.
The other two Seddons had been built by Boalloy and although they found success with the Tautliner bodies they produced they were not wonderful bodybuilders. I think counting these two we had about 5 vans built by them over the years Moulded fibreglass used for cab and front end suffered cracks and we always had repairs to do to the bodies as they were not flexible enough to stand vibration. These two Seddons lasted a little longer but were not up to our standards for prolonged use and were sold.
The only thing we had bought that day when we had met Tom Liddle was the Bedford Breakdown I hate to think the miles it did with us during the time we had it doing things well beyond anything Vauxhall engineers had ever dreamt about when it was designed with its little 330 cu in engine it had pulled 32 ton tractors with fully laden trailers from the south coast back to Spennymoor and we had used it well over 400,000 miles. It had over its twenty three year life one new Bedford Short Motor, replaced early because we could not risk the breakdown breaking down and a replacement TK cab fitted as cab rot took hold of its original cab.
Overall I don’t think we lost any money on our original purchases as each van was sold for slightly more than we paid for them. But even if we had not done so we made the money paid with the value of the TK breakdown.
