Carl Williams:
A photo of my Grandfather, W.H.Williams taken 1917 during WW1 of him entertaining the troups. He said, as he couldn’t sing or play the piano he learnt to do ‘Monologues’ I remember him doing one of them titles 'The Tramp’and he was very good
Hi Carl, As being part of the family I knew your grandad very well, we used to sit and talk for hours in his house and told me many stories about his early life in WW1 he was a very proud man but OMG!!! he never showed me that photo. I know it’s him but can’t get my head round it him getting dressed up like that. Brought back many memories of him thank you ,Peter
Before i forget to let you know i will be at the next reunion in March
Yes Peter,
It’s part of his life that I never found out about, & should have asked more. One day I was sat in their living room and my grandmother pulled a large theatre poster out of the sideboard. He had presented a variety theatre tour of Comedians, singers etc, hiring various halls in Wolsingham Stanhope & the dales. It must have been about 1920 & my grandmother had kept it all those years. I presume it mustn’t have been a success or goodness knows he would have ended up presenting shows in the west end.
Like most things my dad, who was not nostalgic burnt it as he emptied no 14 Marmaduke Street after my grandfather died. Dad’s philosophy was the past is gone, lets get on with the future
My Grandfather was at the battle of the Somme & wounded twice & gassed, once with a bayonet entering his leg, passing through it and coming out at the other side. They dug out shelves in the trenches and when he regained conciousness he saw soil above him, felt soil below him and soil at the side and thought he had been buried alive. Assistance from another soldier came as he screamed out. However even with the constant dread & worry of been killed in battle, he would admit army life was a holiday compared with the worry & stress of running a road haulage business in the North East of England
Before starting his haulage business in 1919 from the gratuities he got after first world war army service, my grandfather led a very varied work life.Much of which, I suppose gave him the experience & stamina to build, develop & see off competition.
He was sent by his father to study colour photography in about 1906. My great grandfather had a part time business as a photographer, for which he was quite successful and obviously had high hopes for his son, and in those early black & white days, but he mustn’t have had his father’s aptitude as I never in mu life saw him attempt to take a photo. How I wish he had as I would have had photos of his early wagons.
Another unusual, for him, job was around about the same time he got a job at a garage in Newcastle, where he was staying to study photography, as an apprentice mechanic.This must have given him an early understanding of cars & wagon’s, something I suspect was a rare sight in Spennymoor, where transport was limited to horses & the railway. I can only think he must have got the sack as I never heard how this 'career ended. Again in my lifetime. I can never remember him even dipping the oil in his car. Something he saw was done, by others every time he went out.His mechanical aptitude was even worse than mine.
One thing that was always part of his family life was they always had at least one horse. They went out as a family, travelling i a horse & trap and needed one to pull the Chip van which my great grandfather had owned, & involved my grandfather with since 1908.
My grandfather completed his army life as a signaller and was from my memory was well versed in Morse Code, however in his early days in the army he was initially utilised with his knowledge of horses.He was allocated in assisting ferrying horses from Southampton to France.It was on one of these trips that an unusual occurance happened. Whilst crossing the channel, the ship he was travelling on came across a problem. The captain thought his ship was about to sink so he announced ‘Everyman for himself’. Well my grandfather had a very strong feeling for self preservation & seeing them lowering a lifeboat into the see he jumped head first in, only to find that this lifeboat was porous and sank as it hit the water. For some reason by this time the captain had regained control of his ship, & the crew fished my wet grandfather out of the sea.
Thinking back into my time in Road haulage there was a time when we never had it so good, & yt at the time we never realised it.
When my grandfather started there was no licencing and he had tremendous competition & when licencing was introduced he automatically qualified for an A licence A2239. and it was that licence that we primarily used until the Operator’s Licencing system was introduced. I can remember back to 1953 when we added the first of two 8 cwt Commer vans we ran (About the size of an ■■■■■■ van these days) and they had to be on our 'A’Licence. You couldn’t put any goods carrying vehicle without it being on a Licence which governed what you could carry & where. Just horses & carts, where barrows & cycles were exempt.
This meant that within 10 miles radius of Spennymoor if anyone wanted to move house, unless they used a horse & cart they had very little choice but use us.There was no opportunity to hire or borrow a Transit equivalent in those days as even as an individual you couldn’t move your own furniture as you would be breaking the law using an un-licenced goods vehicle.
I’ve read on this site many arguments that opening up to the Operators licencing was wrong. It certainly made it a lot more difficult for established hauliers as more compertition came along. In the 'A licence ’ days if anyone within about 50 iles applied for a licence we aided with the Road Haulage Association objected and usually stopped new entrants to the trade. The only way was to buy a licence & in the 1950s the going rate for A licesnces was about £250 per ton unladen weight.( A lot of money when inflated to today’s prices.
Yet the strange thing was haulage rates were still compressed often due to stupid price cutting. As I said in our possition with removals we had it all our own way, and yet we still charged cheap prices, because at the end of the day we could only charge what people were able t pay & in the North East of England there was not much money about.
My grandfather never believed in credit, and never bought anything on Hire purchase or had a bank loan for that matter. A blessing in one area but saving and paying cash did, perhaps slow the development of his business.
I was told of in the 1920s when someone called Gray based on Barnfield Road Spennymoor, adjacent to our premises in Marmaduke Street got three new wagons on hire purchase & set up in direct competition to my grandfather.from what I was told in those days the lifetime a vehicle had with my grandfather rarely extended to over four years, but in those early years a lot of development & improvements happened in a year.Gray must have been taking his toil on the available work & one day when one of our wagons went along to collect a load the driver was greeted with the sight of Gray’s wagon loading his load.
When the two drivers ‘spoke’ Gray’s driver said that Gray was going to run Williams off the road.Jacky Knight, my grandfather;s driver had come back with a very witty reply, which today I cannot recollect but fortunately came true as within about a month all three of Grays wagons were repossessed by the Hire Purchase Company.
I remember when after bus regulations were removed several years ago, we had the bus wars when buses were racing to the bus stops to get the waiting passengers before their rivals. Apparently before carriers licencing in the early days of road haulage life must have been quite similar
leylandlover:
Regarding A licences etc.I know a man who got round it by buying the load.He could then deliver it anywhere as it belonged to him.
Hi Leylandlover,
Certainly a novel way to get round the licencing system, but could have been very expensive as I would imagine the Traffic Commissionaires would want to see proof that the money changed hands and in our case many of our loads were valued at about £100,000 by today’s prices.I have no doubt that many C licence holders did carry for hire & reward with the hope that they were never caught.
It was like one of my friends talking about parking in Newcastle in the late 70’s when the council disliked cars and tried to put people off going by car into the centre with few & expensive parking places, saying to me ‘I pay to park’. I said that I did as well, but he went on to say he just parked where it suited him and risked getting a parking ticket and if he got one he then paid the fine.
My Grandfather started the business in 1919 after he was discharged from the Army, using his gratuities to buy a horse & cart. So many businesses were set up the same way as ex soldiers struggled to find work. With the horse and cart he bought a business delivering groceries for grocers Broughs who amongst others dotted around the North East had a shop in Spennymoor.
The same year he married my Grandmother and my dad was born Sept 1921.Although by 1920 he was running his first Model T Ford 1 ton truck the horse survived until about 1927 when after it became lame had to be sent to the knackers yard. Its work was mostly confined to Spennymoor and like so many horses knew its journey routes better than the human who was in charge.
Dad throughout his life never took to horses. My grandmother who used to let the horse out during the Summer months, from its stable into a nearby field they leased often tried her son on the back of the sorse. Holding on to him , no doubt like grim death so he stood no chance of falling off all he would do is say ‘Down dare’ wanting to be off the horse’s back.
Darky, as the horse was called was a very good animal and although the experience was something many children would have enjoyed dad never liked. Had he been born before my Grandfather, the business would never had begun
When I look through the threads , how I wish I had taken some photos during my years at W.H.W. I have to rely on the press & professional photos that were taken over the years, and so many of these were just put into desk draws and have vanished over the years, and thankfully to photos donated by others & told of so that I could get copies from members of Trucknet.
It’s strange as my great grandfather was amongst many things a professional photographer and had my grandfather taught colour photography when it was just starting to emerge when he was a teenager, that it never continued in the family.
I suppose it was like the cobler’s family was always the worse shod but its such a shame my grandfather never took a photo of any of his early vehicles. Particularly strange as when he died we got quite a lot of money when we sold antique photographic equipment , that had survived after apparently so much had been destroyed by my dad, who was someone who thought of tomorrow & forget the past.Certainly in his early years my grandfather worked nearly every waking hour & therefore would never have time to take a snap shot.
I don’t think dad ever took a photo in his life, and although I had several cameras from time to time, if dad had seen me taking a photo of a van he’d have said ‘Have you no work to do?’ and promptly made sure I had.
Thankfully, many members of trucknet have provided photos of lost memories, from time to time & also fairly regularly some turn upon Ebay, which I buy.
One in particular I’m surprised hasn’t surfaced was a 40ft trailer we painted and ran in Fisher Price livery.It was like a massive toybox and ran regularly between the Fisher Price factory in Peterlee and Milton Keynes. Also off all the vans we had painted in Courtaulds twin green livery none have yet turned up.
Carl Williams:
Merry Christmas & happy 2015 to everyone
Hiya,
The Seasons greetings to you and your family Carl, keep well and lots of output from you in 2015.
thanks harry, long retired.
Thanks Harry.
The van in the photo was based on a Ford Passenger chassis, with body by Boalloy which was supplied to us new by Mann Eggerton Norwich who amongst agencies had both Leyland, AEC & Ford.
I had fant recollections of the van but couldn’t remember if I was dreaming or we had actually operated it, & never expected a photo to turn up, when about 2 years ago a Trucknet member messaged me and said the previous night he had been watch BBC3 when discussing the 70’s a motorway scene had been shown & one of our vans was clearly on the screen.
I got the program on BBC I player and there it was. confirming that my memory was correct. I managed to freeeze the screen & print out that photo and had Christmas Cards made from it.
Carl Williams:
Merry Christmas & happy 2015 to everyone
Hiya,
The Seasons greetings to you and your family Carl, keep well and lots of output from you in 2015.
thanks harry, long retired.
Thanks Harry.
The van in the photo was based on a Ford Passenger chassis, with body by Boalloy which was supplied to us new by Mann Eggerton Norwich who amongst agencies had both Leyland, AEC & Ford.
I had fant recollections of the van but couldn’t remember if I was dreaming or we had actually operated it, & never expected a photo to turn up, when about 2 years ago a Trucknet member messaged me and said the previous night he had been watch BBC3 when discussing the 70’s a motorway scene had been shown & one of our vans was clearly on the screen.
I got the program on BBC I player and there it was. confirming that my memory was correct. I managed to freeeze the screen & print out that photo and had Christmas Cards made from it.
The wonders of Trucknet & the internet
So you cannot remember if you actually operated the van even though you can recall the chassis,the bodybuilder and the Ford agent
Carl Williams:
Merry Christmas & happy 2015 to everyone
Hiya,
The Seasons greetings to you and your family Carl, keep well and lots of output from you in 2015.
thanks harry, long retired.
Thanks Harry.
The van in the photo was based on a Ford Passenger chassis, with body by Boalloy which was supplied to us new by Mann Eggerton Norwich who amongst agencies had both Leyland, AEC & Ford.
I had fant recollections of the van but couldn’t remember if I was dreaming or we had actually operated it, & never expected a photo to turn up, when about 2 years ago a Trucknet member messaged me and said the previous night he had been watch BBC3 when discussing the 70’s a motorway scene had been shown & one of our vans was clearly on the screen.
I got the program on BBC I player and there it was. confirming that my memory was correct. I managed to freeeze the screen & print out that photo and had Christmas Cards made from it.
The wonders of Trucknet & the internet
So you cannot remember if you actually operated the van even though you can recall the chassis,the bodybuilder and the Ford agent
Could not.
My half cousin Peter Summers has helped me so much & once I saw the photo & talked to Peter and to a driver that drove it for several years the memory comes back. One bit of info triggers another. Strange but true. Stranger still is that I am suffering with dementia and yet so many things from the 60s seem just like yesterday.
Hi Carl. Hope you had a good xmas and have a great new year. I don’t know if you are on Facebook but there are some great threads on there relating to old companys and trucks it may be worth having a look. Best regards Jeff.
