It’s all I ever wanted to do from as far back as I can remember.
My dad was fleet engineer at Smedleys Foods in Faversham,he used to work six days a week so every Saturday I’d tag along and sit in any lorry that was unlocked,doing all the brrmm brrmm business 
My earliest recollection of driving was when I was about six years old.They were re-laying the road in our village and one of the Brett’s tipper drivers let me sit in the drivers seat steering an old (though it was probably nearly new in 1963) Leyland Comet,whilst the Barbour-Green was pushing it.
I had an old car steering wheel that I would perch between my knees when we were out in the car.I’d sit in the back making all the right noises regarding brake squeal and hissing brakes,much to my mum’s annoyance!
Then,from the age of about nine,I used to go with a family friend every summer holiday in his AEC Mercury artic,delivering apple boxes from a place just outside Canterbury to farms all over Kent.I remember one time he let me drive the AEC around an empty cornfield,on my own,and I managed to get it stuck in the only wet patch! 
Then,one Sunday afternoon,dad took us down to Dover cliffs,overlooking Eastern Docks,and I gazed in wonder at all the lorries going on and coming off of boats.I asked my dad where are they going? “France,Spain,Germany,Italy…some even go to the middle east now”.That was it,that’s what I would do one day.I wasn’t just going to be a lorry driver,I was going to be a continental lorry driver!
Every Sunday afternoon I’d bike the seven miles to Brenley Corner,at the end of the M2,to gaze in wonder at all the trucks on their way to Dover.
There were Cadwalladers,A-one,Kelly Freight,Beresford’s and so many Irish fridges with so many lights and illuminted Michelin Men.One day,I thought!
I would write almost weekly to manufacturers asking for any brochures,stickers or badges they could send me,for a ‘School Project’.My wardrobe was bursting with piles of brochures from Scania (I decided from 1969 that that was ‘THE’ truck I wanted to drive),Volvo,AEC,Foden etc.etc. and whilst all the rest of the boys at school were swapping football cards,I would bore everyone with my latest brochures. 
I left schol at the age of fifteen,with no qualifications at all,which,with hindsight,was a bad move.The rest of my mates took apprentiships in carpentry,plumbing,printing and car mechanics.I should have stayed on and done the same,it’s handy to have a trade to fall back on.
But,I started working at a plant hire firm just around the corner,wielding spanners and a very large sledge-hammer.You needed a decent sledge-hammer when a Caterpillar D7 has thrown a track in the middle of nowhere.
But the highlight was going out as second man on the low-loader,at that time a Mickey Mouse cabbed Foden with a Leyland 680 pulling a four-in-line trailer.
That was replaced with a brand new Foden S39 (I think,possibly an S40) with a burbling 240 Gardner under the extended front,pulling a new King tandem axle low-loader with a split neck.I’d leap into the driving seat at every and any oppurtunity,even to turn it around at the end of the yard,which was no mean feat!
The firm had an old Commer tipper parked down at the local council tip,and the boss asked me if I’d drive it for a few week’s.I nearly bit his hand off!
Bearing in mind that I was still only sixteen,the thought of roaring up and down the site all day in the Commer was ace.There was an old International shovel that was driven by an old guy,and he would load up the Commer and I would roar off to the other side of the site to tip it.Heaven!
At the age of eighteen I was made redundant from the plant hire firm,or more likely he didn’t want to pay me the full rate!
I then started driving a forklift in the cold store at Smedleys.The fleet had long since gone at Smedleys,and my dad was now a foreman and in charge of all the incoming fruit & veg that was to be canned or frozen.
The trucks from Ross Foods at Fakenham would arrive daily to load frozen food to take back to Fakenham.Whilst the drivers were up at the canteen I would reverse the trucks onto the bay for loading,load them and pull them off,shut the doors and start the fridge.Though not all of the trailers had fridge motors,some of them were still chilled using dry-ice.
They were Scammell Routeman’s (I think,chinese six with the Michellotti cab) and Crusaders.The Crusaders were lovely motors,but the Scammells were eventually replaced with those new fangled Leyland Marathons!
Lol Galsworthy,the day driver from the Hackney depot,turned up one day in a rented Volvo F88-290.What a machine!!! I remember it was brown,had all the bells and whistles and looked the dogs danglies.Apparently Bob,the night driver at Hackney,had smashed up their day cab Marathon,and they’d got the Volvo until it was re-built.
There were always fridge trucks arriving with frozen meat,to be made into beefburgers etc. Some well known companies like Chard & Axminster used to arrive,along with loads of Irish firms.Big Scania’s,Volvo’s and Merc’s were the order of the day.
At the age of twenty one I applied for my provisional HGV.That was a landmark day when that arrived
It was at this time that Smedleys closed the Faversham factory,so,on the offer from my brother,I moved to Felixstowe.
Within a week I had a job as a trailer fitter at United States Lines,but,seeing all those trucks at Felixstowe,I knew I had to get my licence asap and get up the road.
I went round several firms asking if they would take me on as a trainee driver.Bob Carter,owner of Trans UK Haulage agreed,so I started as a dock shunter with an old ERF.In those days you didn’t need a licence to drive on the dock,it was private property,and so every morning I’d start at 8am and go shunting.Sometimes I’d only manage to load one box a day,shipping and Freightliner had priority over everything else,so you may find yourself sitting on the right spot to load a container,and the transtainer would come trundling down the row and the checker would tell you to move,as,‘We’re working the ship here driver’!
At 10pm the dock shut down,apart from loading or unloading the ships.
Eventually,after six months,I was sent off to Mendlesham for two weeks to gain my licence.The instructor,Herbie Green,said I only needed a week “Just to iron out the bad habits you’ve developed”!
On Friday,the 2nd November 1979 I passed my class one at Ipswich test centre.
The following Monday I was ‘Up the road’ in EEX733T,a Fiat 130 plated at 24t
And the rest,as they say,is history.
