There were always plenty of “HGV Driver Wanted” ads in the local paper and Felixstowe was expanding fast. It seemed to be the way to go.
Christmas 2004; I told my dad that it was 30 years since I passed my test. Quick as a flash he came back with;
“Don’t you think it’s about time you got a proper job?”
A common theme is coming through most of the replies. i.e. “Inducted” into the job from childhood, in my own case being taken in lorries from 5 or 6 years old, my first ride was in a pre-war Leyland Lynx, and I can still remember it as if were only yesterday. My own career from starting work, now 46 years and still counting, has been split roughly 50/50 between the own account and hire and reward sectors. An own account operation is definitely the easiest to run. Would I have chosen a different career given my time over again? Probably not, but I still hanker to do something different even after all these years. Retirement? Never.
My grandad drove a BP tanker ,my dad trained as a tailor, he went in the army 1942 _ 1947 served in Egypt and Europe came out a wagon driver . His first driving job was at West Yorkshire Foundries and he finished his time at A.ONE Transport. I trained as a HGV Mechanic worked at varius firms then thought bugger all this and went driving . I’m 63 now and packed it all in ostioathiritis arthritis has seen to that . Ive enjoyed my time in the transport industry but how its change from going with my dad and seeing the comerardery to now now where nobody gives anyone a helping hand no more .
In very early school days my mates father worked for BRS, Octopus and trailer work, and I thought “that’s for me” BUT then grammar school came along and in those days if you went to grammar school your card was marked as an office worker when you left. I get a job in the general office of Yorkshire Woollen District Transport Co. (local buses). Strewth, I soon realised that life was not for me so I went to see Fred Chappell, Batley. The rest is history.
I enjoyed my working life, I got 100% job satisfaction (sure there were good days and bad days) but I enjoyed it. Would I go back today and do it again?? NO, it’s not the same job or environment. Lorry driving in my day was IMO a far more skilled job than it is today, we had to know HOW to load a vehicle, we DID know our way round the country (no sat navs in those days) today if you can fasten a ratchet strap and pull the curtains on…that’s it.
Oh, and today you must be skilled in using a mobile phone for when the office is forever ringing you up. 
I got a lot of satisfaction after I set of to do a job, get it done correctly, and back to the yard safely, it was my responsibility, today IMO drivers are just robots, told what to do, when to do it, and HOW to do it. They don’t have to think for themselves as we older lads had to do.
i was in a similar situation , grammar school meant office work , only the rich went to university . got myself a job in a lorry garage and that was it . i soon realised you got paid more for bending em than mending em and as soon as i was old enough i got a driving job . training on the spanners stood me in good stead over the years but driving was what i always enjoyed .
To get away from the wife!
My dad worked for Redmires of Wolsingham they owned a few quarries in Weardale and ran their own fleet of tipper trucks although he was not a driver for them, I remember as a youngster I would sit on the wall at the end of our street giving the thumbs up to all the Redmires lorries and a thumbs down to the other operators as they passed by. My dad died when I was about eight years old a few years later my mother remarried and it was decided we would move to Consett on moving there I set about exploring my new surroundings when I came across Siddle C. Cook I would go up there every weekend taking photo’s of their lorries and talking to the drivers one day one of the drivers asked me if I wanted to out in his lorry and there after every weekend and school holidays I went out in their lorries this lasted about two years then Tayforth Group put a stop to people riding in their lorries I then got the chance to go with some of J. R. Youngs drivers from Leadgate and also at the same time got the opportunity to go with W. M. Hodgson of Edmunbyers who at the time only had one truck a Bedford KM 4-wheeler with which his mainstay of work was Marley tiles in those day it was all handball off and on I would help unload which was backbreaking work but Ioved every minute.
So I always knew I wanted to be a lorry driver on leaving school at sixteen I got a job as a secondman for a local firm G. N. Ridley he operated furniture vans delivering new furniture to shops and doing removals when I passed my driving test I got to drive a Bedford CF van delivering all sorts, he put me through my HGV class 2 and after passing my test I got to drive a Bedford TK furniture van delivering furniture throughout the UK.
I am still driving now having worked for my present employer for the last nineteen years my present steed is a 18 ton DAF LF plant truck with fitted with a Hiab crane some days I may spend time helping in the depot or going out in the transit pick up or other small vehicles in the fleet, this week I have only been out in the truck one day.regards prattman.
As soon as I was out of nappies I was out in the lorry with my Dad, it was all I ever wanted to do and apart from doing a bit of tiling (geometric Victorian stuff) I’ve only ever worked in the haulage industry.
I’ve repaired lorries, sold them, road tested them, written about them, owned them, ran them for other people.
Now in my spare time when I’m not driving them, I’m making models of them or talking about them on the internet.
I am a lorry nerd…
newmercman:
As soon as I was out of nappies I was out in the lorry with my Dad, it was all I ever wanted to do and apart from doing a bit of tiling (geometric Victorian stuff) I’ve only ever worked in the haulage industry.I’ve repaired lorries, sold them, road tested them, written about them, owned them, ran them for other people.
Now in my spare time when I’m not driving them, I’m making models of them or talking about them on the internet.
I am a lorry nerd…
Well that’s a whole thread on it’s own NMM, and if you are then your not alone…
and now for a shameless plug…
I would put something on here myself but I spent the last 5 years writing it all down, and there’s now half a million words about it.
First book available Oct 1st… 2014… Yes really !!!
Hopefully the following 3 will be at 6 month intervals. That’s the plan anyway…
Jeff…
Like many others I got hooked on trucks by spending the summer holidays with my farther, but I remember at the time he was being told that the insurance companies we against having children in the trucks or passengers in general, I guess the change in attitudes towards taking your kids to work has had an impact on the way the industry is viewed by the younger generation and increased the child care bills. All I need to do is get a wiff of diesel fumes and I am transported back in time. Happy days.
My dad used to do international when I was a kid, every school holiday I would go away, Switzerland mainly.
When I turned 21 all I wanted to do was follow in his foot steps, so a weeks intensive course was booked 3.5 days later I was working for the same firm, who were based in Newark (my dad was based at the slaughter house near Annan.
I started driving a 17 tonne Merc (1820 I think) with a fridge box on, I would travel down from Carlisle on a Sunday night, work all week (sometimes weekends as well) and then travel home on a Friday.
I contacted a haulier nearer home which I then worked for about 6 years, when I got offered what I thought was a better job back mechanising in the garage I worked at after leaving school, I didn’t work out so back to said haulier, who were going through a bad patch and I got laid off in 2000 , I got a job with Sealy beds, delivering into London every Monday with a draw bar, but I had a 3 month old son, when I was laid off, having only seen my dad very occasionally, myself and the wife took the decision I would pack the driving in.
I then heard about a traffic planners job at the local haulier, which I put up with for, a couple of years before I got sick of the load pinching etc.
I now work for Nestle making cappuccino and I still have a passion for driving, hence why I’m on here and why I continue to drive, only at weekends and WTD dependant.
Same as most on here it was something I always wanted to do although there was no family member to follow into the job, or should it be trade? Worked my way up from a cowboy tipper firm at 21 (but at least they gave me a foot in the door) through just about everything going ending my full time career on a well known tanker fleet on continental work, retired now but still got the licence for now.
My dad and Granddad who drove for Courtalds before my time, but have always been around motors, My Uncle was on for Dodds on the Euro, the guy who lived other the road was on his own on Euro so as a kid I sat in their motors and made brum brum, noises, from then it was ingrained for me to drive trucks.
Left school, went to get a trade and hated my hobby being a job, went working in a warehouse where the plan was to get driving the van and get my Class1 which you could do straight away, I was a ■■■■, left the job, went away and spunked my money and basically lived a rock n roll lifestyle for the next 15 or so years 
Turned 30 when I decided to finally get my HGV, so went through the rigmarole and here I am, Class1 living the dream 
Next plan is CPC and management sector, I have worked for enough good and bad people and firms to have experience of what I hope to become a decent manager, although some are strangled by bureaucracy and procedure.
Wouldnt change it, I have made mistakes and at times poor choices but hey ho its all life and experience, But its little things like driving along and seeing a sunrise over the rolling hills that can bring bouts of happiness to my day, keeping life simple.
my dad worked for the rubber improvement co in wellingborough,but shortly after i was born he came home 1 day in foden half cab 37 seater coach, so it was driving a lorry in the week and self employed coach operator at the weekend, eventually binned off the lorry driving and got the coaches going, then he added a thames trader to deliver rosebud dolls , so it was away all week delivering dolls and then away all weekend driving the bus , his partner filled in on the monday to friday bus jobs. ended up around 1965 with 3 thames traders and 2 coaches , so something had to give and the buses went. well everything sort of expanded over the years , into multi depot parcels company , mobile home deliveries here and france , bodywork and mechanical stuff, and i sort of went along with it over the years, handballing cartons of toys into thames traders, stuffing trunk trailers with all sorts at finedon depot(still have my same sack barrow after over 40 years), drivers mate on mobile homes, rubbing trucks down for painting, fork lift driving , shunting (you know , start with the anglia van , work your way through the fleet up to artics , and your still only 14). never really known anything else, still do a bit of driving to keep my hand in but i mostly drive a Dell now , and get others to do the manual stuff. factorys on shutdown so i’m shifting naff all at the minute.
Yet another drivers lad! Apprentice HGV fitter at 15 years of age, swapped to driving full time at 33 and redundant at 52. Still miss it and would like to contribute something before I turn my toes skywards, got my memories though…just about!
Pete.
lol…didnt know any better!..no really in my area it it was work on a farm ,forestry,the council or drive a wagon…no heavy industry and as my old man wasnt a mason no apprenticships …welllllll thats another story., left school early 70s and worked on the farm /forrest ,then the economy went down and i jumped at a jcb drivers job on the council(roads) and then at 21 passed my hgv1.
My dad drove the livestock float based at the farm i grew up on as well as tractorman (large farming outfit/had own haulage side/farms across Scotland/slaughter houses etc.
sooo holidays and evenings ,weekends i was away and eventually it ended up wi me still driving 33yrs later on tippers in Canada.
jimmy
I was the odd one in the family as all of my brothers followed my dad into the building trade. I used to buy a Red Rover and travel all over London on the buses and i got the travel bug, one job i did was as a van boy and on the private estates my driver would let me drive the van which was 3ton and once i passed my test at age 17 i started my career, firstly in a small van delivering engine parts ( remember those days when garages would rebuild engines and make parts or repair dynamos etc ) my next job was on a laundry, not for the job, but to drive a heavier lorry, and then branched out into general haulage for Hiltons, that put me onto artics ( no test in those days, if you had a licence you could drive anything ) i then got the urge to go abroad so got a job with Beck & Pollitzer ( beck was mr Pollitzers wife rebecca shortened to beck ) and i did my first trip to germany, after that i progressed to european car collections on hire to the RAC, which covered breakdowns/ accident/ and thefts, i did a fair share of flying as well where people had broken an arm or a leg and couldnt drive home, so i did it for them including a bentley belonging to Stratford Johns alias inspector Barlow of Z cars fame. i progressed to a company running to spain and eventually applied to Asian Tpt now known as Astran where i got my middle east experience. A few jobs in between and then started work as an owner driver running to Turkey and the eastern bloc and greece and i have loved international work ever since, in fact i still do bits and pieces. Of course the HGV licence was introduced in 1974 ( approx ) and whatever you were driving at the time, was the licence they gave you, all it needed was a signature from your employer. We thought at the time it was issued it would give us status and more respect but we are still waiting for both but i have enjoyed my career, travelling to many places and getting paid to do it.
Always wondered who the Beck in Beck and Pollitzer was, there was a heavy haul firm by the name of Beck, I asked on here whether it was them (there was a pic on one of the threads) and got ignored, so thanks Bob.
I remember being based in lambeth, and we had some arches around the corner where we used to load tea from after collecting them from the dock warehouses, remember how they would tie the T chests up with rope and lower them down over your head to be stacked on the trailer ( 27ft at the time ) certainly need a strong pair of gloves for that job, anyway i was waiting to load, and was wiping down my old leyland buffalo, when this guy approached me, told me the truck looks clean, and gave me half a crown to go over the cafe for breakfast, i asked him about the name and when he stopped laughing he told me himself. The road transport side was taken over by Spurlings in west ferry road where most of us transferred to, the engineering side ( cranes ) were moved to Dartford where they still are today, the whole outfit eventually came under the banner of the TDG. it was one of the best companies i ever worked for.
They (amongst others) became the warehousing side of TDG. The heavy haul side is still going isn’t it? I know they moved from Burnham Rd as the yard is now a Merc dealer.