Passed class 1 in 83 then drove on and off till 9 years ago when we moved to the USA. Still have my class 1 or what ever its called these days, now a lovely Swiss one. Can’t use it round these parts though as my Swiss German is really bad!
Now the but, my late father always used to tell stories of changing my nappy on the front seat of an old Bedford circa 1962 so I grew up in haulage travelling far and wide in school holidays. In sleepers, non sleepers and using digs! Learnt how to rope and sheet in my early teens and could fill in log books as soon as I could read and write.
In my driving career have done just about every thing except tankers and all sorts of gearboxes, so I suppose I would be considered an old timer by modern drivers but that implies that I’m maybe past it. I’m not ready to give up yet, I would still love to drive a nice modern high powered truck on international but as I’m not Eastern European or currently speaking Swiss German that ain’t going to happen.
Planning on a move back to the UK sometime in the future so who knows what will happen.
Punchy Dan:
That’s one of my brothers lorries ,the driver is an old timer, valley farm way ?
Valley Farm Road , that’s the one I think he had been there overnight
I might be getting to old timer stage, hopefully won’t take meself too seriously though 
, started on artics in 76 but i’d been driving vans and 3 (7.5) tonners for the previous 3/4 years, the little lorry years i was eternally grateful for because i covered a lot of ground and most importantly, cos i always ended up doing lots of londons, i learned london well without the aggro of an artic when i ballsed up as was the case many times, that knowledge became invaluable over the following decades.
In the 80’s there were lots of 70’s build and definately 70’s and some 60’s designed lorries still earning their keep, and with the absolute bare minimum of creature comforts, i got me first lorry with power steering around '79 but those older designs were still doing their thing and i still drove bloody Gardner (God how i hated those things) 180 engined days cabs sans power steering well into the early 80’s, on night trunks too with bloody candle power headlights.
My night trunk around 79/81 was up the M1 to Leeds every night in an A series ERF 180 Gardner, then a P plate B series still with 180 bloody Gardner, blasting up one of the many hills at a heady 20mph or so 
and bloody YUK1T (yep i can remember the plate) of Townsends was it then? became Fed Ex! used to come past me in his 290 ■■■■■■■■■ Sed Ack 400 like i was bloody stopped doing his normal 60+mph effortless cruise.
Was 1983 before i got me first sleeper cab, Sed 400, by then on bulk tippers, but had the pleasure previously of those lovely cushettes which made a day cab Crusader into the honeymoon suite at the Hilton 
So, being still a young pup who’s done bugger all, my humble is the 80’s whilst making great leaps in lorry quality where lorry performance rocketted (especially with proper British lorries and avoided that foreign tat), once you got a ■■■■■■■ you didn’t really want much else cos nothing could cover the ground like one, but the work involved could still be bloody hard, plenty of handballing, roping and sheeting still the mainstay, even got handball on the tippers cutting and stacking leather shaving bales in the body.
How many here ever had to sheet rough offal, none of this easysheet ■■■■■■■■, we had to cover a whole load of offal on an open tipper with a standard Dawbarn sheet and try not to bloody fall in, one your own too, bit of a knack to that.
The good thing about the 80’s is that the bloody Gardners mostly vanished thanks Christ , and the joys of freezing inside a cab with little to no engine heat, mind you plenty of heat on a scorching summers day from the bloody things, but they gradually disappeared and not enough of them to dropped valves.
Power steering became standard, mirrors became at least convex, lorry power increased dramatically though the upping to 38 ton curbed the flying aspect a bit till they upped the outputs again around 84…pretty bloody pointless going to 38 ton for so many, £3000 road tax IIRC if you had a two axle unit and three axles trailer 
and you only got about another 4 ton on than with a light 32 tonner.
Course around the end of the 70’s we’d already had the German dominated EU master tell us to scrap the 12.5 hour day and work safer with a tacho for 15 hours, and we gradually lost that useful secondary blue brake line and again standardised to the 2 line system.
Work wise, for me as an employed driver the 80’s were my best years, also the late 80s saw me offered a chance to break away from general haulage and specialise, and eventually found my niche.
Personal life they weren’t my happiest years.
started driving for a living in the early to mid 60’s, like Juddian on small vans in and around London, good fun and good time to learn your way around without all the restrictions nowadays, my first time with what you could call a lorry (notice I call them lorries we didn’t have trucks back then the Yanks had them ) was with a petrol engined O type Bedford tipper, 30 mph flat out but hell didn’t like stopping, I was working as a labourer for a local Public works contractor and the boss came out in the yard and said to me “take that lorry to so and so place” I said “I cant drive lorries” he said “ by the time you get there you’ll be an expert” bearing in mind I had only just turned 18 at the time, I never looked back, that was the start of my next 50 years on lorries, spent the next couple of three years driving four or six wheeled tippers or flats on various work, then at twenty one, a nationally renowned company were advertising for experienced artic drivers for a new contract they had, not knowing the front end from the back end of an artic I turned up at their yard as you do and told them I was a fully experienced artic driver looking for a job having already made up a couple of non existent firms I had worked for, got taken out for a test drive in a brand new Leyland engined TK Bedford with a BTC four in line trailer the driver that took me out sussed me out in the first half mile, said “you’ve never driven one of these before have you”, no said I “well all have to start somewhere” said he, I got the job every driver old or new had to spend a couple of weeks in the yard shunting, loading and roping and sheeting their sky high loads ready for the night trunker’s or for the day men and god help you if didn’t do it right you’d get a (zb) to end all (zb)’s , also got my licence by grandfather rights so have never had to pass the test, though I was asked if I wanted to become an examiner when it was first being talked about so couldn’t have been that bad, during this period the late 60’s I was lucky to be working for a company that decided the up and coming thing to be in was this new fangled European work, so spent of and on for the next 25 years visiting many countries and meeting many marvellous people, getting back to the original question of old time drivers, when I started there were drivers about who did it before the war or in the 40’s, they were the people I looked up to for my guidance and learning, but the sad thing is I’m that old git driver now, so remember you young drivers one day you will be that experienced driver in the years to come. Been retired now for seven years, would I go back and do it all again? you bet I would like a shot, would I do it today? I have grave reservations, what with all the rules and regulations I honestly I don’t think I could, I would end up spending to much time arguing with the office bods than out on the road getting the job done, but I sincerely wish you all the luck in the world, keep safe feller’s.
Ossie
Started as a drivers mate in 1970 (Albion Clydesdale) and slept in it. 73, vans and 7.5 tonners, including a trip to Germany, my first taste, Class one 1975, but started on a D800 progressed to a Dodge KP1000, 13 years general and over the water 20 years on car delivery, which I was taught by my Dad as a 13/14 year old and yes he let me drive E/Types and TR6’s on and off and drive the lorry around the docks. had a go at being an owner driver and now I have one more year to go before I retire to Canada, oh and I did a couple of months out there too,(Awful) . Looking forward to handing the key in and put my feet up, it’s been a great ride and met some very nice people especially when I was doing Spain & Italy and the thing I’ll miss is roping & sheeting even though I’ve not done it for some years.
Hi All,
We must all accept, things change, we can argue for ever if it for the better or not but we cant turn the clocks back.
Every driver who has been at the wheel for over 10 years has my respect whatever he or she has done or is doing,its never been an easy job, or if it was, it did not last for long.
Up to 10 years we all needed to learn the basics of the job and make all the little silly mistakes.
Trucks have changed but so to have the roads and numbers of people using them.
Respect, no reason on gods earth why that should change.
If you are near Grangemouth arround 5 pm ( woops, 1700 hrs) on a Sunday and you see an old ■■■■ trying to drive a MAN with a ASDA decker, dont wave or distract him, he is still learning.
Take care all, your the salt of the earth.
Harvey
My opinion for what it’s worth is 80’s are old time, I worked through the 60s/70s/ 80s/ 90s/ 00s, and the present decade. I’m still doing the occasional shift although I’m allegedly retired 
Six decades and the 80s are in the first half of the list. Regards Kev.
Rikki-UK:
Is the job harder now ? I disagree, I started in the 80’s and the major difference between then and now is we weren’t treated like children, to be watched and over seen - you were given a slip of paper which was your load details and told to ring in when empty… everything in between was down to you as the driver to do/organise. You were trusted to get on with the job
No-one told you the route to take, where to stop for the night, or how to secure the load it was expected that you know that stuff or had the sense to ask another driver.
The most the traffic office would do is say " take some goal posts with you, or back scotches and chocks " for your expected reload.The jobs not harder now its been dumbed down to the lowest common demoninator
So yes compared to todays tracked/camera’d/Phone “logistics” - the 80’s were old school perhaps at the very end of the era when drivers were in charge of their own working day
■■■■ right, I agree with that 100%. Here speaks a GOM who started in 1960.
“But Fred, it’s an 8 wheeler, I’ve never driven anything like that” 
…“well now’s your chance to learn, bugga off and give me a ring when you’re tipped”
And that started my life on the road. It was an 8 wheel Atky tipper,coal from Acton Hall (Pontefract) to Hedleys in Trafford Park via Standedge
I was never chucked in at the deep end- I learned from watching and helping my old chap and his mates from the age of around three years.
Retired Old ■■■■:
I was never chucked in at the deep end- I learned from watching and helping my old chap and his mates from the age of around three years.
“Then when I had grown up a bit I got my own pair of wellies so I could chase and catch a Sow for myself, Ooo Errr” Anon 1.
Go and change the wheel on that steamer, you lazy little [zb]
I think “Old Time” can be defined in many different ways. I left School in 1980, I passed my Car test in 1981 aged 17 so I was driving anything up to 3.5 tons mainly Marina/Sherpa Vans, I got my Class 3 when I was 18 years old in 1982, then my Class 2 when 19 & Class 1 when 20, I was on a 5 year apprenticeship as a Young HGV Driver Trainee with British Leyland, Cowley, Oxford on their own Transport fleet. So I have been driving HGVs for 35 years, flats/ sheet & rope/tautliners/tilts/containers/boxes/low-lowders/various types of Tankers (fuel/Cryogenic/Gas/Powder)/Removals/Tippers/car transporters (covered/open) etc, more than some & less than others, but I have been around a bit & nothing really bothers me any more, as many others on here we will always figure the job out with a bit of common sense & knowledge picked up over the years. I have driven Right & Left ■■■■■■ Scania/Volvo/DAF etc etc, but I have also driven AEC Mandators & Mastiffs as we were still running them at Cowley when I got my Class 1, and Ford D Series etc on other firms, there were still Lorries around with no Power-steering etc then.
Now that is an out-line of someone who ‘officially’ came into the Road Haulage Industry in 1980, but the way you do the job, any job, is usually shaped by the person/people that Train you! When I started at British Leyland in 1980, I had already like many others on here, served a 11 year un-official apprenticeship with my Dad from the age of 5, sat watching him from the passenger seat of his Scammell Highwayman/ AEC Mammoth Minor (Chinese-6)/AEC Mandator & lastly Bedford TM, & Basil Cobb/Brian Spriggs, 2 of Dads best mates/ old workmates on Mobil that were like Dad ‘Old Time’ Lorry drivers, who I used to go with all through the School hols & every weekend, sometimes Saturday & Sunday if possible & their shifts fell right (for me ), I would go in on early shift with Dad & when we got back to the yard I would put my coat etc into another cab & go out on late shift with another, & the knowledge/experience/stories etc I heard/learnt from these proper ‘Old school’ drivers was amazing & has stayed with me & influenced me every day of my 35 years Lorry driving.
Then also my time at Leyland, I was taught by ‘Old Time’ drivers on their, Jim Gray/Joe Brogan, & as Jakey will agree with me the best driver on Leyland Dennis Thompson. All these men took their time to teach me the proper way to do the job, & shall we say a few “Tricks of the Trade ” too! But if I was ever cheeky/cocky I also got a clip round the ear/kick up the 'arris/or something thrown at me, & that also taught me & kept me grounded & taught me respect!
So can the 80s be classed as ‘Old Time’? I would say definitely yes!
Regards Chris