rondavies:
Is it just me but I never did like units with stacks up the back. It wasn’t the stacks that looked unsightly but the mess the exhaust did to the front of the trailer!
I’ll get my coat
The good thing about them was when you were hitching up ,etc. on a cold Winters morning or went thru a town the smoke went up instead of gassing the driver or the pedestrians. I always liked the look of the purpose built stacks not the silly modified ones that became all the rage on EU trucks. In Swiss we put our trucks & trailers thru the wash regularly so the black marks never got too bad.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Wheelnut and Mushroomman Ski and Arabian Freight not TAF both operated from Trafford Park Manchester up until about 1977 when SKI closed Arabian Freight moved to Stoneclough nr Farnworth for about a year and then like so many others disappeared into the sunset. Lenny Frost aka the Admiral or the Maggot did drive for SKI and later Dawnyard he finished up at DOW.Regards Crow.Ps Ken Corrigan is out here in Tenerife with me and sends his regards to any one out there who is still alive and old enough to remember him with a special hello to Steve Crew. Drum Bun collegues.
Hi geoffthecrowtaylor
Out of curiosity - was the SKI international you mention, the same outfit operated by a Steve Keller, out of Whitworth Street, Manchester about 1970-72 ?
Ozzy
That was the one. Ran from around 1968 to 1974. When the SKi Yoghurt trailers came out it seemed as if Steve had won the pools and bought some new trailers.
Ozzyhugh for some reason my reply to you has disappeared however you are right after Whitworth St Ski took ver Springfield Transports depot at Storage House Trafford Park. Ski stood for Steve Keller International. Amongst their drivers were Sean Moran,Tony Traynor, Tont Horne, Geff Heale,Curly Johnson etc. Keller always blamed the demise of Ski on Rayner because of debts involving Rayner and Turner a company Ski had taken over. Prior to this Ski didnt operate any vehicles and were purely a Freight Forwarder .Rayner and Keller came to blows over the bad financial situation and that was the beginning of the end.Regards Crow.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Wheelnut and Mushroomman Ski and Arabian Freight not TAF both operated from Trafford Park Manchester up until about 1977 when SKI closed Arabian Freight moved to Stoneclough nr Farnworth for about a year and then like so many others disappeared into the sunset. Lenny Frost aka the Admiral or the Maggot did drive for SKI and later Dawnyard he finished up at DOW.Regards Crow.Ps Ken Corrigan is out here in Tenerife with me and sends his regards to any one out there who is still alive and old enough to remember him with a special hello to Steve Crew. Drum Bun collegues.
Hi,
Can you remember David Walker to Ken Corrigan,I drove with him at Humber McVeigh’s Salford many many moons ago,along with Roy “The Vicar”,Matt Dillon,Bernie Cunliffe,“Mr.Pastry”,Don Bardsley,John Tooley, and of course John Roberts and Harry Savage.
I trust Ken will remember most,if not all and that he is keeping well!
Hello Dave Corries having alittle bo bos at the moment but he does indeed remember you. When he s ready we are off to watch City and United in a Dago bar commentary in Spanish but as Ken can hardly speak English what the hell will get him to reply to you in the morning g day mate regards Crow.
geoffthecrowtaylor:
Hello Dave Corries having alittle bo bos at the moment but he does indeed remember you. When he s ready we are off to watch City and United in a Dago bar commentary in Spanish but as Ken can hardly speak English what the hell will get him to reply to you in the morning g day mate regards Crow.
Thanks for your reply Crow,I look forward to chatting with Ken as and when!
Fifthwheel ken is here right now and also you Mushroomman i ll let him loose and you can natter am going out now but will get back to u later regards corrie drum bun.
Hello Geoff, I was just thinking about the time that Ken gave me a lift down to Dover one Sunday night sometime in the early eighties. I had reloaded those paper reels from Celje in northern Yugoslavia and met up with Billy Tingle on the way back to Zeebrugge. Most of Kent was covered in snow after it had suffered some of its worst blizzards in thirty years. I received a message after I had cleared with the agent to say that the papermill at Aylesford where I was tipping was cut off and not to deliver until Monday but I had to phone at 8 a.m. Monday morning to get an update on the situation. As this was on a Friday morning and Billy was tipping in Trafford Park it seemed perfectly feasible to have a Dodgy from Dover hoping that somebody would be shipping out on the Sunday.
Well I did get a lift with Billy, as it turned out I did most of the driving home and I heard that Ken would be on his way to Dover on the Sunday afternoon. Ken picked me up at The Dog and Partridge at about 8 p.m. in Middleton as he had to change trailers at the Swindon depot before heading to Dover and after passing the Thomas Macbride bleach works we headed through Rhodes to that big roundabout at the end of the M66. As we were going onto the M66 I noticed a couple of what looked like metal tubes about a foot long at the side of the road but thought nothing of it. As we joined the M62 I noticed a few more of these things but as Ken was driving and it was dark and wet I thought that he hadn’t seen them. Every ten miles or so I would notice another one or two of them at the side of the road but I didn’t think that Ken was bothered about them so I didn’t mention anything to him.
We came off the M5 and past The Air Balloon pub at the bottom of Birdlip Hill and there were a couple more of them on the road and Ken said I wonder what those things are, I have seen dozens of them tonight. So I said next time we see some stop and I shall have a look. Well the next time that we saw one we didn’t want to stop half way up the hill as we were fully freighted but just before Cirencester there were a couple more of them so Ken stopped and I ran back with his torch to see what they were. Much to my surprise they were full one litre plastic bottles of Thomas Macbride washing up liquid
From then on every time we saw one Ken would stop and I would jump out and run back with the torch and pick them up until we had six each and then the novelty wore off.
Looking back with hindsight it was a shame that we never got stopped by the police just so we could say "onest guvner they fell off the back of a lorry .
John McVey:
I can still get in to it but not when I’m wearing me bra LOL
Some things never change, once a Feblands driver always a Feblands driver .
John, I always wondered why you never put your story T.I.R. This Is Ridiculous on this thread which I.M.H.O. was one of the best story’s that I ever read on this site. It seems that your original post has got lost in the pages of time so why don’t you resurrect it and stick it on here .
Hi s
Steve - hope you are keeping well mate - havn’t heard from you for a time, was wondering if you owed me money !! who are that shifty looking mob in the photo Steve ? Regards Fred
freshir:
Hi s
Steve - hope you are keeping well mate - havn’t heard from you for a time, was wondering if you owed me money !! who are that shifty looking mob in the photo Steve ? Regards Fred
Hello Fred, good to hear from you again, no I can’t remember oweing you any money but Barry Longden was wondering if you have forgotten about that ten bob note that you borrowed off him when he was working for Jenkinsons .
Shifty looking mob indeed I will have you know that those are two outstanding people of the community the right honorable David Mackie H.G.V. and Mr John McVey C.D.M.T. (Cappo Di Monte Transporter). The other fellow was last seen boarding a prison ship on his way to Moreton Bay and has not been seen since .
Talking about shifty looking mobs I dont think that you have seen this photo of Barry, Rocky 7, Gerry Mac, Jimmy Walker and Eric Etchells.
This could of been a scene from The Last Supper as there were lots of wine drunk that night before the ■■■■ crowed the next morning.
John McVey:
Hi Steve, “This is Ridiculous” is buried in this forum somewhere but for anyone that’s not bored of it click on the link below, Dave created a site for it, bless him!
Just had a quick read through and Dave has edited the tale a little, probably to protect the innocent (or guilty?) but it’s intact for the most part. J.Mc
Hi John,
Great read,was Georgio the Italian driver in Novara with the Ferrari ? spent many hours waiting for Kangaroo’s at Novatrans.
Regards
Richard
Hi Richard, thank you for your kind words, yes that sounds like Giorgio, slim good looking guy, black hair and moustache also had a Kawa 900 and he was dating the depot manager, Pierangela
John Mc Vey , I don t remember you sorry mate but you probably don t remember me but i do remember Pierangela who ran her own Co. after Tony Febland folded ,at the time we were working for everybody and she became Whittles corespondent still from Via Bovio Novara ive loaded many a trailer for her with Rockwell diffs from Cameri to Alcester.Had many agood dinner in Janines cafe in the quaintly named Via Piggafetta regards John Geoff the Crow.
LOL
I will have you know that those are two outstanding people of the community the right honorable David Mackie H.G.V. and Mr John McVey C.D.M.T. (Cappo Di Monte Transporter). The other fellow was last seen boarding a prison ship on his way to Moreton Bay and has not been seen since 
.