Does anyone remember Begard ltd,the firm had a clearing house office at the bottom of Water St.Mcr and was owned by Norman Reeves who apparently had previously sold his Reeves Haulage company to Ralph Hilton and lost all his money.They used to specialise in Southampton?
Blimey that’s a blast from the past, not heard their name mentioned for donkeys years…
Begards had a small office / yard at Four Post Hill in Southampton and iirc the guv’nors name
was Jimmy Gavigan…I drove for a subby of theirs, Fred Croucher doing the cape fruit out of the docks
to markets nationwide…this was over 40 years ago.
Spot on mappo. That yard at Four Post Hill was Reeves of Manchesters’ old yard from back in the early 60’s. They did a regular trunk service from Southampton to Manchester and also cigarettes from B.A.T. Southampton to many airports including London,Manchester and Liverpool. Jimmy Gavigan was Norman Reeves manager back then and later became manager for the newly formed Begard Transport. Jimmy was a very well respected man and he was also a great friend of Bob Merrick who ran Habin Haulage who later were to become Southampton Road Transport, under the ownership of Pitter’s and Meachers. Bob Merrick then went on to set up Hughes of Portsmouth as he had signed an agreement not to set up haulage in Southampton for a set amount of years. Not many on here will remember Habin’s Haulage but they had a yard at Lordshill, Southampton and not a bad company to work for. Here endeth the history lesson. regards, Nobby.
Hi Nobby, nice to hear from you mate, it’s been a while, hope you are ok and thanks for the history lesson.
Your memory of names never fails to amaze me…Was it Haben that had the purple-ish 88’s ■■