JAKEY:
Hello John , we never had any problems when we ran Dodge or Commer,Nephew has left us and is a dustman.
Bit of a change that mate is he enjoying it ,mark glad family ok
Carl Williams:
DEANB:
Heres one for Carl, hope you are on the mend.Advert from 1970.
Hi Dean, i’m on the mend, thanks for asking. It’s mainly the weakness & tiredness at the moment, but time will put me right.
Glad to hear you are on the mend Carl. Thanks for the feedback on the BMC van. 
Here’s a bit of an odd one from 1962.
Click on page twice.
Hello MARK , No that photo is a 3t mine is the older model 6t .
marktaff:
Carl Williams:
DEANB:
Heres one for Carl, hope you are on the mend.Advert from 1970.
Hi Dean, i’m on the mend, thanks for asking. It’s mainly the weakness & tiredness at the moment, but time will put me right.
The JU does bring back so many memories. In 1965 we bought a new J2 the forerunner of the JU with a very similar body to the JU in the photo, built by Bluebell Caravans Southampton, which I suspect is the same Co as the advert.
Like n the photo it was a very basic lightweight body & the chassis cab had a 1.6 litre diesel engine. My dad went down to Southampton to collect & got a big shock when a side wind nearly turned it over on the way home. We put it on road 1st Jan 1966 & I drove it a lot. It certainly earned its keep as it was never off the road, but me & all others who drove it hated it & cursed every mile, which really we shouldn’t as it was always overloaded and flogged & misused, but we couldn’t kill it.
I don’t know how many reading remember the ‘A licence’ system before de-regulisation & operators licencing? Well there was a period of about a year when vehicles under 3.5 ton GVW was allowed to use without a licence… At that time we had this J2 a couple of petrol standard Transits , two 3.5 ton GVW Transits & a Bedford CF all with Marsden 600 cu ft bodies (The Transit by the way were much better than CF) which overnight didn’t need licences & we quickly replaced on our ‘A Licences’ with full size vans.& were able to run these 6 vehicles licence free. It was like a gift from God to a business that was rapidly expanding & constantly needing more ‘A licences’
Probably seeing the ad you published we thought why not add another little BMC as they were as cheap as chips & could run unlicenced. So we bought a new JU, although not the same body, but a little better. By that time I didn’t have the pleasure of having time to drive so much & so never had the ‘pleasure’ of the JU. However I remember standing in our Garage as the two vans were parked next to each other & asked a driver ‘How do the compare’? ‘its just as bad’ came the rely.
Here is a memory, one of quite a few I have of my trips with the J2. I was delivering a load of Yarn suitable for making ladies Nylon stockings to Huddersfield, Oldham area. My first delivery was just one box to a manufacturer just off the main road out of Huddersfield leading to Oldham > I turned left down a very steep bank till I came to the factory & delivered the box. Returning up to the junction to rejoin the main road to head for Oldham. I had to stop until there was a gap in the traffic. I went to pull away in bottom gear & sadly I needed another horse power or two as it would not move. I reversed down the bank again & headed back up & same again.
It would have been useless to ring up Spennymoor (100 mile away) to ask for help for if I had managed to find a phone box (No mobiles in those days) as the response of being a useless idiot (I translate into acceptable language) & the phone would have burnt in my hands as the abuse came through. I thought the only option would have been to unload about 20 boxes & stack at on the pavement, get the van onto the main road & then carry the boxes onto the van again, but I would have one last go and fortunately as I came to the top the road was clear & without pausing round I went on my journey.Hi Carl,
Hope you are recovering well…your posting here realy made me laugh trying to climb that hill and exit the junction
I remember a similar situation my self when i first started driving …i would of thought the Marsden body on the Bedford CF you had would have been a lot heavier than the aluminium body on the JU.
Here is a snippet of a photo of one of our Transit Marsden’s The two we had were identical as was the body on the CF. All three glass fibre so not too heavy and the Transits & CF were 3.32Ton gvw so from memory could carry just about 1 ton. All three had little Perkins diesel engines that had quite a bit power, but as I said the Transits were so much better. In particular with monoleaf front springs which looked a bit frightening but we never had one fail, whereas the CFs had wishbones which were troublesome.
Totton
Thank you Rob , first DAF needs a good scrub .
JAKEY:
3.Blocking the pavement Markbut what do you do ?
Hi Steve,
There is not a lot you can do mate…people have got to move…what I always say to people if they moan about blocking certain entrances or pavements…how did you move in here then !
That usually shuts them up
Today loading job in Newport for Telford next week and as you can see access is wonderful keeping us out of the rain.
Hurt my neck looking at your photos Mark !
I get you point though .
JAKEY:
Hurt my neck looking at your photos Mark !I get you point though .
Sorry Steve bloody phone playing up again…got there in the end with help from Dean
DEANB:
JAKEY:
Hurt my neck looking at your photos Mark !I get you point though .
Nice one Mark.
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Thank you Dean…i can always rely on you to correct my photos
Lovely article Dean…that would have been one of the first batch of KMs for Pickfords…thanks for posting.r