Is a long time ago now, but anybody remember the night trunk from Rotherhithe New Road to Spring Street, Bristol ? I had just left school, and my mate and I had become very interested in lorries, and we wanted to have a trip or two in a wagon ! We lived in Southall at the time, and saw the BRS South Wales trunk going out every evening, and they all stopped at Frank’s Cafe, which was just before the canal bridge on Uxbridge Road. So, on a couple of occasions we waited outside, and asked the drivers as they came out if we could go for a ride with them. Not a chance ! Every one of them refused, so we gave up that, and decided to try the A4 to Bristol.
So, and I can tell you, it was 30th April 1954 (Pete passed away around 20 years ago now, but he kept notes!), a cool and rainy evening, and we some how got ourselves to the Colnbrook by-Pass, and started to thumb. The Bristol 8 wheeler was one of our favourites at the time, and we had no idea they were on the Bristol trunk, when they started to pass us by one after another, after another ! A BRS Guy Otter artic, 53A 717, OLB39 stopped for us, and although he was not going to Bristol, said he’d take us to somewhere we were sure to get a lift, and dropped us off at a cafe at Sonning, just east of Reading, and on the North side of the A4. The lorry park was full of the BRS Bristols, so once again the asking game, and the same response as with the welshmen at Southall ! Time was getting on, and there was only one of them left, and in response to Pete’s request, the driver said ''Aye, I’ll take 'ee ! So off we went through the night, no M4 then of course, through Calcot Row, Thatcham, Newbury, Hungerford, Marlborough, Beckhampton, then on the A361 past Devizes, A365 through Melksham, and rejoining the A4 near Box, a stop at a cafe in Bath, and then on through Saltford and Keynsham to Bristol, where he dropped us off just over the river, nearly opposite Temple Meads station.
The driver was Len Iles, and he was the shift foreman, required to travel ‘‘tail end Charlie’’ to sort out any problems with his charges en route, calling into the depots at Thatchan and Devizes to ensure nobody had gone in to either, for attention to a mechanical fault. His vehicle was 2F383, MLJ196, the prototype HG6L Bristol, and I, (Pete was called up for National Service soon thereafter) had many more trips with him, or one of his minions on the nights he had a drag, over the next couple of years as I will relate anon.
