In the late 60’s early '70’s I recall an O/D from Leyland called H. Miller ( IIRC his name was Hughie) and he ran an Ergo Leyland Comet and tandem axle 33ft trailer. His traffic southbound was always a Load of Leyland Paint but I never knew what his backloads were. How this O/D stuck in my mind was that he ran south every Sunday and digged at the 24hr Café where the A5 ran under the M1 J9 a right poxy hole which we only used when we were on an early call. I also recall that Hughie was a typical dry witted Lancastrian of the “Old School” and he certainly qualifies as a Character from yesteryear ! Cheers Bewick.
I reckon that most of us here of a certain age (and those even older like Dennis! 
) can relate to working with drivers, fitters, weighbridge staff etc who gave us some laughs for various reasons, we certainly had more than our share at Tilcon’s Ballidon quarry and there were many more at places we delivered to! Maybe I was even one of them, who knows eh? 
Thing is though, dare we share them?
Pete.
Edgar Bradshaw, tanker driver at Fred Chappell’s, Batley.
Edgar only had one leg (plus a wooden leg for clutch duties), he was a great guy, he KNEW all there was to know about tanker work, and to us young lads just starting he was always there to help with advice
We had one driver, who I will call ‘Tom’ as I believe he is still living but must be well into his nineties by now? Anyway he had a Foden S80 tipper, and another driver with coincidentally the same surname although not related, had the sister truck. Being consecutive reg numbers they were both on MOT the same week so both were in the workshop at the same time. Everytime ‘Tom’ came to collect his truck after it has passed its test he used to complain that it drove differently and that we had fitted new parts to the other truck and he ended up with the old parts on his? The wheels, steering linkage, suspension had all been swapped! All a total load of crap but the two drivers never conversed with each other at all because of it and it used to make us fitters laugh, but until the other driver left to set up his own business the feud continued, although actually it was mostly one sided!
‘Tom’ retired early through health reasons and I eventually took his place driving, on his final trip he was coming back up the M1 in his Haulmaster and said that the Gardner 201 started missfiring around junction 23 so he pulled off at junction 24 Kegworth, our foreman went out to it and noticed a conrod protruding from the cylinder block! 
I assume there was also a trail of oil between the two junctions as well? ‘Tom’ was very deaf so obviously hadn’t heard it go, I towed him back the next day and rebuilt the engine but he never returned to driving and a lad who drove one of our Sed Ak 200 four wheelers passed his class two test and took it over.
Pete.
Emerson’s yard at Belton was based in 3terraced houses n gardens. They knocked the middle one down n made way to the yard which occupied the gardens.Long time driver Butler had overlay,jumps into his motor n off,no air !!Steers straight into the outside lavvy, rather than onto the main road,n flattens it. Old man Emerson says" FF sake Butler couldn’t you have aimed for the coal house ?" "I did but forgot to put my specs on !! "
Billy Entwistle was one of the characters of Little Lever, a genuinely comical man. He drove a Leyland Octopus tipper for East Lancashire Paper Mill at Radcliffe when the boilers were still coal fired. Billy collected coal from various pits in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Early 1960s he got a new Octopus, one of the last with a Leyland square cab. He would signal left turns by sticking a huge hand fixed to the end of a broom handle through the passenger door open window.
Thinking of that Octopus it had a large “Leyland” script on the rear chassis cross member, which many new Leylands had for a short period in the early '60s. Underneath the Leyland lettering on the sign there was some other script. I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember what is said. Can anyone remember?
When I lived ‘down south’ I worked with a couple of fitters who never failed to entertain! They were father and son, both had the same christian names as well. The lad came to work in the same greasy overalls he went home in the night before…on the corporation bus! We all left ours at work. He reckoned he got plenty of space on the bus and I can well believe that!
One day they were sitting together in our mess room: lad says to dad “Are you busy on saturday” and dad replies no, why? “Well I’m getting married” and all was quiet for about a minute when dad asks “Who are you marrying then son?” They both lived in the same blooming house, did they never converse? 
Neither were very swift, I remember them removing the engine from a BMC five tonner of the Gas Boards (which took them twice as long as anyone else!) and then sitting down having a ■■■ together. The new engine was on the floor waiting. Enter the foreman: “Well, does the new engine sound alright then” being sarcastic, and the old man (still dragging on his ■■■ of course) points to the cab and says “The keys are in, try it for yourself” and foreman exits shaking his head! When they FINALLY finished it they went for a test run and on returning the foreman asks (again with a hint of sarcasm) “well, does it go like a bomb then?” and father replies “I have no idea to be honest”. “What do you mean you don’t know?” the foreman exclaims, “you tested it” and the reply was “But I don’t thrash new engines”! 
Between them they had an answer for everything, a grand pair of characters!
Pete.
One of the gaffer’s sons had a Mammoth Major with mid mounted crane,6yr old so a few signs of age, one of them being a creeping boom on the Hiab. For traveling the brick clamp was put to the back nearside pack,so obviously the first off. Anyways he picks it up but one of the banding straps got caught on the tailgate,he toodles down to free it, leaving his left hand under the pack!! Down she goes n settles nicely on his hand,he can’t reach the crane controls,so he stands there for around an hour till somebody noticed !!
If they put his brains in a duck it would fly north for winter
Noel was a WW ll veteran in the late autumn of an august driving career, since being demobbed, when I was a young fellow, new to driving. Apart from teaching me heaps, he kept me amused with tales of the early days of interstate transport.
Road transport was a threat to the state owned railway monopolies. As a consequence state police and when formed, state transport departments sweated on trucks for the most trivial of transgressions and tried to ensure trucks weren’t dodging the penny per ton per mile road tax.
Federal government, known then as the Commonwealth, operated vehicles including Post Master General and Defense Force, were issued with easily distinguishable “Z plates”, a white numberplate preceded with a red Z then five numbers. Commonwealth law supersedes state law, so state departments had no jurisdiction over Commonwealth vehicles.
Army disposal were selling anything from teaspoons to tanks, including trucks and uniforms. Ex-army trucks were cheap and the only way the pioneer drivers could afford to get into this new road transport caper. Noel got himself an ex-army Chev and went into business wearing army shirts. With stolen Z plates he was impervious to state scrutiny. 
For many years, trucks were only equipped with a single mirror, on the driver’s side, colloquially referred to as powder puff mirrors, due to their 2" circular size. The first time Noel saw a truck with a powder puff mirror on each side, he thought the driver was a mug lair who thought he was flasher than a rat with a gold tooth.
When Noel saw the first vehicle fitted with blinkers he thought that was pretty lairy, but won’t catch on.
RIP Old Mate, thanks for the memories and lessons.
My 78 yr old uncle definitely a character I can’t remember all he told me .
He once had a blow out on his 8 wheeler Erf A series tipper ,he changed the wheel and let the knackered tyre go down the embankment and across a field 
then the police arrived oh dear ,he put his foot in and had to fetch it back .
Then somewhere in Stoke a large Rsj fell of the top of a load of scrap and hit a brand new ice cream van pushing the engine & gearbox backwards ,the ital drive says what a happen uncle says I don’t know I just managed to miss it it came off a lorry in front .
Another time with his f88 the brakes wouldn’t come off and he’d got the cab up and was under it when they came off and it rolled away on to a bowling green ,next thing he hears is a bloke shouting about the mess ,uncle says not as much mess as I’am going to make as he sets off and screws it round
Then there was the curtain sider , so he going down the m5 early one morning when his m8 rings up and says have you lost some wooden stairs ,no he’s says don’t be daft I’ve got a curtain sider now ,when he gets to Bristol the back door had rolled it’s self up and sure enough a flight had gone .
Also there’s the man from Longton that didn’t pay his bill ,he got a wire rope fastened to his jaguar back axle when he came out the pub the rope knocked a long brick wall down ripping the axle off the jag
One Saturday morning he set off for London as usual with the tacho turned off but with the card in when after 5 miles he got a tug off the law but luckily got away with saying he’d forgot to put the card in .
When they were building the sewage works in Ashbourne he got waved in by the police in his 6 wheeler Guy going from Ballidon with a load of stone knowing he was a ton over he turned in off the road but rather than stopping went up to the sewage site and tipped some off ,when he came back to the main road the policeman was angry but never realised what he’d done 
Once he got stopped over weight at the coldra but got away with swapping a 1 tonne pack of timber with the ministry man who wanted to build a fence in his garden .
I remember a couple of likely lads who liked a drink, everyone did in those days, the breathalyser only came into being in 1967 and generally only used after an accident. One driver who shall remain nameless worked for a local firm, it was also in the days of log sheets, farmers goods and Guinness labels.
“Dusty” would come to work on the bus, it was about 18 miles for him, he couldn’t get a job nearer home as everyone knew his timekeeping was rubbish. The local haulier to me saw something in Dusty and had a lorry ready for him whenever he turned up. He got paid per job, not per week so as soon as he needed money, he would be back. I have seen him fall off the bus, pick himself up and get into the yard, the boss had a very understanding wife, she would make him a sandwich or share some food with him, he wasn’t a mucky bloke, after being at sea, he looked after himself quite well. apart from the drinking. I have seen the boss pull his lorry to the pump, fill it up and point it in the general direction of Scotland, he would push and help lift Dusty into the cab after an argument about how much he was paying him for the job.
This bloke would drive to Montrose through the night, unload and come straight back within about 24 hours, he would never turn round for a second run, he wanted a lift home once he had been paid, he had a wife, but I don’t know when he saw her, he would get dropped off outside the pub, disappear inside, the next time we saw him was when the money had gone and he needed to do another run.
I recall another job where he had to run up to Scotland to load a lift tank, he had done a few and it was normally proper scotch whisky, the tanks were locked & sealed and there was none to be had, however one job was different, he had his loading address and this whisky wasn’t blended, it wasn’t even whisky, it was contaminated ethanol and was going into some chemical process. Dusty knew enough that Ethanol made Whisky, the tank wasn’t sealed so he had a couple of containers away, this stuff is pure alcohol, or about 95% alcohol, we drink whisky at 40% in moderation.
After a couple of days the boss is beginning to worry, the blokes wife must have been concerned as she turned up on the bus. Dusty had stopped off and tried some of his new “whisky,” luckily another driver had seen the lorry on his way up Scotch, and it was still there when he came back so stopped. The second driver called an ambulance and they took Dusty away, it was only when this driver got back anyone was the wiser. Dusty made a full recovery, but 50 years later it still crops up in conversation and in the pub when its open.
I remember seeing his obituary in the paper, he lived into his 90’s so I think he was already embalmed when he died. 
I’m trying to keep Dennis’s thread going! Not so much a character but a situation. We were watching ‘Inside the Factory’ on BBC2 yesterday and it was from a factory in France that made iron pans for cooking, it started with pig iron, steel etc being tipped in the foundry and followed it through the whole process. My Mrs commented “You used to deliver limestone to foundries didn’t you?” and I said yes, and I have been trying to forget most of the sh*t holes we went to!
Anyway one of the decent ones was Biwaters at Clay Cross, originally Clay Cross Works of course. At one time the foundry was fed with limestone via the Ashover Light Railway from the quarries in Ashover and Milltown but when that closed road transport was used. They had a 20 tonne load of 50mm stone almost every morning.
Tilcon got the job (from Tarmac when they went on strike I think?) and I took the first load from our quarry, weighed in and asked what the procedure was. “Down to where those gantries are and ask for Vic Brock” so off I went, but couldn’t find him. Anyway I grabbed somebody and he said “It’s snap time, he will be in that room there” so I went and opened the door. Well the smoke that came out was unbelievable, it was a total fog! I stood and let it clear a little, shouts of ‘shut that door’ came from inside so I ventured in. There seemed to be about half a dozen men in there so I asked for Vic and got the reply “You want Vic Brock, well you have come to the right place. I shared a pram with him, went to school with him, joined the army with him and came here with him, there isn’t a better person to ask about Vic Brock” so I casually asked where is he then? “Sitting next to me, where else would he be?” and Vic got up then and came outside!
He showed me where to tip and put a scarf across his mouth: “It isn’t too healthy out here” he said! Considering the fog of smoke he had been sitting in I thought the outside air was actually quite good! As of a few months ago he was still living, his lad actually worked at our quarry for a while and has an ex Sam Longsons ERF unit that he shows. The works has long gone alas, demolished and just a large vacant area now. 
Pete.
In the seventies there was a driver nick-named “Stoat” where I worked. He was exceptionally good with a catapult and always on the look-out for pheasants by the road side. One day he was driving down the track to a Mill nearby when he spotted - and “shot” a fine ■■■■ pheasant and threw it in the passenger side of his KM. He loaded and was on the weighbridge when it woke up and flew round the cab. Luckily the attendant didn’t see or he would have been had up for poaching!
He once showed his skill by knocking a spent cartridge off the winker of a Mandator standing in the garage - I hit the screen which luckily did not break. Jim.