I retired from work in 2016. In the late 1970s and early 1980s I drove trucks for Collings and Stevenson (Contracts) Limited, known as “C&S” to its employees and customers. C&S’s main income came from contract work, and most of that was for the ICI paint factories in Slough and Stowmarket, but I was employed in the general haulage fleet, driving for most of my time in ERF A and B series tractive units pulling 12 metre semi trailers with 20 ton payloads.
Most of the work was on flatbed trailers securing the loads by using the now largely redundant skills of roping and sheeting (and occasionally chains and tensioners for such loads as steel pipes and ironwork). Do you remember pulling down on dolly knots to tension the ropes? Remember ropes in the winter soaked with salty road spray so that your fingers were working with sub zero wet material? I used to wonder if sailing ship era sailors suffered in the same way.
It would be good to hear from any ex employees out there with memories of C&S and that era, or indeed of the firm Mead Bros (Kingsbury) Ltd which operated out of Wembley and merged it’s business into C&S in 1976.
did my training for my hgv 3 license with c&s green lane, hounslow. worked on the ici contract out of there romford, essex depot.did not last long with them driving lorrys not my thing. traveled miles with my dad when he worked for samuel williams, dagenham. thought it was for me but no.
feltfixer:
did my training for my hgv 3 license with c&s green lane, hounslow. worked on the ici contract out of there romford, essex depot.did not last long with them driving lorrys not my thing. traveled miles with my dad when he worked for samuel williams, dagenham. thought it was for me but no.
Good to hear from you feltfixer. I remember the driving school at the front of the Green Lane depot: HGV, PSV and forklift training.
You can see a pic of the double decker C&S bus in Flickr if you search using the company name.
You will also see a pic of one of the old demountable paint delivery bodies that you may recall from paint delivery days. Trucking was also not for me long term: I eventually left to drive for British Telecom Supplies Division at Colindale then soon moved from that into the Civil Service.
MarkPretireddriver:
I retired from work in 2016. In the late 1970s and early 1980s I drove trucks for Collings and Stevenson (Contracts) Limited, known as “C&S” to its employees and customers. C&S’s main income came from contract work, and most of that was for the ICI paint factories in Slough and Stowmarket, but I was employed in the general haulage fleet, driving for most of my time in ERF A and B series tractive units pulling 12 metre semi trailers with 20 ton payloads.
Most of the work was on flatbed trailers securing the loads by using the now largely redundant skills of roping and sheeting (and occasionally chains and tensioners for such loads as steel pipes and ironwork). Do you remember pulling down on dolly knots to tension the ropes? Remember ropes in the winter soaked with salty road spray so that your fingers were working with sub zero wet material? I used to wonder if sailing ship era sailors suffered in the same way.
It would be good to hear from any ex employees out there with memories of C&S and that era, or indeed of the firm Mead Bros (Kingsbury) Ltd which operated out of Wembley and merged it’s business into C&S in 1976.
I did my class 2 in 1980 while working as a driver for Chubb Fire at Victoria Road and later my class 1 with their driving school division and sometimes helped them with yard shunting of their trailers during that.From memory I think they also had some box body trailers ? and they had the ICI Contract.
Then also used their truck/trailer wash to clean our trailers early mornings after my night trunk run which I got paid overtime for on our job and finish terms even though usually still home within around 8 hours.
MarkPretireddriver:
I eventually left to drive for British Telecom Supplies Division at Colindale .
I made regular enquiries to get on there it seemed to be a dead man’s shoes type of job ?.
Carryfast:
MarkPretireddriver:
I eventually left to drive for British Telecom Supplies Division at Colindale .
I made regular enquiries to get on there it seemed to be a dead man’s shoes type of job ?.
I think that I was just lucky. I enquired at the security gatehouse and the guard told me that jobs were only advertised at the local labour exchange and that they were advertising tomorrow!! Next day I called at the exchange and got a job interview at the BT depot. My general haulage experience was what they were looking for and I got the job.
After general haulage the BT job was a dream: it had a good pension (no pension for drivers at C&S), pay was much higher and work conditions were very unionised making the work almost too easy to be true: more money for less sweat! I felt foolish after enduring the general haulage sweatshop for so long.
Carryfast:
I did my class 2 in 1980 while working as a driver for Chubb Fire at Victoria Road and later my class 1 with their driving school division and sometimes helped them with yard shunting of their trailers during that.From memory I think they also had some box body trailers ? and they had the ICI Contract.
Thanks for the memories Carryfast. Yes C&S invested in two or three box trailers and even, near the end of my time with them, a curtain sided trailer. They all looked impressive as C&S had them painted in C&S two tone green with the company name spelt out in full. The weather cover was great after the rigours of roping and sheeting but most work remained flatbed work. C&S were unusual in having a number of drop sides flatbeds; an investment mainly for ICI paint work but generally helpful whenever we carried 40 gallon drums.
MarkPretireddriver:
Thanks for the memories Carryfast.
I miss those days.You wouldn’t recognise any of it now.Where I worked in Feltham was wiped out and turned into a leisure complex.C and S’s yard is now just a big wasteland used by a large scrap recycling firm.Only the front entrance facade is all that’s left of Minimax factory and our old fire truck pump test ground behind it is an unrecognisable warehousing complex.Although strangely what we called the old white house is still there in the middle of it all.
Carryfast:
MarkPretireddriver:
Thanks for the memories Carryfast.
I miss those days.You wouldn’t recognise any of it now.Where I worked in Feltham was wiped out and turned into a leisure complex.C and S’s yard is now just a big wasteland used by a large scrap recycling firm.
Thanks again Carryfast. I miss the life too although maybe what I really miss is being young and strong. I don’t live too far away (Rickmansworth area) so had been thinking of taking a drive down to look again at the Green Lane depot but I won’t bother now. I keep thinking, though, of the big roped and sheeted loads that were common on the roads in the 70s and 80s; I only get to see them now on old episodes of Sweeney and Minder (and on YouTube of course. I am also planning a truck driving experience that can be bought on off road sites although what I really want is to sit in a 70/80s era cab again and go up and down a Fuller Rangechange shift one last time.
MarkPretireddriver:
what I really want is to sit in a 70/80s era cab again and go up and down a Fuller Rangechange shift one last time.
+1
Or a Spicer, or a ZF 12 speed, splitter will do fine for me.
Carryfast:
MarkPretireddriver:
what I really want is to sit in a 70/80s era cab again and go up and down a Fuller Rangechange shift one last time.
+1 Or a Spicer, or a ZF 12 speed, splitter will do fine for me.
Sounds like a good subject for a new topic: asking if anybody offers retro truck experience days?
I worked for Mead Transport between 1966 and 1968. No tachographs in those days and a very basic logsheet, although not good to get pulled by the Ministry. Most of our work involved dock-based export deliveries for Glaxo, Morny, Black & Decker etc. A truly wonderful two years. My A licence vehicle (all the fleet consisted of Ford 4 wheelers and artics) was often on contract to Morny, the soap producer, and I would be delivering their products to rural chemist shops in Surrey and Sussex. Most villages would have a pharmacy in those days. No SATNAV and so I would go into the first estate agents that I came across and ask for a map of their area which was never refused. I still have several from the collection but obviously they are totally redundant when those small towns and villages have changed out of all recognition.
Meads’ manager was Eric Thomas. A very good boss. Of course there were no mobile phones or GPS trackers so it was up to me which route I took to my destinations. I would, for example, go to Birmingham via Tring, up the A41. Very little pressure but the job got done.
In 1972 I moved from London to Harrogate and met a couple of my old workmates from Meads, in 1976, who were delivering exhibition equipment to our Royal Hall. Sadly I was informed that Meads was going into liquidation that year and so goodbye to another of the small haulage businesses.
Spent the following years working for other hauliers and then BT. Have run my own IT businesses over past twenty years. Enjoyed my time in haulage because it was a different working environment in those days. I wouldn’t want anything to do with it now.
It is great to hear, potter6, your memories of Mead Bros. I drove with them from 1972 to 1976 when work was reducing so much that in 1976 the remaining work was transferred to Collings and Stevenson (“C&S”) in Hounslow . C&S and Meads were both subsidiaries of Transport Development Group. So Meads was indeed liquidated in 1976. Eric Thomas was still transport manager when the remaining work and six of the trucks and drivers moved to C&S. Glaxo was still a major client as was Beecham (Lucozade, Maclean’s and pharmaceuticals). Your photo recalls deliveries to the docks with the delights of working with restrictive practice dockers. A very different time! I was stunned by your photo’s title as OMH 874E was the Ford D750 truck allocated to me when I joined Meads. I then learnt roping and sheeting and moved to CLL 799H a flatbed rigid truck before moving to another box truck on the Glaxo pharmaceuticals deliveries in the West Country, Sussex and Kent. When I got my artic licence I also sometimes did Glaxo’s Scotland multi drops (Dumfries to Aberdeen). I remember the Harrogate exhibition deliveries: hard manual labour loading and unloading the heavy display stand panels for, I think, a Harlesden firm called Art Ideals. I wonder who you met in Harrogate: Bill Askey, Chick Fowle or Dave Morgan perhaps? It would be great to see more Meads photos if you have them. I will try to post the photos that I have.
Although I only spent two years at Meads it was a job that I will always consider to be the most enjoyable I have ever had. In those days all I needed was a normal driving licence and to be over twenty-one. One learned the ropes on the job. I remember the first time I was sent out on a flat, 4 wheeler to Albert dock. I had never roped and sheeted before and hadn’t a clue how to secure the remains of my load after delivering part of it. Fortunately John Mannion, one of my workmates who just happened to be there, taught me, parked up at the dock gate. Who uses rope these days? Names of Meads’ drivers that I can remember: Alf Bunce who had worked with Mr Mead just after the war when the business started; Bill Askey who showed me the route (over Hampstead Heath and down the Archway Road) to the docks; Dave Morgan; Eddy Kenny; Vic Harris; Bernie Coles; Alan Frost; Freddie Cook; Bill Webb who sadly died in the early seventies; John Evans; John Cassidy; Jock Bell; Jock Reid; Jock McAllister. No haulage company worth its salt was without a few Scottish drivers!! Oh, not to forget Rob (deputy manager), Joe, and Len Sweetman, who ran the maintenance side of the fleet, and of course the ladies in the office who organised our work with the various customers.
My parents were never happy about me driving for a living and persuaded me (applied pressure) to leave Meads and so I spent a few months as a lab-tech at Kodak. Then became a medical rep with Nicholas Laboratories. Moved North in 1972. Following redundancy in '74 I decided to return to driving but had to take a Class 1 course because the Act was in force by then. First with a driving agency and then the Milk Marketing Board (not good) as a tanker driver. My final driving job was from '77 to '79 as night man with Albert Hymas, mainly hauling limestone from a quarry at Grassington to Tilcon’s concrete depot at Bradford. Went on a government training course for a year to learn radio and tv engineering which led me to a twenty year career with BT. Have run my own IT business since my early retirement in '99.
I took the photo, on my previous post, with a Practica SLR that Jock McAllister sold me at Meads but 35mm film was expensive in those days. If only digital cameras had been invented I might have had a wonderful collection of images of Docklands and of the ships.
Oh, I also had a PSV licence and drove part time on the 98b bus route between Rayners Lane and Ruislip for Elms Coaches. Also part time PSV driving for Wallace Arnold of Leeds
Nostalgia, ain’t it grand!!!
Thank you for the reply Potter6. I am amazed that only six years before I started with Meads an HGV licence wasn’t needed and that they sent you out with a loaded flatbed without checking that you knew roping and sheeting. I remember only being allowed to drive a flatbed after I had been shown how to tie a dolly knot. Eric Thomas was keen that his drivers also tied fly sheets over the roped load rather than roping over the flysheets. It is largely gone now on the road except for a few trucks like steel coil carriers. Of your driver names I only recall Alf Bunce, Bill Askey and Dave Morgan although I was told that Jock Bell (Glaxo West Country run before me) died and lay in the mortuary for weeks because nobody claimed him. Sad. I realise how high driver turnover must have been. Other names from my time were Charlie Beasley (shop steward), Bill Aisles, Joe Alveranga, Gordon Palmer, Peter Lumsden, Dicky Nihill, John Fowle, Frank Furness and Bill Bedford. In the office with Eric were Ken Stribling, Ernie Bentley and John [surname?]. I can’t recall women in the office in 1972.
The route that I was shown to Millwall Docks was down the Harrow Road to Marylebone Road then along Limehouse Highway.
After transfer of the rump work to C&S I moved to British Telecom Materials at Colindale where the pay was unbelievably better. With a pension!!! Their Fodens were superb. But after two years with them I took the Civil Service exams and worked thirty years there, qualifying as a management accountant. Retired now I am tempted to buy a “truck experience” on private ground (usually disused airfields) to relive memories behind the big wheel.
Hi MarkP
Noticed you refer to Ken Stribling as being in the office at Old Meady. He used to be the goods-out manager at Mornys so did Mornys cease trading from Perivale?
Interesting that you also worked for BT. Supplies became centralised (Northallerton) and the local TECs shutdown toward the end of the eighties. Engineers were allowed to park vans at home rather than at depots. This allowed BT to flog off many redundant properties. A great shame because it destroyed the community spirit between engineers. We used to sign at the TECs each morning and could then discuss faults etc with each other and with the benefit of local knowledge. The training centres, Harrogate, Otley etc have also long gone.
Driver experience day sounds fun. I had a day on the Wensleydale Railway driving a DMU. Here in Harrogate we host the end of the annual Trans-Pennine Run when classic lorries and buses travel over the Pennines and park up on our Stray. Ropes and sheets still feature.
Hi Potter6
Thank you for the response. I didn’t know about Ken Stribling’s background and have no knowledge of Morny. There was another middle aged guy with Ken in the office: he was called Peter but I am not sure of his surname but it might have been Evans. He had a heart condition that meant that he was on Warfarin medication.
I remember tensions amongst engineers at the BT Colindale site where the trucking logistics operation shared the premises with engineers’ parking. I recall that the engineers were unhappy about what they perceived to be the deskilling of their role as the technology developed so that they were becoming replacers of hi tech boxes: screwdriver operators instead of more expert problem solvers. But materials employees only really encountered engineers in the (very good) canteen.
By the way I worked at Meads when their yard was behind Wembley Stadium in the Exhibition Estate. I think that they had moved there after Mead sold out to TDG.
Yes I am looking forward to a truck driving experience although I have been unable to find a retro truck experience for pensioners like me who want to relive their 70s/80s memories of my youth. I’d even pay for the chance to rope and sheet a load although not in the winter; I still remember the sting of salt soaked freezing wet ropes and sheets as stiff as metal!!