I went down to the London depot to repair a Ford traider van. The diff had gone so the manager Joe DaCosta said take his car ( a new 2tone Cresta ) to the Ford agents in The Mile End Road to get one. The diff was put in the boot with a crane, on the way back, going round a corner the dif rold over, and put a nasty bash in the rear quarter, i thought it had come through the side.Joe also had The White Swan in Mansell St. just down from Tony’s ( the Peacock ) where we used to stay. Ted Castle, John Henrys uncle also worked in the office, he came by train every day from Bournmouth. I repaired the motor then me and the local driver loaded it from the local motor. I set off home about 6 but 1/2 way home the water pump went,i had to stop at every filling sation on the A1 to fill it up. Another late night.
Here is another cutting to go with the ones you posted up on page 16. This one is from the free paper “Inform” published by Sedgefield District Council in September 2006.
those old ford traders could often be a pain in the neck.
kenny, do you remember the one which had the box body taken off and made into a flat, a very short
flat, about 16ft i think. i drove this motor for a while and although it used to fly it was a bloody pain,
at one time they changed the gear box and put in a 6 speed, great, but!! it used to drop out of 6th
gear all the time, my arm was always aching trying to keep it in gear, and the brakes were non existant
when loaded.
i recall it once threw a con-rod out of the side of the block and i was hoping that it would be the
end of the old trader but they found a replacement engine somewhere and i was back on the road in a
couple of days
I always thought that the Traders were more reliable than the D series, But they were a poor design for the driver. Your legs were straight out in front of you and the steering wheel was too high.
Bill
In 1966 a driver called Jimmy Parsley from Wheatley Hill delivering in Newcastle with 906CUP a 4wheel Ati flat. The motor went out of control down a steep hill called Atkinson Road straight across Scotswood Road at the bottom and through a thick high wall and onto the railway tracks Jimmy was killed instantly. Nobody knows the cause,it was a long straight hill with old empty houses and wast ground at each side but no attempt was made to turn off.The motor was checked by the traffic examiners. I had been with Jimmy to Smart & Browns for dinner just before he went out.I went to his funeral at Westcornforth most of Dents were there including John Henry. It was a sad day for me i could not stop for a drink, i had to go straight back to Thornley to my grandfathers funeral.
That must have been a very sad day for you Kenny.
I remember not long after joining dents in 1968, I had an Atki 4 wheeler, I was driving down through Gateshead on my way to Tyne dock when the brakes failed, they were vacuum brakes, I did manage to come to a halt after going through a red light using the ratchet brake, but it took awhile, luckily it was fairly quiet. After calming down and checking around the motor I found a large vacuum pipe was dragging on the ground, everything was fine after slotting it back and tightening the jubilee clip. nasty time and it was a great relief when vacuum brakes were finally done away with.
beano111:
That must have been a very sad day for you Kenny.
I remember not long after joining dents in 1968, I had an Atki 4 wheeler, I was driving down through Gateshead on my way to Tyne dock when the brakes failed, they were vacuum brakes, I did manage to come to a halt after going through a red light using the ratchet brake, but it took awhile, luckily it was fairly quiet. After calming down and checking around the motor I found a large vacuum pipe was dragging on the ground, everything was fine after slotting it back and tightening the jubilee clip. nasty time and it was a great relief when vacuum brakes were finally done away with.
Hi Beano that must have been 240BUP it was the only 4wheel Atki with vac brakes.
Regards Ken
Been pointing the front of my house with Dad at the weekend, and we got talking about Sutherland’s tea warehouse at West Wratting, Cambridgeshire. You may remember when the police questioned all of Dents drivers after a load of tea had gone missing and they were trying to collect evidence against the brothers who owned the warehouse.
Dad remembers them all as a good bunch and the brothers would always tip the driver £20 or buy them a takeaway for helping to load or if they held the driver up due to their load not being ready.
One afternoon, Dad, Rolly and Stevie Oliver had just loaded there. Sutherlands were always happy for drivers to park up on site for the night. As their driving time was up and wanting to get fed and watered, Rolly dropped off his trailer and Dad and Stevie piled into Rolly’s motor and off they went to the pub in West Wratting village. When they got into the pub, Stevie said that he could do with a wash before he had his tea. Rolly, jokingly said to Stevie to go and see the landlady and she would give him a bucket of water to get washed in. So, not realising that Rolly was joking, off went Stevie and asked the landlady who was nearby for a bucket of water. The landlady asked Stevie what he wanted the bucket of water for and when he said to have a wash, she gave him the strangest of looks and replied “why don’t you just use the gents, there’s sinks with hot and cold running water in there!”…………….Stevie fell for Rolly’s wind up hook, line and sinker! Not surprisingly Dad and Rolly were ill with laughing!!! After all these years Dad still thinks it one of the most hilarious things he witnesses while he worked at Dents.
Apparently the old RAF buildings that the Sutherlands used for the tea warehouse were supposed to be haunted. Dale Harrison would never overnight there. One late afternoon, after he had been loaded and everyone had gone home, he was that keen to get away from the place that he quickly sheeted the load over, drove to a layby near Cherry Hinton to park up for the night then roped up.
West Wratting! What a place! I spent many a day there waiting to be loaded.It was OK after they moved from Stradishall, but it all went downhill a few months after that. Sometimes It took all day to get loaded, they would work until it was dark. Without going into too much detail, any of the Dents drivers who loaded there would know why.There were rumours about the ghosts of Airman running about, but I never heard or saw anything. You were right about Dale Harrison, Darren, he never would stay there overnight.I never got any money from them, but I did get plenty free meals from the Cafe in Haverhill. I remember waking up one morning about 5-30 with Ice on the inside of the windows, (no night heaters then) and I could hear loud noises out side. I opened the curtains and there was Roly, stripped to the waist, getting washed in a dish of cold water.
Happy days! By the way Darren it was the Sullivan Brothers who owned it, Sorry to correct you.
Old Bill
No problem with the correction, I must have misheard. When you mention the free meals, one of
the brothers once loaned Dad his Jag to go and get a Chinese for everyone including himself for his trouble.
any money or free meals were really only a pittance compared to the wages and time the drivers
lost while waiting to load, i think we got 3 and a half hours to load rope and sheet and at west wratting
6 or 8 hours or even longer waiting around was fairly common.
the spooks on the airfield were well known but i stopped overnight several times and they didnt
come out to see me , this place was out in the sticks and when they locked up on a night and put
the lights out it was DARK, D-A-R-K there was no street lights or anything for miles around
so it was just BLACK, on the bright side the local pubs were ok and the locals friendly
They were happy days, but at the end if the day I was a passenger for a few weeks of the year during the school hols and I did’nt have the day-to-day hassle that you lads did. Have some good memories and learnt how to find my way around the country without having to use a sat nav…
Alan, tell me if I am wrong but I can’t remember any outside lighting at those warehouses and we often had to sheet up in complete darkness.
I am sure that they had no running water there.
There was a poor kid who used to make the tea for everyone, I think that he was called Robin. I seem to remember that all the water was brought in Plastic Drums and no one ever seemed to wash the cups. On reflection,it’s a wonder we all weren’t poisoned.However it is still good to look back on.
Old Bill
definitely no outside lights, no running water so no toilets, no washed cups, danger of foot and mouth
i often dropped the trailer and used the headlights on the unit to rope and sheet, just keep moving the
motor, i have on occasion sheeted and travelled to six mile bottom pub and roped there.
if you needed the toilet badly you could have been in bother, again drop the unit and go elsewhere
certainly would not have got away with half the things that went off in there today
Alan you were right about us losing money there; I remember getting there one wednesday tea time and Freddie Tucker was just finishing roping up. He had unloaded somewhere near there and ran into West Wratting on Monday evening. On times like that, Jim Thompson would only pay 8 hours local time. Of all the places where we loaded tea, that was definately the worst.
Old Bill
, this place was out in the sticks and when they locked up on a night and put
there was no street lights or anything for miles around