I woke up and made a cup of coffee, then walked out of the door, a 2 minute walk across the road and through the gates, passing the time of day with a couple of mechanics in the workshop. I then climb the steps into a warehouse and wander over to the traffic office. My name is next to a hand written ticket that says Lincoln 2 and a registration number.
As I look through the hatch I clock on, it is about 7.50 so I grab my notes which are clipped onto a small board. On the running sheet, there are 74 tickets listed and each ticket is on the board in the correct order. As i walk back down the warehouse I find the vehicle and have a quick look in the back, 3 broadloom carpets, a couple of bikes in boxes and 3 pallets. The rest of the boxvan is loaded with parcels and sacks of every size. I throw in a sack truck and walk back down the steps.
I check the oil and throw my bag in the cab, the old TK Bedford was fuelled up last night. I fill in my logbook and check the first 5 or 6 tickets. After pulling off the bank and closing the tailgate I head off towards the M62. My mate lives just up the road from my depot and always complains about 35 TK Bedfords all hitting 3rd gear right outside his bedroom window. No sympathy from me, he should be out of bed for 8am.
After about 75 minutes I am turning off the M180 onto the A161 with my first drops at Belton, Epworth and Haxey. These were all regulars, with knitting wool, tractor spares and pens and paper for a sales rep. The stationary took care of 3 delivery dockets. My next drop was John Brash at Gainsborough where i unloaded the 3 pallets, this made the job much easier as I could work round the load now. I decided it would be easier to go straight up to Corringham & Heapham Road industrial estates. Worley Wallcoverings, Cossington Commercials. Jackson Shipley etc. There were some big companies up here who often took more than one delivery/ticket. It was possible to get rid of 20 drops in 30 minutes.
Because of the carpets I opted to do this area first and I now had room to get to the front of the box to untie them. The broadlooms could weigh about 200kg and there is a trick to handling them, I would collar a couple of lads out of the shop and we would slide the carpets back. When we could get either side of them, two of us linked hands and lifted whilst walking backwards, the third member of the team would place a special trolley in the centre, that way one man could take the carpet inside, we then had to assist each other and put them in a stack, very few places had a boom… Now the easy bit started, 20 or 30 boxes to 10 or so shops, sometimes I could leave the lorry in one place and deliver them by sack truck, after a few months you had the lay of the shops and who to talk to to get a quick signature but as most were regular deliveries they came to recognise the drivers.
After another couple of deliveries on the outskirts of Gainsborough I would head out to Torksey and Saxilby before heading into Skellingthorpe and the fertiliser works. Doddington road and Eagle next before coming into North Hykeham. I would backtrack along Tritton Road to Butterball, Bookers and Dixon Street. I did part of the strangely numbered High Street before lunch and tried to make the layby near Cross o cliff hill. I used to always meet up with a Wilkinson and Rainbows transport driver here and we would share tails about the birds who worked in the shops, occasionally we could swap parcels although this wasn’t really allowed but if someone had one lone parcel for somewhere way out, they would let us deliver it and sign the ticket themselves.
Lunch hour over and it was time to ring in, it went something like this. “Hello Lincoln 2,” Hiya Malc. What have you? “22 tickets and two returns.” OK you have your normal 7 collections and a box to collect from Metheringham Cycles. I had 2 heavy drops left, one was a Croda paint delivery on Brant road and the other was a pallet of plastic padding for North Hykeham. These were both private houses and both were bloody awkward customers, one thrived on being grumpy and the other just made life difficult by complaining to PP about anything from leaving the garden gate open or stacking the boxes the wrong way round in the garage 
I would then head off up the hill towards St Georges Hospital, Cartwrights and Lincolnshire Roadcar before doing RAF Waddington. This could be a challenge if there was an exercise or an alert on as they would use my truck as a target for the Vulcan Bombers 
From here I would head off out to the larger farms and airfields that were scattered through Lincolnshire and my furthest outpost was probably Metheringham. I had delivered 74 tickets which may have consisted of 60 drops, done 3 return collections and now went off to my regular customers. GF Castings, Lincat, Lintek, Saurer and Clayton Dewandre. The last two were up Monks road, Battle Hayward and Bower and Eminox at Gainsborough. From there it was a steady ride back to the depot to arrive about 5pm.
After fuelling up the yard shunter would be pulling empty vans off the bank and you got on where you could, as soon as the truck was on the bank, the roller shutter would go up and you felt movement in the back, as you took your clipboard back to the traffic office a supervisor would normally collar us and ask if we could give them a couple of hours on the bank. This suited me as the 10 hours per week overtime came in handy. It just involved emptying the vans into the trunks or for next day delivery for our own depot deliveries. It really was a great job and gave me the experience I needed when I was young. I got my class three licence with United Carriers and spent several happy years there.
I could do a diary of a night trunk, but it was drive for 3 hours, sleep for 2 hours and drive home again after swapping the drop bodies. Eventually I swapped the sleeping for studying for my CPC whilst being paid
What I wouldn’t give to go back to 1976
