How many of us got into driving by following your dad into the industry ? I started as an apprentice HGV mechanic at A.One Transport , the firm my dad drove for . But they wouldn’t put me through collage so I got an apprenticeship at Tate Trucks a Ford dealership in Leeds. I ended up with my City and Guilds and moved about a bit ending up at Ford and Slater . This was my last mechanics job , the lure of the open road got me . I started at KWM Distribution for Keith Masterman on nationwide dedicated deliveries mainly bakeries and stayed 11 years until the firm went bust . I then did a bit of agency and eventually ended up at MST Toiletries again on nationwide deliveries to the pharmacy industry until a buyout that ended in redundancy 6 months later after 12 years . A couple of crap jobs later I gave up and retired . I did love my time on the road , but I would not like to think I was starting from scratch now .
me
Me too. I rode with him every chance I got in the school holidays in the early sixties when he drove for several different firms , and he rarely spoke to me again from 1982 until his death ten years later because I had gone from being a HGV fitter to driving and he considered that I had thrown my life away even though it was far more money driving than mending them. 
When I phoned him on a saturday and started to tell him where I had been or what new truck I had (rarely!) he always changed the subject straight away. Younger brother is a train driver and that was all he talked about. I tried to tell him that he had done the job for years in the fifties and sixties but his reply “We were drivers then, we roped and sheeted, lodged out, and all you do is drive a tipper (1980 Sed Ak 400) with POWER STEERING (he hated power steering with a passion, he even had a new Renault Savannah estate car and refused to have the power assistance option fitted!) so you are not, and never will be, a proper lorry driver”. End of conversation. 
I often wonder what he would have made of todays trucks? 
Pete.
me to 12yrs pld of to germany in my uncles lovely marathon middle east spec that was it hooked 
Me…
Although i was too young at the time to know what was going on my older brothers told me stories and explained where all the mysterious fruit/veg came from. also who that guy was that staggered in noisily now and again and fell sleep in the wrecked chair[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]
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Me in the 60s with my Dad, in Commers, Albions, BMCs and Bedfords.
Then later on at 17 in the late 70s, with a mate, 2 of us away a full week in a Bedford TK, me sleeping on the back under the sheet. 
Then with another mate in the lap of luxury a 400 SedAtk twin bunk sleeper.
Great nights out in the seedy parts of London, parked up at Aldgate roundabout, Bishopgate,.and Sheperds Bush, getting the tube down to Soho …ideal for a young impressionable lad, …or maybe not.
Got me hooked, but the job today compared to then is like comparing chocolate to ■■■■. 
Not sure who I followed ,my Dad and uncle are completely different I used to go with both of them ,I remember my uncles tacho switch had a T on it in tipex ,he’d have to put his glasses on to see it 
Me from the early sixties through to the early 70’s loving all the days I could get out with Dad on the road, I have been hooked on lorries ever since.
Grew up with lorries as my dad ran my firm before I took over ,but as a kid we were always out helping the business , at 16 I got a job at Brs Oxford as a yts lad ,later they took me on fulltime , again later after my apprentice against BRS wishes I kept applying for driving jobs in the depot ,after a lot of applying and swearing I got a bloody good job on wagon and drags and there it started .
One think I got No intrest at all in ,is driving a coach !!! I just cannot see why any one would want too !! oh forgot to say I get travel sickness in a coach or bus !!! true ! 
Yep, me too. Dad was and both my grandparents had their own haulage buisness’s. Dad wouldn’t work for either of them though
Opposite way with me, no family connection to haulage Although I often went out with dad’s mate who drove a tanker for Shell Mex and BP, that was my hook. Imagine the H&S gods allowing that nowadays!
My son followed me into the industry, but it’s just a job to him. He is not committed to the job the way I was. Regards Kev.
I grew up going with my old chap and his mates from the age of about six- and before that sat on mum’s lap in the passenger seat! When I left school all I wanted to do was make music & play with engines so I became a trainee spanner-chucker with Bristol Omnibus and joined a skiffle group.
As soon as I turned 21 I headed for the open road myself, intending to roam around the country for a few years before settling down to “something worthwhile” as my old chap said!
But the bug caught me, or maybe I just got stuck in a rut and, apart from a year working nights in a factory (oh, dear!) and working on my mate’s farm for a while after Oxford magistrates nabbed my licence for 6 months, I’ve been involved in road haulage all my working life. I have to say that, for a young, carefree lad, it was the best job in the world, but the last few years before I retired were purgatory. I wouldn’t advise any young lad to take it up these days. I reckon that, despite the primitive lorries, the handball and the heavy, wet sheets we had the best years out of the British transport industry.