The introduction of any device like this turned drivers away. No longer were you free to do the job using your head and skill. I left. Jim.
There was a few Newcastle Hauliers IIRC Had them, Martin Cook Ltd Stocksfield, J.R Henderson Ltd Newburn, A.S Blake Ltd Heaton, Martin Cook had a Leyland Octupus with one fitted door the drivers door, The drivers used to leave the engine running with the door open when having a break so it looked like the wagon was on the move, I could never understand why the hauliers needed to have them because when a rush job came on the driver having worked his legal hours was expected to get on & do it regardless, Mind you having said this some drivers just hung about to get paid for work that they hadn’t done, I allways thought that a good days work was worth a good days pay, So the trueth of the matter is the gaffers didn’t trust good hard working men, Of course this is just my opinion, 
Regards Larry.
Absolutely right, Larry. One of my employers had a favourite saying, “You can’t do too much for a good boss”.
To which I always replied, “Quite possibly, but I’m still looking for him”.
mexifill:
I remember these well! When I worked for Beresford Transport in the mid-60s a Saturday morning job was to go around the various parked up lorries in the yard and remove the used cards from these recorders. The Beresford fleet then was predominantly ERF and Foden (with a few Dodge, Albion etc) and I can vividly recall jumping out of the cab of a Foden and spilling an armful of these cards on to the wet, muddy ground!
It’s over 50 years ago now but I still remember trying to gather up the spilled cards and cleaning them up. I don’t remember the reaction of the traffic office manager but I’m sure it wasn’t good.I don’t know how true it is but I seem to recall a driver telling me that you could reverse the vehicle up to a wall and keep the engine running and the vibration would mark the card as if the vehicle was still working. If this is true I guess it was common practice. Why drive when you can just let the lorry tick over and get paid.
Another way to trick the recorder,was to slacken an injector pipe enough to cause the cab to rock,this fooled the recorder into thinking you were on the move,so recorded the “movement” as being driven,devious lot us old time drivers!!!
David
I remember those from my days at Lamberts too. One story was of Ken “Chinner” who went home for his breakfast one day, so took devise off of cab back, and had his missus sit there shaking it while he had his brekkers! Seem to remember Friday afternoons thered be a few drivers in the messroom drinking coffee, smoking, and asking each other "where was I Monday?" as they filed out that weeks log sheets. Age of Innocence it seems now.
Retired Old ■■■■:
Absolutely right, Larry. One of my employers had a favourite saying, “You can’t do too much for a good boss”.
To which I always replied, “Quite possibly, but I’m still looking for him”.
the correct response to you can’t do too much for a good boss is you can’t do enough for a bad one
Hi Franglais… I vaguely remember Chinner… Was it Shiny Boots who always did the weekly run to Jockland?
Memories are very dim now but I do recall Alan Blatchford ( always wore a Tartan cap ) who took me under his wing as a 22 year old greenhorn…
I’d guess he was hitting 60 then so am sure he’s long gone…
rigsby:
Retired Old ■■■■:
Absolutely right, Larry. One of my employers had a favourite saying, “You can’t do too much for a good boss”.
To which I always replied, “Quite possibly, but I’m still looking for him”.the correct response to you can’t do too much for a good boss is you can’t do enough for a bad one
Sounds like you’ve come across a couple of them, too!
I’ve heard about the postcard system before, but I can’t remember who the company was. Remember that a letter or postcard could be posted in the bigger cities at any time before 8.00 pm and it was guaranteed to be delivered early next morning in the years before GPO sorting offices were automated and sorting was done manually. London had four postal deliveries daily and something posted in the morning was delivered the same day to another district of the city. the same applied in Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow etc.
Baldrick1953:
Hi Franglais… I vaguely remember Chinner… Was it Shiny Boots who always did the weekly run to Jockland?
Memories are very dim now but I do recall Alan Blatchford ( always wore a Tartan cap ) who took me under his wing as a 22 year old greenhorn…
I’d guess he was hitting 60 then so am sure he’s long gone…
Hi. Alan Blatchford was a real gentleman. I had a week “double manning” in his day cab Atki.! (Into digs at Jacks Hill and Noakes Cafe) A real eye opener after passing my test in a Ford “D Series” with a 33foot trl. Alans nephew Trevor was a driver there for a while too. One of Alans mates at that time would have been Brian (the Flying Carrot) Barrett. Vic Howard, on the 4-wheeers, was another lovely bloke. Flat cap, blue bibnbrace overalls, and always enough time to offer to help a young idiot like myself.
I seem to remember that John McFarland had a good share of the Scotch work, and John Winterburn too. A lot of bitumen went to Blantyre if I remember. I last saw John W. in Soton a few (10?) years ago. He said he and his brother Steve were doing something in the gold mines of west Africa! John McF. was doing the Wim Vos tanker work the last I heard, although thatll be over 10 yrs ago too.
Chinner was on the OCL contract with a 6speed ■■■■■■■ Atki, and went on to run a shop somewhere I think. And speaking of shops wasn`t it Big Bob Bailey who bought a “chippie”? Remember him as big, wide bloke with a booming voice. Sort of a larger than life pubb landlord.
Retired Old ■■■■:
Absolutely right, Larry. One of my employers had a favourite saying, “You can’t do too much for a good boss”.
To which I always replied, “Quite possibly, but I’m still looking for him”.
Ha ha I had a gaffer who used to say that. My reply was that you couldn’t do enough for a bad one. Became a running joke. I bumped into him in a petrol station, twenty years since we had seen each other and it was how he greeted me.
Hello PETE SMITH my owd man used to drive for HKR TRANSPORT in the 50s /60s and when he was on the Octopus after a while the gaffer fitted one of those “SPIES IN THE CAB” my owd man used a less subtle method of interfering with the workins of the machine than a boot to the back of the cab he just kept a wet rag hung over it to rust the insides up.
2nd Gen Driver:
Hello PETE SMITH my owd man used to drive for HKR TRANSPORT in the 50s /60s and when he was on the Octopus after a while the gaffer fitted one of those “SPIES IN THE CAB” my owd man used a less subtle method of interfering with the workins of the machine than a boot to the back of the cab he just kept a wet rag hung over it to rust the insides up.
Well I drove a Dodge with one of these Servis Recorder clocks as they were called in those days, They were hand wounded & ran for 9 days before a rewind, Now did the wet rag work 
, Regards Larry.
pete smith:
Baldrick1953:
I might have mentioned this elsewhere in another post… Fading memory cells and all thatI recall working for Lambert Brothers in Eastleigh in the early seventies. ( that’s 1970’s not 1870’s
)
The whole fleet, Atki and ERF , were fitted with a mechanical recorder on the rear cab interior. It worked on the motion of the vehicle. A thin scratched line for stationary and a thicker red line for movement.
We had to hand these in with our time sheets and log book records. There was no legal requirement for this , just a way of keeping tabs on the drivers and their booked hours for wages purposes.I never came across these things before or since…
Anyone else have input on these contraptionsAs I recall they were fairly easy to scribe your own lines on , but obviously I never did.
Hi Baldrick,
Servis recorder? did it look like this?
That’s the one but without the clock as mentioned in my post in the Commer thread. The one installed in my dads motor was painted a Gold colour.
To LAWRENCE DUNBAR . I don’t know if the wet rag worked or not I hardly saw my Dad as I would be in bed when he got home during the week he only got home tuesday night and friday night he would be home for saturday afternoon sunday morning and goes without saying I would be out and about with my mates doing what young boys did in those days that is not sitting for hours on end in a bedroom playing computer games.I digress going back to the rag It could have worked in one or two ways one it could have caused the clockwork to rust and two I could have given my owd man an inner feeling of wellbeing kowing that he was doing something to leg the gaffer up. Ta ra LARRY P.S my dads middle name was Lawrence coincidence or what. Before I go do you remember the first log books where you had a massive page divided into lots of little boxes and you wrote your start time time of arrival and departure at each drop you did and end of day.
Rugby Cement had them.
Lawrence Dunbar:
Then of course we had these log books,
There was another ‘unconventional’ use for log books namely, being clouted across the back of my head together with the words "get your head out of that B!“£$%Y mirror” when I used to go with my dad in his lorry as a youngster!
I’m sure I’ve worked several places which had these things fitted, but I can’t remember where, and I certainly don’t ever remember any boss or driver taking any notice of them. Perhaps when I started around 1962 they were on their way out.
I do remember starting at Ilkeston Haulage with Scammel Highwayman and coming back from Dunbarton Bond with whisky for Hull docks. The old bloke with another Highwayman was running with me and the first thing we did when we got in a transport cafe was cover the table with logsheets and try and remember which ones went where and with what dates.
I’m sure I’ve worked several places which had these things fitted, but I can’t remember where, and I certainly don’t ever remember any boss or driver taking any notice of them. Perhaps when I started around 1962 they were on their way out.
I do remember starting at Ilkeston Haulage with Scammel Highwayman and coming back from Dunbarton Bond with whisky for Hull docks. The old bloke with another Highwayman was running with me and the first thing we did when we got in a transport cafe was cover the table with logsheets and try and remember which ones went where and with what dates.