I just wanted to say thanks to all those who posted photos of the Henley trucks, it was good to see them again, I worked for Henley Transport for about fifteen years, manager was named Trevor when I started at Ensor mill depot, then Fred Riley, that was before we moved into the new building further up Queensway. I drove a Seddon Atkinson sleeper in the early years, DKL 716T, and then ERFs and MANs, I loved the job, I was there up to WRM takover, I remeber quite a few of the drivers from Rochdale and Kent. Iāll try and find some photos if anyone is still interested, or if I can help with info, just let me know, itāll be good to hear from someone from the past, oh, I also worked at Blue Dart and Wilkisons transport and a couple of other companies.
hello mike,
i would like to know your surname as i hopefully know you and hopefully we both remember each other and may have even possibly met.
i am chris lawrence and i was the traffic manager at paddock wood i worked there from the mid 80s through to the 1994 when jack sold out to wrm (what a shower)
rochdale men i can remember very well are george parkinson,alan mcminn,rod saunders and obviously ken moran (we spent many a night in the hop pocket drinking after hours)and also mick keegan and dave ward
night trunkers i recall are mick marland and ken moulton and barry potter,dont really remember any other day shunters other than big derek bushell (and he was big but a good bloke whenever i spoke to him)
i remember fred well (who didnt for their own reasons) and also his under study john flynn.
it was a shame jack had no one to pass the business onto but when he sold out he had made a terriffic fortune over the years,but could see the writing on the wall as most of our work in the end was supermarket type work and the back haul brigade had started.
i have over 320 photos of henley motors a lot i cant post as i dont want to upset the original photographers but those i can post i dont know how to!
good luck chris lawrence
Heres one to be getting on withā¦
And anotherā¦
The term āGentleman Farmerā is often used to describe certain well-heeled members of the farming fraternity. Jack Henley always reminded me of a āGentleman Haulierā, if there is such a person. I remember once when we both judging at the CVRTC Gaydon Show on a beautiful Sunday morning Jack had driven up from Kent in his vintage four and a half litre Bentley. Talk about arriving in style! Does anyone know If Lofty, who used to attend shows with Jackās preserved lorries, is still around?
Glad to see this thread crop up again.
Does anybody know if this is the same company that used to move Tree Bark / Peelings for a company called Melcourt Industries? They used āwalking-floorā type trailers to eject the load as opposed to tippers.
Thanks, Andrew.
jack henley the gentleman farmer he is a very larger than life character when i ran the traffic office at paddock wood the company had nearly 70 lorries spread around the depots,i also think jack had just as many cars (lol) he was also famed for his large car collection at one time he owned 9 aston martins from the hunter collection.
to the best of my knowledge lofty (brian gibson) is still around but he found taking the 6 wheeler erf ema 876 to the rallies a bit too much so jack decided to sell her.
lofty was the longest serving employee of henley transport co ltd,i am almost certain he was there at the start in the late 50s and he was definately there in the end in the trailer workshop in the mid 90s
I met Jack Henley on a number of occaisions via our involvement with WRM,Jack had a very ālow opinionā of the 3 of them,thought they were a ā ā ā ā ā ā ā shower !! I recall one evening after weād had an excellent dinner, Jack informed me that he owned one half of Kent and his wife owned the other half !!! No mention of Roy Hook on the thread,why ? Cheers Bewick.
good evening bewick,
i was the first person at paddock wood to realise that jack was selling out after the second visit by the wrm trio,when jack showed them round the set up at paddock wood you could tell he wasnt as full of himself with pride for the business he had built up over the years.
it was on the second visit by wrm the one with dark hair and the moustache came across a bit too smarmy,i think thats enough about wrm as henley transport co ltd was a very good firm until they screwed it up.
moving on to roy hook, he was a very good front man for the company and must have been so thick skinned to put up with all jacks ranting & raving.
roy and jack were a brilliant combination,roys forte being looking after the customers whilst knowing everything about the operation and making everything work right,jacks business sense was second to none it was often said he had the midas touch.one of roys favourite saying was i make the money and jack gets the easy job of spending it!
roy was my immediate guvnor for whom i had and still have a lot of respect for he gave me a good chance years ago and i hope to say it paid off,by the age of 25 i was made traffic manager at paddock wood looking after over 50 vehicles based in kent,so if you ever read this roy thanks very much for your faith (chris lawrence)
roy was straight as a die if you cocked up he would tell you where you went wrong,but if you done it again to got into trouble.i found him a good man to work for even if things maybe went a bit sour to the end.
years ago i remember our largest customer mack & edwards (fruit importers) asked us to round trips out to spain,roy no more went and done one of the first trips to work it how long it would take and how much to pay the drivers on trip money,it was a good job but always came up when you were too busy!
Thanks for that info Chris,very interesting !! Bewick.
lawrence2765:
hello mike,rochdale men i can remember very well are george parkinson,alan mcminn,rod saunders and obviously ken moran (we spent many a night in the hop pocket drinking after hours)and also mick keegan and dave ward
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Rod Saunders has just moved to the Shetlands according to my brother - he and Rod have been friends since he was 5 - they met at primary school and discovered they both share the same birthday so Rod was 60 in March. Rod was from East Peckham but moved to Rochdale probably late 70ā early 80ās?
good evening all,
interesting news about rod saunders he seems to be moving farther away i wonder how far he will end up.
rod originally started out as a driver at paddock wood and transferred to the rochdale depot,he was allocated the first new man tractor unit (22.321 model) to be based at rochdale reg no c390 vdo.
i can remember when he came down to kent and was on a night out he would travel to tonbridge on the train and stay with his mother,as i would end up catching the same train into work in the morning as rod,a very nice bloke indeed.
The story goes that my brother came home from his first day at primary school talking about the boy in his class who had the same birthday as him - mum though bless kid probably doesnāt know his birthday and just copied my brother, but Keith and Rod have been friends ever since - after the Shetlands how much further north can he go ā ā
its nice to see a bit more interest in the henley transport thread from people,i know the thread will never ever catch up with bewicks (which is always an enjoyable read,well done dennis!).
it would be nice to see a few more photos on it so if anyone has any please upload even if they dont know anything of henley transport clo ltd,or the vehicle or even the driver as i am pretty confident i can help with the infomation side.
i have over 320 henley transport photos myself but i have only taken a handful myself,so those taken by others i will not post on the site as its not the right thing to do (that is unless i ever get permission from the original photographers for which i would be very grateful)
i dont know how to post photos so if someone can advise me i would be very grateful,as it can only make the thread more interesting!
lawrence2765:
its nice to see a bit more interest in the henley transport thread from people,i know the thread will never ever catch up with bewicks (which is always an enjoyable read,well done dennis!).
it would be nice to see a few more photos on it so if anyone has any please upload even if they dont know anything of henley transport clo ltd,or the vehicle or even the driver as i am pretty confident i can help with the infomation side.
i have over 320 henley transport photos myself but i have only taken a handful myself,so those taken by others i will not post on the site as its not the right thing to do (that is unless i ever get permission from the original photographers for which i would be very grateful)
i dont know how to post photos so if someone can advise me i would be very grateful,as it can only make the thread more interesting!
Thanks for the kind comments about my old firm Lawrence! Look, even I learned how to post photos onto the site and if I can manage it,being a fully paid up member of the āstoneageā club CIU affiliated !!!,Iām sure you will be able to overcome the small technical hurdles.There is a post on here specifically explaining how to post photos plus there are some lads on here that would gladly assist you,Iām sure.Anyway we canāt allow photos of the great Henley Transport Co to lie unseen can we !! and as for your reluctance to post photos taking be other people,well as long as they are not out of some media publication I shouldnāt think for a moment that the lads who shot them would mind !! I know if someone was sat on a pile of Bewick photos ( and I believe there is !!) I would welcome their posting on the site,more the merrier I say,so come on Lawrence stop āditheringā and get them posted !!! Cheers Dennis.
good afternoon dennis,
dithering? working for jack in the office we never i beleive dithered so i will have to look that up in the dictionary as to what it means! lol.jack always said in his best poshest voice yes i can talk to someone for 30 seconds and tell if they are switched on or not.
i will get in touch with jack,as i do write to him from time to time and see if i can get some real oldies of the lorries as the firm as it started out in 1959.
dennis do i pass on your best wishes to him?
good luck chris lawrence
Hereās a couple of pics Lawrence-hopefully this thread will run for a while,I remember seeing the Henley lorries around the Guildford area-always distinctive with the white bump bars.
First is a cutting-1973 Atkinson with platform body by Ellis& sons I believe
Second a pic Iāve had for some years-photographer unknown-you probably know who the chaps in the photo are.
i most certainly do know them the one in front is robert golding who was the company paint spayer(roberts brother peter ran the workshops at spelmonden (goudhurst) and the other man is lofty (brian gibson) who was one of the very first employees of the company if not the first.
the atkinson defender mll 570l was driven by the late bryan goldsmith from tonbridge.
at one stage there were 3 drivers who all lived within 30 yards of each other bryan goldsmith,terry barden and my father brian lawrence whom all lived in shipbourne road in tonbridge,it was quite often late in the afternoon / early evening you would see 3 henley vehicles parked up in cage green road in tonbridge (just off shipbourne road) those being bryans atkinson defender mll570l,terry bardens seddon atkinson 400 pko 398r and my dads atkinson borderer jyx 550k (believed to be the 1st atkinson borderer in kent with the 240 gardner engine) all loaded up that afernoon drivers gone home for tea before setting off for deliveries to the wholesale markets overnight
lawrence2765:
good afternoon dennis,
dithering? working for jack in the office we never i beleive dithered so i will have to look that up in the dictionary as to what it means! lol.jack always said in his best poshest voice yes i can talk to someone for 30 seconds and tell if they are switched on or not.
i will get in touch with jack,as i do write to him from time to time and see if i can get some real oldies of the lorries as the firm as it started out in 1959.
dennis do i pass on your best wishes to him?
good luck chris lawrence
Hiya Chris,Of course,pass on my kindest regards to Jack and remind him,IIRC,itās his turn to buy the drinks !! Cheers,Dennis.
mow 302y seddon atkinson 401 with the gardner 300 engine,it originally came home as a 4 x 2 tractor unit but was converted to 6 x 2 (i think by primrose possibly).
it was ran along with an erf c series also with the same gardner engine(it also came home as a 4x2 but was converted by erf at sandbach as the prototype for the erf c series 6 x 2 (they kindly gave it back after testing it for 6 months or so) and also an man a130 rkr all 3 vehicles were pitche against each other to see which was the best for the newly introduced 38 tonnes weight limit,man proved to be the better in the end.
the photograph was taken outside mack and edwards premesis in church road paddock wood.
mack and edwards then later known as mack multiples were the largest produce importer in the country and henley transports main customer
