John Buss drives for Fowler Welch at Paddock Wood.
cheers for that Mark glad hes in work. remember him as a nice bloke. cheers Mick
Yes Mick he’s been here years ever since the Henley days. Nice fella too.
Oh ok Mark give him my regards if you see him please.When we worked for stormonts he was based at hildenborough and me at woolwhich. tell him to get on here lol regards Mick/
Ok Mick will do, usually see him every now and again.
Mark R:
Oh yes. Roger Jenner is definatly still with us here at Teynham. I see him most days and yes Chris is right he is a really nice fella. I’ll always find time to say hello or give him a wave if i see him. I think he deals with our account customers up in the office. I cant imagine him as a lorry driver though, he’s far too polite and well spoken.
Also Chris, did’nt John Buss start on a 7.5 tonner. And Alex Humby says hello.
roger used to be an owner driver before he came to work for us at henley transport co ltd,one thing i will always remember about roger whilst he was on the road was the rapport he had with people at the delivery points it was second to none,tell him next time you see him ho owes me a pint!
john buss started on ford cargo ckj 21y and went on to class 1,alex humby he was originally driving the 6 wheeler seddon atkinson 301 insuliner b370 ykk,please be so kind when you see them next to say hello from me and also to any other of the ex henley transport lads.
i heard the other day that norman horsford isnt too good at the moment so i just hope everything works out for him
before we were thoroughly spoilt by jack with new offices and a nice great big yard the operations ran from hop pocket lane in paddock wood by the railway line,further on down down hop pocket lane there was access to the old scats site which jack henley purchased and helped park the sizeable fleet at paddock wood.
on the scats site was a very large concrete building which was used for storing grain shown below is the old building dwarfing on of the man artics.
the demolition firm dropped a clanger when they quoted for the demolition of this building as it took over an extra 5 weeks to demolish than they anticipated,but once this was done we ended up with a great lorry park with room,but it was still tight on saturdays!
Exit from the old yard alongside the railway line via the loading shed, at the wrong time of day, could sometimes be less than easy if there was a long queue of Rowntrees lorries parked in the road. Add on someone sheeting up outside and cars exiting the station carpark and it was worse.
hops were a major source of traffic for the company throughout the 60s,70s and 80s but tailing off towards the early 90s.
this would be a two fold job firstly collecting hops from farms and delivered into the hops marketing board (with whom the comapny had a great working relationship with) and secondly collection from the hops marketing board in paddock wood (there was also a smaller version of the hops marketing board in ledbury herefordshire,i beleive now an archive storage centre)for onward delivery to the brewers or the processors (to be made into pellets and also a liquid extract)
here shows akk 122t parked up in the old scats yard with a load on ex farm for delivery into the hops marketing board at paddock wood.
With Lowe and their depot being literally just up Transfesa Road from Henleys depot - was there any rivalry between Henley drivers and Lowe drivers ( who I guess were mainly TIR versus Henley being UK, so maybe no need for rivalry ? ) .
Did Jack Henley interact with the Lowe family, or did both just get on with their own business, just curious.
Ringrose:
With Lowe and their depot being literally just up Transfesa Road from Henleys depot - was there any rivalry between Henley drivers and Lowe drivers ( who I guess were mainly TIR versus Henley being UK, so maybe no need for rivalry ? ) .
Did Jack Henley interact with the Lowe family, or did both just get on with their own business, just curious.
certainly during my years from the early 80s through to when the company sold out to wrm i am not aware of any rivalry.
lowes got on with their naafi and international work and we got on with our fruit work,when lowes work started to dwindle down and they had spare capacity i did subcontract work to them.
there was also several occassions when lowes were sent a fax but they had no fax machine and they asked if we would receive the document from as they were still on telex.
i do beleive jack knew allan lowe fairly well out of work,hope this info helps
rear end view of an earlier post yesterday of erf b series akk 122t load ed with hops in the scats yard at paddock wood
lawrence2765:
rear end view of an earlier post yesterday of erf b series akk 122t load ed with hops in the scats yard at paddock wood0
Nice pics Chris -definitely a full load on there.As for Scats ,they used to have a few depots round our way and ran quite a few lorries- seems to have all gone now,just a few countrystores
regards Tim
Tim C:
lawrence2765:
rear end view of an earlier post yesterday of erf b series akk 122t load ed with hops in the scats yard at paddock wood0Nice pics Chris -definitely a full load on there.As for Scats ,they used to have a few depots round our way and ran quite a few lorries- seems to have all gone now,just a few countrystores
regards Tim
believe it or not tim but its not quite a full load,it definately wouldnt go any higher than 6 high.
to get more on the trailer when loading from the beginning the pockets of hops would be pushed slightly over the edge of the vehicle bed so it would leave enough space for pockets to be loaded running down the lengh of the trailer,this would be done again on the opposite side of the trailer on the next layer and so on,i will try and find a photograph that shows this,and dont forget these weighed about 70 to 80 kilos a piece and were loaded by hand!
No complaints from the Hop Board about running in unsheeted with snow and slush around then? Can’t see Jack being very happy if he had seen it. This must have been a VERY local collection.
Just having a sort-out and came across these, taken I think at Battersea Park on a brighton run in the '70s.
Bernard
lawrence2765:
rear end view of an earlier post yesterday of erf b series akk 122t load ed with hops in the scats yard at paddock wood0
The following unfortunate incident occurred on I think new years eve '74 or '75 or the day previous.
It had been a very quiet day at Goudhurst and there were several drivers occupied washing trailers - this seemed to be primarily a Goudhurst activity since Jack was about at 8am every day and always made sure that everyone had something to do - and that had to be what he wanted and not something dreamed up to look busy. I believe that if it was known that Jack was on his way in sufficient time, then there would be a round up at Paddock Wood of drivers and brooms etc would appear and a queue would develop for cab washing.
Charlie Leadbetter was one of the Mercury artic drivers and another ‘character’. Charlie had an appointment with a solicitor in Tonbridge or the Wells relating to some traffic misdemeanor, so he jumped in one of the workshop minivans to get there. He forgot however to let the traffic office know what was happening. Around about midday the phone went, the traffic office had a load for him, but of course there was no Charlie.
About 4 0’clock it emerged what had happened. Because all the other Mercury artics were still out, the job had been given to Derek Wells, who was not only one of the regular subbies, but Roy Hook’s brother in law. Derek had an orange Ford D series and a single tyred tandem.During the course of collecting the load, Derek had been in an accident in which someone had run into the back of his trailer and somehow managed to damage the jaws of the fifth wheel. The result was that his vehicle was unable to complete the job.
The offending vehicle?.. Charlie Leadbetter in the workshop minivan. Other than that he was unhurt, we disn’t hear any more about Charlie again.
