5thwheel:
badgerboy51:
Hi Mic,
Worked with all the drivers you mentioned.Arthur and Tommy Ringrose got caught big time with their hands in the till so to speak,flogging parts off of the backs of the trailers at night.
Benny W was in the traffic office also doubled as a driver trainer.George P was a Manager in charge of the Unipart
contract.Amos was a yard man as I remember and Ro Smith was top driver.This all being in 1978.I remember the Moss cafe at Carlisle being a den of iniquity,all sorts being sold at night at the rear part of the truck park,Unipart for car parts,meat from the Irish guys,it’s like mail order!
Aye , the old Poplars was the same , it was like a bring and buy sale after dark . Wife asked if I could get fresh fish off the Fleetwood Fish van , so I fetched a cod fillet home , the thing must have weighed 10 pounds , fed us and her sisters family .
David
hi… im interested if anyone knows information about the operations of the hauliers frederick ray and sons … leighton buzzard , beds
i was a driver there from may77…to christmas 79 when things looked particulaly dicey in the haulage industry,I was involved with a night trunk to the Brighouse depot delivering unipart stuff for BLMC @Cowley. for distribution to leyland agents in the north… i used a variety of trucks including the marathon day cab and a marathon sleeper… also there was a seddon atkinson sleeper and a couple of TM bedfords with detroits in … After i left i joined redland tiles in the same town and later …international work with Morrison freight in ipswich … whereupon i lost touch with all things leighton buzzard… i often wonder what happened to frederick rays especially after the involvement with forders transport… did they simply fold or did they get swallowed up in some ginormous conglomerate?
leighton lad
Hi, I was on contract for Unipart with BRS Midlands at that time, I used to run trailer loads of old exchange engines into Rays yard in Stanbridge rd., awful things to carry on a flat trailer, we also did a night trunk to Forders yard at Cullingworth, I don’t know what happened with Frederick Ray we sort of stopped going there overnight, I presumed they had lost the contract with BL.
Thanks trev… i also did a few runs with exchange engines to different places in london mostly… dirty filthy job always covered in oil that had seeped from upturned sumps
covered by rough old sheets simply roped to the flatbed… you mentioned forders @ cullingworth…wow memories there
every night for 18 months i did leighton to cullingworth via wooley edge services where a standard double sausage … eggs n chips made feelings better… on arrival at forders through those steel gates into a yard as uneven as can be imagined … stillages all over the place, and a reception room thick with grime . but always a cup of tea… or a orange juice at the pub on the way out just before the railway bridge … after which ever way you left cullingworth there was a hill to climb… then down into queensborough- Bradford ring onto the m62 heading for home
… often with a group of three or more in convoy though i could never keep up with the seddon atkis… As these runs were so regulaly timed reaching roughly the same spot on motorways… and driving standards being what they were in terms of timekeeping i got to know …by sight many drivers travelling in the opposite direction night after night … it was a constant finger on the headlight switch to flash the known oncoming motors
jacobs cream crackers tufnells …bees transport, harold wood of heckmonwike and the tanker boys mackintoshes… to name but a few… good old days when there were no phones ringing constantly asking where the f…k are u ?
have you loaded n disappeared up yer own exhaust pipe yet…or when do you expect to get there … and caustic replies of … well when this 20 mile tailback allows me too …its not the same any more
leighton lad
…sorry to hijack your thread guys but, whilst on the subject of Leighton Buzzard, what was the firm that ran the big pale blue motors, quite tidy (F10’s or Dafs?) did some work for Mars IIRC - think they had a depot up Wigan way as well
hi maybe you are referring to ECE transport of Spinney Pool hemel road in leighton buzzard they ran mostly f10s and scania 111, the owner one mr edwards sold up some time ago along with eddie and kevin pool leighton lad ,
Trev_H:
Hi, I was on contract for Unipart with BRS Midlands at that time, I used to run trailer loads of old exchange engines into Rays yard in Stanbridge rd., awful things to carry on a flat trailer, we also did a night trunk to Forders yard at Cullingworth, I don’t know what happened with Frederick Ray we sort of stopped going there overnight, I presumed they had lost the contract with BL.
Was that 35a Stanbridge road, Peter Roffes yard ?
Can’t be certain, but I think Frederick Ray’s were a part of the Dawson group wern’t they 
Ray’s of Bedford definately were and I always thought they were the same firm 
Trev.
Yes Rays were tied in with Dawsonfreight based near the Turnpike? pub just south of Bedford. Got a lift back to my lorry after a dodgy night out in their first F88. What a revelation after my S39 Foden . Didnt they do a lot of bricks out of Stewartby like all the local hauliers? If I remember rightly they ran quite a few A series ERFs
hi thanks for the input about the origins of frederick ray
im not at all sure about the link with dawson freight … also a leighton buzzard firm… i know of Rays of Bedford using a white livery with a similarity to dawson fargo of the 60s …but …whether the rays in bedford and the rays in leighton buzzard were of the same management i wouldnt know
except that during my 2 years with rays in leighton i never once had dealings with rays in bedford… maybe i was unlucky … or lucky whichever the case may be…In terms of work type undertaken nearly all of frederick rays work in leighton was related to the motor industry…, wether it be kd trucks, axles, and body parts from Vauxhall, and Bedford,or unipart stuff from BMC, in Cowley…or rather nightly trunks to cullingworth forders or to appleton thorne near Warrington… or to Tufnells in Sheffield… the only change in routine during those years was the frequency of fitter changes in the workshops
i think there was a certain hostility between the foreman fitter and his underlings to the point most weekends where just before p45s were collected an exchange of finger signs… expressed sentiments in both directions… the foreman had a habit of ruffling feathers
mine included with the oft heard shout
stop ■■■…ing yo yo ing that throttle… leighton lad
Think they ran Bedford TM’s on the Vauxhall job didn’t they ? We ran big j’s in Unipart colours, 180 gardners in them, used to give them Aberdeen overdrive down the 62 from Bradford just to try and get a bit of speed from them. 
Rays marathons would leave us for dead on the up hill climbs !
hi trev … love the term aberdeen o verdrive , presuming you mean knockin it out of cog
? bit lary if the power steering goes for a .burton … did you have the 16ft high trailers for double stack stillages
… bit of a bugger in a high wind
curtain tie back was a nightmare
…leighton lad
leighton lad:
hi maybe you are referring to ECE transport of Spinney Pool hemel road in leighton buzzard they ran mostly f10s and scania 111, the owner one mr edwards sold up some time ago along with eddie and kevin pool leighton lad ,
ECE - that’s the one. They used to back load us from around N London area (usually down back streets and old warehouses) a bit before red zone low emission nonsense)
couple of pics to refresh the memory of Ray’s livery
copyright pic; Peter Davies
Rays - Dawsons connection? This one parked outside Rays depot in Arkwright Road Bedford (just off Cardington Road).
copyright pic; Mike Tebbutt
Nice one MuckaAsh Thanks for sharing em 
An oldie and one from Bubbs.Who else? 1/3rd of the way down the page.
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=35749&hilit=scrapbook+memories&start=4080
geez memories abound… where did those pics come from ?
ive searched forever for images like that. thanks a lot for posting them
cliff and bernie would be thrilled to see them … the trucks pictured are later than those i was involved with although the unipart colour scheme is identical… my marathon UEH556T had the unipart logo missing from the offside door after a side swipe from a german registered Merc on the A1 near Wetherby close to christmas eve 1978… another excuse for the leighton chief fitter to have a apoplectic fit… my mate griff drove a seddon atkialso of t reg vintage but it was impossible to keep up with it on night trunk
griff always got back into the yard before 2am and was derved and washed before we left the M1 at stewartby… a lot of drivers dismissed the Marathon as a poor puller and uncomfortable to drive
apart from it being a bit light on the front end in snow or ice ,i found it a good motor… that was untill my days doing delivery runs on f88s and f10s for dawson rentals @ the weekends
geez as if i didnt have enough during the week … but two young kids kinda prompted extra hours behind the wheel
leighton lad
Glad you’re enjoying the photos Leighton Lad. Here’s a few more to evoke the old memories…
All pictures copyright Peter J Davies.
Might be a bit old for you Leighton Lad, but here’s another one
As you can see on the door, there is a connection with ‘Rays of Bedford’ therefore the link with the Dawson group
Trev.
thanks lemonmouth
And you are right… the erf is before my time but really interesting nonethe less… its been fascinating to relive memories through these photos
even just the livery is evocative… one day i will get a photo of a specific truck that i spent some time on ,Marathon reg…RUD443T… It was also interesting to note the confirmation that Rays of Leighton Buzzard were directly linked with Dawson Frieght… having worked for both i was never privy to that fact… funny how some things illude you…leighton lad
btw i have pics of working time redland seddon atkis… and a shot of maxidyne engined… mack 6x4 in pentus browns yard … just before departure to morroco. taken in 1980…if anyone interested…