Well spotted Jim, bloody cheek aye. 
posted these a time back , had the odd trip out to holyhead , fishguard and dover ! , thanks to joe peddie for the pics .
Hello pdw. Can remember the volvos well. They used to reverse onto the Stena Normandy every night in Southampton to restock it. I did my school ‘work experience’ at Stena Sealink for two weeks in the freight office when Chris Lush (rip) was the freight manager there. He was a very kind and generous man. His son also worked there (matt) who was given the nickname of ‘Bart’ as he used to use so much hair gel, he looked like Bart Simpson. Hard to believe that route finished sixteen years ago, happy memories!!
Now then Pat your gunna have to put your thinkin cap on for to tell us who this is,i cant remember his name but we were loading at Ancenis i think the place was called with Manitou loaders,he was a nice fella who pulled for Jameson out of Le Havre.This aint bin on before just dug it out the bottom of the draw,cheers Buzzzer
Dunno if Ive put this on before or not,when looking through some photos just thought it was a beautiful setting,taken just outside Coimbra (P). on the old N1
hi shady.rag ness trasport your best mate
Buzzer:
Now then Pat your gunna have to put your thinkin cap on for to tell us who this is,i cant remember his name but we were loading at Ancenis i think the place was called with Manitou loaders,he was a nice fella who pulled for Jameson out of Le Havre.This aint bin on before just dug it out the bottom of the draw,cheers Buzzzer
Hi John just a little bit before my time I think!
Could this be the same truck
We used to tip those Manitou loads at Verwood though!
I think though I may be wrong I never did a trip for Jameson’s myself although Tutty and Jimmer did!
My first trip to Italy was in 1979 for Sea Route Ferry in a ‘K’ reg 110
After that I had the late Chris Goater do a few trips for Sea Route in WHJ183S
Regards Pat
Hi Shady, i was weekended once near Coimbra, in a small town called Lousa, there was a music festival on, and Tony Hadley and his drummer were playing a gig outside,the rains came in so the outside concert was going to be in the town hall but before that the band asked if they pull the trailer sheet off Bob Garnett`s trailer to make a temporary roof on the stage, told them the sheet is a ton or more and they did not seem that keen on putting it back on the trailer again.
This was the year of the Expo in Lisbon and the band played there later along with Oasis.Tony was a down to earth bloke with ripped jeans, we had a few beers, at that time the court case with Gary Kemp about royalty payments was about to happen or did happen so i did enquire about the rest of the band members.
I asked about all the years of the fame, he said it was great at the beginning but the end it was not so good, before they were famous they dressed as airline pilots to pull the birds.
Was it my imagination, or did it all take ALL day to get to Porto to Lisbon on the National one, or vice versa, some great restaurants though, and ladies sat in the hedges for some reason???From students to Grannies.
By the way John Yates from PSL dies on 26/11/12, we called him long pockets John, too tight to buy the coffees, white Erf on Brintons.
Here is a Davies sandwich curtisy of Andrew i was going to say a thorn between two roses but the filling aint bad either
Hi all Hi Shady nice pic that ! Ain’t seen you at Dockgate lately ■■ You still got the Batt Bike ■■?
Regards Jimski
hi all ,i will put you all out your misery the picture is nick agate. i met him last in greece he met and married a butiful girl from athins. lucky guy
Hiya Jimski: Dont get the bike out on crap weather like were having,so could be some time before im up there again… 
shady:
Hiya Jimski: Dont get the bike out on crap weather like were having,so could be some time before im up there again…
Hi Shady yeah mines tucked up now might get it out Boxing day take a wonder over Romsey to the car/bike show
R Jimmer
Hi all back on page two so where is this ,answers on a postcard. I dont know so i hope someone does.cheers Buzzer
Jimski:
shady:
Hiya Jimski: Dont get the bike out on crap weather like were having,so could be some time before im up there again…Hi Shady yeah mines tucked up now might get it out Boxing day take a wonder over Romsey to the car/bike show
R Jimmer
if its like it was last year you.ll need to get there for 8am. it was manic, unless it gets marshalled better i could see it being stopped sadly.
Buzzer:
Hi all back on page two so where is this ,answers on a postcard. I dont know so i hope someone does.cheers Buzzer
Evening sir, I believe this is the new bridge into sheerness been over a few times collecting fruit a few years back
marrinersnr/jnr:
Buzzer:
Hi all back on page two so where is this ,answers on a postcard. I dont know so i hope someone does.cheers BuzzerEvening sir, I believe this is the new bridge into sheerness been over a few times collecting fruit a few years back
Well theres a thing im’e in the new years honours list and you knew about it before i did,as for the bridge i was thinkin it may have been in some far flung corner of europe but all the time it was here in blighty,cheers Sir Buzzer elect.
Last Thursday 28/11/12 me and my 1998(F) 143 still having to earn a living delivering a Bell Dumptruck locally to a place called Ridge near Romsey.
Regards Pat
That’s looking north at the newish bridge onto the isle of sheppey at Swale John.
I spent too many weekends on a road-railer sat on that railway line watching that come together.
Cheers
Neilf
Buzzer:
robthedog:
LMS Distribution Nursling later became Stena SealinkAny one know who ran LMS distribution cant remember them myself must be an age related lapse,cheers Buzzzer.
A slighly extended history, the site in the new docks was originally ‘Southern Ships Stores’ which ran an odd assortment of motley vehicles in a light blue livery varying from a couple of ford transits to a Renault unit (a 340 I think) and a couple of 40’ trailers. I worked there a week or so on agency during a couple of my summer holidays from my regular driving job. Mostly they serviced ships in port in Southampton and airside catering at Heathrow plus some ferry services. They also had a large bonded wharehouse at Nursling back when all foreign travel involved duty free. Later I worked for ‘Sovereign Distribution’ at Millbrook (part of United Carriers) as a day/night trunker driver mainly on ‘A’ frame drawbars and rose to the dizzy heights of driver/instructor for them, interesting work as I sometimes used to go to York trailers to test new extendig ‘A’ frame prototype drawbars due to United Carriers owning York at the time. However the Bunzle groupe bought out UC and closed Southampton depot so after a bit of agency work I became aware that LMS (Larsons Maritime Services), had taken over Southern Ships Stores (and had itself been taken over by the now privatised Sealink) had bought three wagon and drag outfits and were having difficulty getting/keeping drivers (they can be barstewards to reverse) so applied and got a job there. Because LMS was owned by Sealink, although still kept in LMS livery, the mainstay of the work was ferry deliveries although there were other duty free contracts to the Royal Navy etc. So it became a 24/7 job and the earlier pictured Volvo F12 was allocated the night trunk to Stoke-on-Trent for a changeover for Holyhead deliveries. As it was the then only class 1 lorry the night trunk driver was on a roster with everyone having a turn, remember the drawbars were still not liked a lot although with training (my job) they were better accepted.
This situation carried on for a while until parts of Sealink, LMS included, were bought by Stena Line and in due course rebranded in their own livery. This was a good thing for us drivers as we now got a new uniform, instead of just a work clothes allowance, free or concessionary travel and benefits on the ferries plus the crews realised we were all on the same team, rather than an outside company, which made our life much easier. We moved to a much larger site at Nursling (four sites there actually) and new mainy class 1 vehicles were bought/leased and our deliveries extended to all UK Stena ports which ment two day runs for places like Stranraer and Holyhead. As noted Stena also reintroduced a cross channel service to Cherbourge with the ‘Normandy’, much used by us staff for a Friday night out drink return Saturday when off duty.
The double nail in the proverbial coffin was firstly the Channel Tunnel, Stena was of the opinion that it would kill the Dover ferry routes (bad decision with hindsight), and the scrapping of Duty Free within the EU, probably 70+% of our work was duty free drinks, cigarettes, perfumes and gifts. So in 1998 the Stena had a phased shutdown of the distribution side of their business, the only good thing was we had a very generous redundancy package. I finished on a Friday and started work for a new company on the following Monday. Hope I havn’t rambled on too much. Jake.