macdangerous:
Anyone here remember the short-lived MAT Scotland operation?
Around 73-74 MAT set up an office, based in Stamper’s Glasgow yard. Stamper’s did a fair amount of work on MAT containers, to and from the railhead, and sometimes trunked to Hull. Since the Scottish traffic was building up, they employed a Sales Manager (Ian ?) and a couple of drivers, originally with a RR Guy Big J on contract hire from Road Services Forth, and then a couple of 111s.
Loaded mainly whisky from Haig’s and Dewars, textiles from the Borders (Pringles I think) and trunked the containers (and then tilts) down to Hull. The operation was managed by Hull/Cliff Leader and the two Brians. Went well for a couple of years and then it was closed down.
There was never really any contact between Glasgow and the Harwich fleet - we used to see MAT wagons running about Glasgow that we knew nothing about and would have to phone up to let them know we had back-loads for them.
Hullo macdangerouse,
Yes that’s right we used to be in Stampers yard. we also used to use Connal’s yard at Maryhill. Then we got a bit of a depot up and running in Joe Wrights yard at Farm Cross, they even had a couple of their own 110’s. The Manager was a really nice bloke, Jimmy …? came from Mulgivnie (spelling ?), although he assured us it was pronounced Mullgay. The yard man was a guy called Cuddie, Wow!, he used to take us visiting all of his local Pubs around Glasgow Cross and the Gorbals. We used to fight to get up there, it was long distance to us. and was often a week away from Hull. As you said it was all masterminded by Cliff Leader. Brian Perry was also the man in Hull, I can’t remember another Brian though. David Haig from Bellshill also did an awful lot for MAT at that time.
Cheers, Archie.
Hi Archie
Glad you remember it - I was beginning to think I’d imagined it all.
Didn’t know about the move to Joe Wright’s - I must have moved on by then. Are you sure they were 110s there? We definitely had one 111 at Stampers and I’d have thought they were the same wagons that moved to Wee Joe’s. Were they painted in MAT colours?
One of the MAT drivers at Stampers was called Jimmy - he was an ex MAT euro driver, nice big guy. Did he become the manager?
And yup, Brian Perry, that’s the fella. I think the other Brian might have been called Hopkins or Hodgson (it was 40 years ago…). Smoked roll-ups from a silver cigarette case.
macdangerous:
Hi Archie
Glad you remember it - I was beginning to think I’d imagined it all.
Didn’t know about the move to Joe Wright’s - I must have moved on by then. Are you sure they were 110s there? We definitely had one 111 at Stampers and I’d have thought they were the same wagons that moved to Wee Joe’s. Were they painted in MAT colours?
One of the MAT drivers at Stampers was called Jimmy - he was an ex MAT euro driver, nice big guy. Did he become the manager?
And yup, Brian Perry, that’s the fella. I think the other Brian might have been called Hopkins or Hodgson (it was 40 years ago…). Smoked roll-ups from a silver cigarette case.
Cheers for the memories!
Dave MacD
Hullo again macdangerouse,
No mate you never imagined it, it was quite real and a real good laugh in those far off days. I can’t remember Jimmy, only the James that I mentioned before, he was fairly posh and would never have been a driver. Do you know that may have been Brian Yeardly that you remember, although he left about that time to start his own business ( that really did grow quickly ). I’ve been trying to remember and I believe the managers name was actually James Mckay, as I said posh but a really top class bloke. By the way do you remember those 40ft skellies, tandem axles, with the wheels right at the back of the trailer ? Two twenty ft boxes on, bloody heavy, over the A66, Penrith, Brough, Stainmore, Glasgow to Hull overnight. Now that was a good nights work.
Cheers, Archie.
Archie is right - Brian Yeardley was the other Brian there around than time, shortly before leaving to start his business,
which I think was 1975 ish.
In the '70’s MAT had a habit of starting up new satellite depots and moving the trucks around.
Stampers, like Bowkers, had MAT signwritten on some of their vehicles.
I did a fortnight in the Hull office, sent up from London to cover holidays, probably around 1974/5 - when I had done this at
other depots, Cowley, Peterborough, etc, I had been put up in a nice hotel and told to have what I liked in the bar or
restaurant - in Hull I was dropped off at the dirtiest most disgusting doss house I’d ever seen, no food, bleak and run
by an old girl who looked like a soapy version of Nora Batty. I went out to get fish and chips just as it closed on my
first night and went hungry.
Needless to say, Cliff Leader personally booked my digs, wonderful - I never did go back.
Interesting to hear that Knowall - I was sent down to Hull for a week to help set-up the Scottish operation (around 71/72) and had totally the opposite experience - Brian put me up in his own house in Beverly, took me down to his local at night and folk were generally pretty friendly.
Stampers didn’t have any MAT-liveried vehicles in my time there - we had MAT wagons, sent up from Hull I think. I’m curious about the J&R Wright based ones though. Who drove them (MAT drivers?).
And Archie - don’t know about the 40’ skellies, but those weird 30’ MAT boxes with the side doors must have set some kind of record for weight. I think they must have been specially re-inforced for some of the loads we put in them.
macdangerous:
And Archie - don’t know about the 40’ skellies, but those weird 30’ MAT boxes with the side doors must have set some kind of record for weight. I think they must have been specially re-inforced for some of the loads we put in them.
Hullo “macdangerous”
Yes. I do remember those 30’ side door Boxes, Bloody dangerous contraptions they were. Two doors that folded back in half, so in fact there were really four doors. I tipped and loaded a few times with those. Opening them was OK, but you had to be ready to run out of the way, when you opened the doors the hinged part always swang the wrong way. Closing them was a real work of art, I nearly got my head knocked off a couple of times when it was windy, and the doors were just too heavy to stop. The two 110’s as I recall were driven by two lacal chaps, one I remember was called Bob Watts, who was from ■■■■■■■■■■■■ But there were usually a couple of us up ther, ( I was a Subbie, I always got jammy jobs )
Cheers, Archie.
Those MAT open side boxes - referred to in the company and early ones were prefixed XOS - we re either ingeneous or dangerous
depending on how you looked at it.
Originally designed to carry British Leyland goods, the early ones were 48m3 and had a side post which always got in the way
just like tilt side posts do - however the later ones 49m3 were ‘clear open side’ as the doors used to completely fold back -
the only trouble was that the container became structually unsound if the side door catches were not totally clipped in
top and bottom.
If they weren’t then as the container was lifted it was not unusual for the base and the goods to stay on the skelly and the
roof and sides parted company and went up with the crane. This wasn’t so dangerous when the base stayed on the trailer
but sometimes it would start to go up with the crane and then the bottom would fall out and twenty tons of goords come
crashing down - this happened in Harwich, for example, a couple of times with lead ingots.
Variants of the box had grain hatches on the top and dischange hatches in the back doors, OK if the rubber seals were
intact, and some of the later ones had a metal roof than could be lifted off - again making the box structually unsound
if it wasn’t put on and locked down properly.
I doubt if they dreaded Health and Safely would allow them these days, but in their heyday, the seventies, they were
a revelation to some of the big movers of goods, just like mega cubes became.
There were, of course 20’ variants (32m3 & 34m3) and 40’ (66m3), although the forty footers
had a central side post, deemed too long to be clear open side.
hiya,
Dragged the above on the odd occasion when working for Bowker’s, my verdict “what a load of junk” you needed a degree in engineering to make sure you did everything corectly, you spent more time sorting the things out than loading them, some of their tilts where a nightmare too if the job required a stripdown which was normally the case when i got lumbered with them.
thanks harry long retired.
We seemed to use old 30’ boxes when just about everybody else had forty-footers and as Harry has said, some of the tilts were dire. remember the French ones (from Calberson I think)?
Yet it was a big successful company at that time. Maybe it made money because they wouldn’t spend anything on new equipment…
the tilts was good .hard work some times .the nightmere was when joe fuller gave you a 129 which was a flat. that was ok but the sheets was old tilt sheets.
Archie reminising about the 40’ skellies, reminded me of how much I hated them, too high, could hardly reach the door handles on the containers, too heavy always overloaded, cut the corners with the spread-axle right at the rear. I asked someone, why they were built like that, and was told they could be adapted to go on rail-lines abroad, I dont know if my leg was getting pulled. I came a cropper with one at the Canning Town fly-over one morning. Instead of joining the queue to go over the fly-over, I nipped down the slip road for Silvertown Way, I got round the round-about and checked my n/side mirror and started to go up the slip road to rejoin the A13 when something stopped my progress, when I re-checked my n/side mirror, there was a car wedged under the trailer about halfway along the length. It was a miracle none of the three people in the car was injured, but it took the fire brigade ages to free them. The police and fire chief were discussing getting a crane to lift the trailer of wrecked car, as it was so badly jammed under the trailer, but at my suggestion of shunting back and forth, I would be able to get the trailer free and they agreed to this. The police prosecuted me for driving without undue care, but I got off, because the driver of the car had come from Silvertown Way and didnt give way to his right, he saw the gap I had left to avoid cutting the corner, but didnt make it. My eternal thanks to the young female union solicitor.
mat man:
the tilts was good .hard work some times .the nightmere was when joe fuller gave you a 129 which was a flat. that was ok but the sheets was old tilt sheets.
That happened quite often with Frank Bramley at Panalpina too, and the flat trailer used to be a tilt
mat man:
the tilts was good .hard work some times .the nightmere was when joe fuller gave you a 129 which was a flat. that was ok but the sheets was old tilt sheets.
That happened quite often with Frank Bramley at Panalpina too, and the flat trailer used to be a tilt
got tipped in italy ring barry james up for a reload. got one for you. but you have to strip the tilt down to a flat. load gorla minore tip scot land.the easy part stripping it to a flat. putting it back together again not so easy h+s would love it today
Was it just us at Harwich/Felistowe that had the passenger seat taken out to save weight. I know we were warned that we would have our O-licences taken away, because we had so many over weight loads. In the end we had to weigh in the docks and tranship some of the load in the yard if it was overloaded. My mate Barry Page got pulled a few times at Chelmsford by the Weights and Measures, and was always over the top, but he never got prosecuted for it because Weights and Measures went after the company instead of the driver. But they reported him to The Eastern Area authority, and when he had to renew his HGV licence, he had to go to a tribunal to get it. We had mechanical tacho’s fitted that were wound up and changed every week, they were in a batch of seven taped together, the tape was cut by a blade to go to the next day and so on to the end of the week. We had a speed limit of 50 or 55 mph and woe betide you if you went over that, because they checked the tacho’s. I always thought it was very dangerous to have that awful steel case in the cab that had the couplings, lights and handles. If you turned over the steel case would killed you.I think that all these ideas were Dave Clarks brainwave. The 30’ side opening box, could be very handy for loading/unloading, but if you had too much weight in the middle of the box it could sag and you would have a helluva job to close the doors, if the forklift driver wouldnt take the weight in the middle. Seawheel used to have side loaders as well, but the drivers would not have the doors on the nearside, they would always have them reversed on the skelly so the rear doors were facing forward. They reckoned the sidedoors were too heavy and with the camber of the road made the trailer lean to the nearside.
macdangerous:
A lot of MAT’s kit was pretty ropey wasn’t it?
We seemed to use old 30’ boxes when just about everybody else had forty-footers and as Harry has said, some of the tilts were dire. remember the French ones (from Calberson I think)?
Yup, just like that one 240 - although that one looks in much better nick than the ones I remember.
Cracking photo - love the old Guy in the background too.
macdangerous:
A lot of MAT’s kit was pretty ropey wasn’t it?
We seemed to use old 30’ boxes when just about everybody else had forty-footers and as Harry has said, some of the tilts were dire. remember the French ones (from Calberson I think)?
Like this one?
hiya,
Done a trip or two with this old girl Chris but a bit of a pill from the drivers point of view compared to my regular motor at that time the infamous Bowker 38 “The Powerhouse” a 220 ■■■■■■■ powered beast.
thanks harry long retired.
PS Chris the fleet engineer in my time at W.H.was a chap nicknamed Bruno "always smoked a pipe"never knew his real name but well remember the TM the very easy going Harold Newlove a proper old style guy who knew the job inside out.
I drove for MAT at MIFT in Manchester. The Transport Manager was John Komiskey a Polish Irish guy who managed with his pants on fire. The guy before him was Les Bickadyke and a prick called Gordon Nunn. I remember Johnny Mann, he was a fantastic fitter. My brother in law also drove for Mat out of Hull (Terry Shipley). I ended up working in 2 shed for MAT in Mift when the wife ■■■■■■ off. Every bugger will remember me. Anyone know what happened to Dave, the big guy who was yard man at Hull?
Cliff Carl
Carlc:
I drove for MAT at MIFT in Manchester. The Transport Manager was John Komiskey a Polish Irish guy who managed with his pants on fire. The guy before him was Les Bickadyke and a prick called Gordon Nunn. I remember Johnny Mann, he was a fantastic fitter. My brother in law also drove for Mat out of Hull (Terry Shipley). I ended up working in 2 shed for MAT in Mift when the wife ■■■■■■ off. Every bugger will remember me. Anyone know what happened to Dave, the big guy who was yard man at Hull?
Cliff Carl
Hullo Cliff,
How are you you old bugger ? That,s it John Komisky, I had forgotten Les Kickadyke, and of course John Birtles went over there too. And a prick called Gordon Nunn, and I thought he was a good mate of you all over there, the ■■■■■■. I’ve seen Manny a few times on the Ferry, he is or was still at it, one a week Italy for Niel and Brown, out of Hull. Terry I have’nt seen for years, and big Dave from Kirkbymoorside also, he was a really top class bloke, always had old Alec Shand giving him bollickings, this aint done that aint done, it never bothered him, he just used to shrug and carry on as normal, good bloke. Old Cliffy Carl wound up in No2 shed at M.I.F.T., that’s why it closed down I reckon What are you doing now ? are you still driving ? or are you retired gracefully ? Good to see you.
Cheers, Archie.
