Ayup Chris, would that be Jock Beverstock ? He lived near to me in Shelton.
He drove an ERF artic in them days, and I can recall he kept it immaculate.
I saw him one day polishing it outside his house, standing on a sofa, which he had dragged out into the road !
I mentioned George Bowers Senior, who I used to bag sacks of coal with on Fridays.
He was the last of the horse and cart drivers, now sadly long gone. Amazing days !!
John
While the old brains still functioning at full chat, I’ll list the names of the Wass’s fitters I can remember !
Wilf Stanyer was the foreman, John Lloyd, Ian Turner, father and son John and Arthur Ridge, Harry Locket, Dave Salt,
John Lewis, Pete ? the electrician, Tony Bowers, Trevor Mason, Mick Barlow and Rob Mahoney, the tyre fitter.
Most of these lads lived in Longton or Meir.
John
Does anyone remember their depot in Shelton ?
My next door neighbour drove a brand new Albion Claymore flatbed for them back in 1964.
It was in a white livery with blue lettering, as opposed to the usual green with white lettering.
The depot is still there, but will be demolished soon ( more barren landscape in Stoke on Trent !)
Has anyone got any Staffordshire Farmers photo’s ?
John
Hi All
Can anyone out there help me? I am making a model of a BMC FFK like the one my Dad drove for Thorleys. I need a photo of the old type BOCM logo. As far as I can remember it was slightly oval /egg shaped with BOCM running across the centre. If any of you can remember or hane a photo of a truck or old corn mill or even an old sack I know how the logo shape roughly I just want to get the coulors correct. I think the oval was dark blue & the BOCM letters were like a rusty red. Any info would be much appreciated.
Cheers All
Duls
Hi Duls, I can see the BOCM logo in my minds eye, and I think you are spot on with the colours !
Can you post a photo of the model, even if it’s not finished ?
How are you planning to make the logo’s and cab lettering ?
John
Just found a picture of the BOCM logo.
Go to Gracesguide.co.uk, and type in British oil and cake mills.
It’s on a photo of an old advert. Hope this helps!
John
Hiya…now a lot of you will know John Royal a Stoke haulier not mentioned…Harrisons…Goodband and Royal(went bump)
Jack Critchlows…P&O (jct 15)…back to Harrisons…in partnership withTony … with a brick lorry(JL Cooper yard)then
John Royal brick lorries…gone quiet for 10 years what happend
only just wondered
John
Hi John
John Royal is working for SJ Bargh on milk tankers. I don’t know if you got my last reply regarding my Thorleys model but thanks for the info regarding the BOCM logo. I am not very good on these here computers so when I can get someone to post some pics for me I will keep you updated
Cheers
Duls
Here’s another off facebook 
3300John:
Hiya…now a lot of you will know John Royal a Stoke haulier not mentioned…Harrisons…Goodband and Royal(went bump)
Jack Critchlows…P&O (jct 15)…back to Harrisons…in partnership withTony … with a brick lorry(JL Cooper yard)then
John Royal brick lorries…gone quiet for 10 years what happend
only just wondered
John
Goodier and Royal I remember.
johnny51:
While the old brains still functioning at full chat, I’ll list the names of the Wass’s fitters I can remember !
Wilf Stanyer was the foreman, John Lloyd, Ian Turner, father and son John and Arthur Ridge, Harry Locket, Dave Salt,
John Lewis, Pete ? the electrician, Tony Bowers, Trevor Mason, Mick Barlow and Rob Mahoney, the tyre fitter.
Most of these lads lived in Longton or Meir.
John
Was this the same Ian Turner that drove for Critchlow at one time?
Hi All,
Danny Poole gave me this photo the other night
Mickey Minors original photo - Pointons DAF with new fridge trailer
Thanks for the photo Danny
Regards
Ant
Telekonsteve:
Here’s another off facebook
Lovely old picture steve , i think they hauled out of Shelton steelworks sometimes . thank you Trevor .
bestbooties:
johnny51:
While the old brains still functioning at full chat, I’ll list the names of the Wass’s fitters I can remember !
Wilf Stanyer was the foreman, John Lloyd, Ian Turner, father and son John and Arthur Ridge, Harry Locket, Dave Salt,
John Lewis, Pete ? the electrician, Tony Bowers, Trevor Mason, Mick Barlow and Rob Mahoney, the tyre fitter.
Most of these lads lived in Longton or Meir.
JohnWas this the same Ian Turner that drove for Critchlow at one time?
I couldn’t really say. When I knew him in 1966, he was employed as a body repairer/ paint sprayer.
He lived in Tean at that time ( he did have a Class 1 licence though).
John
Hi all,
Found this of my 1st tractor parked at my Mum & Dads house in about 87
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Regards
Ant
Willie Roadstar:
Hi All,Danny Poole gave me this photo the other night
Mickey Minors original photo - Pointons DAF with new fridge trailer
Thanks for the photo Danny
Regards
Ant
Is that the same Pointons from Cheddleton ? thank you Trevor
tastrucker:
Willie Roadstar:
Hi All,Danny Poole gave me this photo the other night
Mickey Minors original photo - Pointon,s DAF with new fridge trailer
Thanks for the photo Danny
Regards
AntIs that the same Pointon,s from Cheddleton ? thank you Trevor
Hiya yes the same Pointin,s. that Daf replaced a SedAk that Alfie Johnson from Leek drove. i can’t remember if Alfie had the Daf, he worked there quite a while so may have done.
John
aup john,had a night out in that daf when terry sutton had it went with him on a trip.
Hiya fellas. What a great thread. It’s certainly brought back some memories for me. Unfortunately, got no photos to share, but I might be able to fill in a few blanks. If I make any mistakes then it’s age-related and not deliberate. Being 75 now, you tend to make the odd memory-error at times. LOL.
Wondered where to start. Might as well start at the beginning and try and work my way through.
I was always mad to get behind the wheel, and passed my driving test at 17. I worked for a pottery wholesalers in King Street Fenton and took my first test in a 7 tonner van. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a wreck and the examiner had to sit on a wooden box in the passenger side. He made a late call for me to turn right, so I did. He fell off the wooden box and one of the back doors (tied with string) flew open and hit a lamp post. I was ■■■■■■ off that I failed, but I didn’t stop laughing for a week. LOL. Next time I took it in a Morris Traveller and passed. And so began an eventful life as a ‘trucker’. It was 1957.
My first real job was with Shirley’s at Cellarhead. I think that old truck that sits in Shirley’s garden as you approach Wetley Rocks was the truck I had. I did the ‘corn run’, Manchester pick-up and deliveries to everywhere in the Moorlands. It was ‘fun’. I jacked it in when the old man had me ■■■■■■■ about in the back all day and I was to pick up wet grain from Joules at Stone. If you got to Joules early, they loaded it straight onto the flatbed. If you were late, you had to shovel it on from the sides. I told him and told him that I didn’t need to be late, but he insisted I mess about sorting stuff behind the garage, and by the time I got to Stone, I was too late for them to load it directly onto the flatbed. I was so angry that I turned around and went back empty and told the old man to lick ‘em and stick ‘em. Mrs Shirley went mad with the old man, but it was game over for me. Arthur worked in the garage then and the young son of theirs who later got killed was always around the workshops and going with the lads. When I heard he got killed, it was a real shame. He was a nice kid.
Second job was with Carr and Hodgkinson at Fole. Bill Carr had just one arm, and ran the place with his son Royston (he died just last year) and his younger son David. They were good times and there were some great lads on there. Most of ‘em dead now.
Next stop was F.V. Smith at Normacot on the Scotch trunk. The old man ran it, and Clive Smith helped him. The transport manager was Dennis Moores who lived at Meir (he later became the ‘Moor’ of Moorlock.) Not before or since have I worked at an outfit like it. I was told to turn up on Sunday night and the wagon was an eight-legger parked in the garage. It was so heavy on the front end that I had to shunt it about ten times to get it out. That just about sums up my time with them. Their motto should have been ‘make-do-and-mend’. Or ‘get as much on as you can’. If you could get it on… it went on, and if you were half again overloaded, it didn’t matter. I could write a book as big as War and Peace about my times at Smiths, but I’ll try and keep it short.
The Scotch trunk was an infamous run at the time. Six nights: up one night and down the next… Stoke to Hamilton. Working for Smiths was a nightmare on that run. Even the lads at Wass’s had better tackle. No heaters; cab filled with smoke; no brakes; always overloaded, and at the top end you jumped into a bed in your overalls because the bugger who had just got out had slept in his. Malky Mackay was my shunter up there. A proper Glaswegian lad. If you left a coat in the cab it was gone when you picked the truck up at night to get back home. The other shunter was always quoting Rabbie Burns. We used the old road over Shap. It was a nightmare. Many is the time I’ve just managed to crawl over Bluebell, and then there was the dread of the peak to come later. Cards with the lads in The Jungle halfway up before chancing Shap proper. I’ve known times two of us have chained up to get over the top if one was so overloaded there was no chance of doing it. Smiths kept the breakdown company halfway there in business I think. There was always something falling off the damned things. My starter motor fell off right at the top of Shap on the coldest night up there for 100 years. By the time they got to me, I’d got hypothermia.
Next stop the café at Beattock. Always got venison on the menu. And it was warm in there. Lovely and warm. LOL.
I was upgraded to semis on Smiths. Went in one night and was told I was driving a Big J with a forty-footer with super-singles. Yay, yay, and thrice YAY! It was like being given the keys to Valhalla. Only problem is that I’d never driven an artic before. That was my introduction to semis. So I spent two hours on Beattock on the massive car park learning how to reverse one. But some things are best learned the hard way. Anyway, that was my real introduction to proper driving. The hard way, on probably the most dangerous night trunk in the UK. Somebody got killed every week. Usually it was the Jocks. All of them stopped at a pub just out of Glasgow and got ■■■■■■ before they set off. Big Sam Anderson’s boys were the worst. They had beautiful rigs painted in Sam’s tartan colours. Great lads, but nuts. Nobody could keep up with them… even Critchlow’s lads who had fast tackle. Smiths came right at the bottom of the pecking order. Even the Wass’s lads had one over us, and Ernie Owen’s 24 hour boys with their ■■■■■■■ engines blew us off the road. But it was a good grounding if you wanted to become a ‘proper’ trucker. Even the cops wouldn’t mess with us. The only time they got involved was to fill their boot with ‘salvage’ when one of us crashed. I turned one upside down (the Big J) trying to keep up with one of Big Sam’s boys going into Carlisle. Two ten ton coils and eight ton of cement up front. The coils rammed into the pallets of cement and saved my bacon. The arse of the cop car was dragging on the floor after they’d helped themselves to what bags of cement were left undamaged. One other memorable moment on Smiths. I was coming down Shap one night and a pair of wheels came running past me. I watched them picking up speed, and then they bounced over the railings right down into the bottom of the fell. Obviously I couldn’t stop (no brakes) and when I got to The Jungle, I discovered it was twins off the back axle of the trailer complete with brake hub that had gone missing. So I jacked the axle up, chained the axle to the chassis and got back. I couldn’t stop chuckling when Old Man Smith asked why I had come back without the hub and wheels. Well… there was no way I could push them hundreds of feet back up the fell… was there? LOL.
But I can’t dwell of FV Smiths too long. I could fill a book just about them. Twice I worked for them and the last time I left because I either had to drive for Comart or go. My family circumstances wouldn’t allow me to go TIR, so I went to Davey’s next. Twice I worked for Hilda Davey. On the Cornwall run and South Coast. Never less than three days out. You could be out for a week on the Cornwall run. Come back with china clay. Flints or timber from Shoreham on the return south coast run. No dodging The Smoke. Early doors; down Holloway Road and right through the middle to Croydon and beyond. Good lads and good time for Hilda. Second time I was there was working on the Beckets side, tyres out of the Mich. Trip money. After I left there second time, I was working for Vic Wild and Hilda came past me in her Mercedes sports car when I was unloading. She stopped and offered me a job. And that was after she’d sacked me six months earlier because I was the union bloke. We had a chuckle, but I didn’t go back. It was when I was at Beckets that young Johnny Hammond was killed. His dad, Sam, also worked on there. Young John was loading rubber at Membury and was sheeting up. He was on top of his load and his head touched an electric cable. Died instantly. A real shame. John was a lovely lad. His dad never recovered from his loss. Can’t blame him. John was one of those lads who everybody liked.
Worked at Ernie Owen’s next… I think. (Old age.) Twice I worked for Ernie. (Most of the lads in them days did the rounds. You did a year or two and had a change of scenery. Unless you were a total d/head, they would always have you back no questions asked.) Nice bloke and good firm to work for, that’s if you could work. Loved his ■■■■■■■ engines did Ernie. I once did a Glagow - South Wales — Glasgow — Audley in one go. That’s what you had to do at Ernie’s. If you could work, he paid you well, and unlike most of the others, never docked anything you’d earned. I was there when his wife died of breast cancer. His son worked as fitter in the garage.
Vic Wild’s. Without doubt the best tackle of all the firms I worked for. I started with an Atki with a 180 Gardner, then went onto an Atki with a 240 Gardner and a Fuller box. What a motor that was! Best I ever drove. I was at Sheerness one day. Loaded 60ft bars on an extending trailer out of the steelworks for Newcastle-on-Tyne. I parked up on a brand new tarmac car park for the night. Woke up and both trailer axles were buried because it was so soft. I thought the usual: Oh… ■■■■! Put the Fuller box in crawler, foot down and that beauty dragged the whole kit and caboodle right out. I couldn’t believe anything could have done that, but it did. I didn’t stop to look at the damage I’d caused, but I never heard a dickie bird about it afterwards. LOL.
I liked Vic Wild. Twice I worked for Vic. When some of the lads came from the Cornwall run, because they couldn’t get in to tip with a trailer, he’d jump on the back and shovel with the rest of the lads and tranship the load onto a four wheeler to do two journeys to offload wherever it was going. I’m struggling to remember the names of the fitters. Brothers they were. One was named Fred. The yard man was Bill Follet. Old school was Bill. Dodgy though. LOL. When we went on the hire contracts — us hiring the outfits from Vic and everything going through him — Bill would fill me up for a fiver. I didn’t think it was robbery. The bloke in the office robbed us blind because all invoices went through him. I caught him out one day. I knew how much per ton was paid for a load from The Smoke to Sheffield, and when I got paid, the sod had deducted 50%. I went mad and he tried to pass it off as a ‘clerical error’. I think the only lad who did well out of that was Tony Blackburn. Good on him.
Geordie Taylor was there at the time. I liked Geordie. Not sure if it was one or two sons of his who worked there at the same time. I seem to recall that one of his sons had the first Daf that Vic bought. Fed up with hiring off Vic, I bought a 16 speed Foden off him, and tried my hand at owner driver. That was going okay so I bought an ERF off him and got Dave Steventon to drive for me. Lovely lad was Dave. Was going to make him a partner with me. Then everything went ■■■■ up. I was doing work for a firm from Sheffield that crushed scrap cars on site and we would run them up to the fragmenter at St Helens. All over the country we did that. It was going so well that I was subbing work out. Then payments got slower and less of them. You owners will know where I’m going. You get in so deep you can’t get out. And then they did the classic. They stopped trading one day and started up the next in a new company name and bankrupted the old company. It was about 1973. I was owed £7,000. That was a lot of money in them days. I did what I could and locked their crusher and two trailers away in one of Vic’s depots in Newark, and wouldn’t let them have them until they paid me. That’s when they were too clever for me. Because stuff was still being channeled through the Wild Group, I was working under RHA conditions, which gave them 60 days to pay. I saw my solicitor and he said all they needed to pay me almost £1,000 or they’d get a court order to take them back. So I took the grand and shared it out as best I could to those who had been subbing for me.
But it was all over then. Me and Dave did our best to keep things going, but when Dave went to the steelworks with a load of clay on a tipper, because the tipper wouldn’t work, he got an overhead crane to tip it up. The wire rope slipped and the trailer bent the chassis on the Foden. Game over. I got rid of the Foden to Bassets who had repaired it — VUT 891 J — returned the ERF to Vic, and went bump myself. Lost my house and my car and everything. No tears here. You have to deal with stuff. Went to work down the pit and am as happy as a sandboy with a lovely family in my old age.
To all you lads who did TIR. I take my hat off to you. I can imagine the scrapes you got into, and the scratching of heads when something went wrong in the middle of nowhere. It’s no use shouting for your mama when ■■■■ happens. LOL. Been there… done that. But it was fun.
Keep safe you truckers. 
