Lovely old ERF.
Two great pics. there adr, got me thinking, anyone remember City Motors garage on the Iffley Road, just before the Rose Hill / Iffley fork. I went to see about being an apprentice mechanic there, but it was only a shilling an hour and they were already on the forty hour week! 
so I went on a farm for three quid a week, but it was a 49 hour week! 
Next door, on the Radcliffe Road side, was South Midland coaches, if I am remembering rightly!
The Blue Circle ERF based at Kidlington, would that have been the old Kirtlington Cement Works? 
Hi Big-G. Remember the City Motors/Mobil garage very well, delivered there more times than I can remember with Dad in his tanker. The coaches? can’t place them, might be memory fade or just before my time, what years are we looking at? Yes that would be the old Kidlington cement works, always loved the look of the Blue Circle wagons, matched the tankers & the work so well!
Regards Chris
Hi adr, Yeah, I do get things a bit muddled now and again, but I think South Midland Coaches were there just after the war, & early '50s time. I bet Oiltreader would know, but he doesn’t post much these days! I used to walk past there every day to school and can remember a little wooden hut on the front, where you could buy a bread roll for a hap’ny ( if you could scrounge that much from somewhere) then they went up to a penny and so became out of the question! (how’s that for inflation!) On the other side of City Motors, next to the public toilets, was a gate to Harold Tolley’s smallholding, and my dad used to park his Bedford “O” series Tipper in there, about that time. In the mid '50s, when I started driving I used to buy petrol from City Motors at about 4/- a gallon, until the Suez crisis and it started jumping at a fair rate! Some things don’t change do they!
The Cement works, Shipton on Cherwell (workers’ houses at Bunkers Hill) was built around 1929ish and replaced one down Mill Lane, Kirtlington. The quarry at Kirtlington remained for several years after closure and one of our drivers played in the old silos as a kid. The pit is now a nature reserve but watch out for the snakes! John Smith (Smith and Sons) told me a while back that as a boy, the Shipton works was so dirty locals would only put their washing out on a Sunday when the works were closed, as “white rain” would fall on wet days 
Big G, you might remember that Blue Circle had their own railway system in the works; another of our drivers worked on the locos during the systems’ final years before going on tankers like the one ADR posted. I think quarrying/production finished mid ‘70s but I remember the works being partially open as a kid (although I couldn’t spend too long looking at it as I had to duck down in Dads’ cab when passing Smiths yard at Enslow)
Anyone passing Smiths yard now, nextdoor to the lorry workshops is the old signalbox that controlled the exchange sidings between the Cement Works and the main railway line.
While working as a mate on Ameys low loader we went into the cement works and took away the shunter engin, took it to the railway museum out at Quainton, Bucks. The engin was just a big tank for holding steam that it got from the works, didnt have a boiler for making it’s own. suppose thats why the museum wanted it.
Some pictures of our coal lorries from mid 1980s to the present day, remember having regular deliveries of coal hauled by priors.
hello mr prentice, just to let you know that over here in the states they have only just updated the Ford Cargo cab like the J reg one in your picture they’re a bit behind the times when it comes to trucks.
Hi aeprentice, I used to deliver nextdoor to your old yard (old Bicester Town goods yard), to Burgess’ place. From what I heard it was disgusting how your lot were turfed out of there so the overrated shopping village could cause a bit more congestion. How’s things up at Souldern?
hi chazzer, if only they sitll made ford cargos over here we wouldn’t have to buy foriegn lorries.
hi muckaway, yes the way we were forced out of our yard in bicester was pretty awful. Considering we had been renting the yard for nearly 150 years, we didn’t stand a chance against the mite of “bicester villiage”. However moving to souldern has been the best thing that has ever happened to us, since being here we have become much busier and don’t have the threat of being evicted as the yard we are now in is owned by ourselves.
aeprentice1864:
Some pictures of our coal lorries from mid 1980s to the present day, remember having regular deliveries of coal hauled by priors.
I maybe wrong I often am 
and the old memorys not so good, but Prentice Bicester rings a bell. I’m sure I have tipped coal there years ago when I was on for J&B. probably done through British Fuels.
me parked in aylesham with the beast K2CAN first one on personal plates my tank was in for mot so this one was hired in from s&w @ swindon.not many of these fodens around at time with the new face lift,this bloke see me parked asked to take some pics & he sent me copies as well,so thanks to mystery man peter davies also took some while i was tipping in ampthill but didn’t get any of them maybe see em in a mag one day? 
