Anybody remember Andersons of Westerhope running a 6 wheel Dodge Lad cabbed model & a Albion Riever on distance work they got a lot of work from Transmotors in Newcastle in the 60s, Tommy Greene & Larry Bamford drove for them at this time running mostley London, Any photos would be nice, Regards Larry. PS Tommy Greene went on to work for Smiles for Miles driving a 8 wheeler ERF.
Hey ! Larry, your Jag is ■■■■■ !! I’ve just found out off another TNUK site that “Carryfast”'s wheels is a 1980’s 6 litre XJ12 manual !! we have no chance Mate being very careful unpretentious retired hauliers keeping our light under a bushel, or “under the bed” ££ 
Cheers Dennis.
Bewick:
Hey ! Larry, your Jag is [zb] !! I’ve just found out off another TNUK site that “Carryfast”'s wheels is a 1980’s 6 litre XJ12 manual !! we have no chance Mate being very careful unpretentious retired hauliers keeping our light under a bushel, or “under the bed” ££
Hi Dennis, Theres Nowt left under my bed, Well perhaps a little bit, Im spending my hard earned lolly in my retirement years on Whiskey, Wine Top notch grub, Like Lobster, Steaks,Oysters, Venison, Crevvets, Plus whatever takes my fancy, I will try anything once, And if I like It I will give It a go, Like I did when I bought my first Foden S20 Tipper, & Ive never looked back since just forward, Which Im sure you are doing yourself, Happy Days, & I do hope there is lots more of these to come, 
Regards Larry.
hiya,
Dennis, you can tell by the size of Larry’s hip flasks how canny he’s standing
they dwarf mine but fair play he’s not tight with it “gets tight because of it”
but there’s nowt wrong with that and they (always two) are filled right up
and it’s always a drop of fairly gear in them.
thanks harry, long retired.
harry_gill:
hiya,
Dennis, you can tell by the size of Larry’s hip flasks how canny he’s standing
they dwarf mine but fair play he’s not tight with it “gets tight because of it”
but there’s nowt wrong with that and they (always two) are filled right up
and it’s always a drop of fairly gear in them.
thanks harry, long retired.
Hiya “H” a little bird( not Ange 
) told me Larry puts “Smart Price” into his Hip flasks when he gans to a gathering in the Toon, he doesn’t waste the good gear on the “great unwashed” 
Cheers Dennis.
Bewick:
harry_gill:
hiya,
Dennis, you can tell by the size of Larry’s hip flasks how canny he’s standing
they dwarf mine but fair play he’s not tight with it “gets tight because of it”
but there’s nowt wrong with that and they (always two) are filled right up
and it’s always a drop of fairly gear in them.
thanks harry, long retired.Hiya “H” a little bird( not Ange
Your wrong there Dennis, he’s a generous Geordie, not a tight ■■■ West ■■■■■■■■■ 
.Regards Kev.
kevmac47:
Bewick:
harry_gill:
hiya,
Dennis, you can tell by the size of Larry’s hip flasks how canny he’s standing
they dwarf mine but fair play he’s not tight with it “gets tight because of it”
but there’s nowt wrong with that and they (always two) are filled right up
and it’s always a drop of fairly gear in them.
thanks harry, long retired.Hiya “H” a little bird( not Ange
Your wrong there Dennis, he’s a generous Geordie, not a tight ■■■ West ■■■■■■■■■
Optical “that’s a good’un!” illusion Kev ,Larry actually has four hip flasks on his person, all identical, so only he knows what’s what Cheers Mate Dennis.
Bewick:
kevmac47:
Bewick:
harry_gill:
hiya,
Dennis, you can tell by the size of Larry’s hip flasks how canny he’s standing
they dwarf mine but fair play he’s not tight with it “gets tight because of it”
but there’s nowt wrong with that and they (always two) are filled right up
and it’s always a drop of fairly gear in them.
thanks harry, long retired.Hiya “H” a little bird( not Ange
Your wrong there Dennis, he’s a generous Geordie, not a tight ■■■ West ■■■■■■■■■
Optical “that’s a good’un!” illusion Kev ,Larry actually has four hip flasks on his person, all identical, so only he knows what’s what
Hi Dennis, You are correct I do have four H/fs, But they are all different in shape only,Now you should know that I only savour the finest Single Malts that money can buy, & I do have a well stocked secure unit to keep them , Plus when I attend the Toon gathering I only let the real Malters get to savour their flavour. Anyone who wants to try them are quite welcome, But if they don’t smile & tell me what I want to hear, That’s it they never get a second chance, Of course there are Malt drinkers & Malt drinkers, But IMO One has to be a real Malt drinker to enjoy one of the pleasures in life, Like Harry, Crowbar, Bumper,Alan Kean, Kev, Plus one or two more,Perhaps one of these days you might be able to come and give us the pleasure of your company, Im sure you would enjoy it, Hope you are on the road to recovery my friend, Regards Larry.
![scotch-whisky-sauces[1].jpg](https://europe1.discourse-cdn.com/flex013/uploads/trucknetuk/original/3X/c/6/c68bedc81718a122f886c46a1259d0e823655373.jpeg)
bumper:
Larry, recommend this to go with you steak venison or cheese on toast,bumper
0
Hi Bumper, They all look good where can I get some ?, Regards Larry.
larry bought it at a farmers market at hay farm ford & etal estates. £3 a bottle if you want will get you a bottle the next time I’m there, 12% whiskey
bumper:
larry bought it at a farmers market at hay farm ford & etal estates. £3 a bottle if you want will get you a bottle the next time I’m there, 12% whiskey
Thanks Bumper, Im going to have a run up there once my good lady is feeling a bit better, Plus the weather of course, I think I will try the 6 flavours, The butterscotch one will go nice on Ice cream , Regards Larry.
Carl Williams:
bigal20:
all knocked down and developed now 6 a&g depots,i took these pic,s and many more about five years ago,in the fifties and sixties, both sides of dunn street were filled with customers vans/trucks,and the fitters cars,maybe 25 vauxhall car fitters, around 25 commercial fitters,with all their apprentices,maybe 10men in the radiator shop, 10 to 15 in the electrical shop, and around 20 men in the engine shop,this was no small concern, but now all gone and all those skills binned, and this has happened, all over the north east and the rest of the country, bedford truck,s are no longer getting made,but they have lasted, lots of them driven into the ground, and left to rust away,myself,crowbar, and lots of dedicated people refuse to see this make and many other makes die, keep restoring .big al.In their day Adams & Gibbons were probably the largest vehicle dealers in North East. In my lifetime we dealt with Durham branch with Dereck Rennie as their parts manager but I have collected parts from Dunn Street, Sunderland (near Empire Theatre0 and their new branch in Felling, from time to time,as well as Wallace Arnold Leeds. They also had South Shields, Morpeth and Huddesfield. Despite being a large business they still were a family business with Adams (I cannot remember his first name) as Managing Director, and he came to see us from time to time.
Before Durham opened we used Dunn Street & Sherwoods Darlngton. Dad told me that they had after the war 2 1938 two tonners have recon engines, 1 by A & G at Dunn Street which sounded like a bag of hammers and oil leaks. The other by Sherwoods at a workshop they had at Hurworth which sounded like a clock & was perfect. A & G also had their own coachbuilders which was a bit slip shod as well. Raymar dresses at Crook had them build a pantechnicon body about 1956 on a SB Coach chassis that always rained in and they had to try to cover their loads of dresses. Whereas Sherwoods had Sherwood & Wynn originally based in Hurworth which was run by a Mr Noble who was an excellent coachbuilder although very expensive, Sherwood & Wynn moved to Aycliffe Ind Est in the seventies and are now sadly no more
I worked as commercial vehicle salesman with William (Bill) Peacock (Commercial Sales Manager) at Durham branch 1977/79. The branch manager was William (Bill) Brown and i remember Derrick Rennie very well. Trying to remember the service manager’s name?
We supplied lot’s of local companies with Bedford’s ranging from the HA van and Chevanne (Chevette based van) to the TM rigid’s and artics.The biggest customer (without doubt) and our “staple diet” was Northumbrian Water. Countless vans (mostly CF’s) and wagon’s in various format’s for each tender/contract.We used to tare each vehicle off at the NCB weighbridge at Bearpark before they were licensed up at County Hall before delivery.
But my real reason for posting on here is that i am the youngest son of an owner/operator that started in the early 50’s and ran thro’ until the mid 70’s with tipper’s, operating from Seaham. Having spent the last 2 week’s looking thr’o all of the post’s on here, it seems that our “neck of the wood’s” (East Durham and it’s quarries) could do with more input and so hopefully (with the help of my older brother) we can help remind people of the haulier’s involved.
Going back to Adam’s and Gibbon’s (Durham) Bill Peacock used to get at least one" paid for" holiday every year, for being Bedford’s top truck (wagon) salesman in the North East. One of his customer’s was Barnfather and Wilkes (Sherburn Village) and more about this later.
Hi Eddie Thornton was Service manager at A & G for many years until he left to join us as Fleet Engineer. Whilst at A & G he also lectured (part time) at Durham Prison on car mechanics. I cannot remember exactly what year he joined us but he could very probably have been the name you were thinking of. With us he found life so different as the pressure t get work done & quick turnaround was so different to a Main Vauxhall- Bedford dealership so we transferred him into the Traffic Department where he dealt with customers which was his best quality. He also liased with Alan Henderson who we had replaced him with as Fleet engineer to ensure vehicles were available for 4 weekly checking & servicing etc. and also was first class for charging Bedford for guarantee work we did on our own vehicles (We had an arrangement where we did all guarantee work in our own workshop & were paid directly by Vauxhall Motors for this).Eddie was also an expert for pricing up insurance repairs so we made a decent profit for repairing body work on our own vehicles where thet had been in accidents where a third party was at fault and Eddie got the maximum payment from the insurers.
Bill Peacock was sales Manager as you said and won lots & lots of prizes as Top Bedford Salesman in UK (God Knows how) except he was fortunate at Northumbria Water Board bought all their HA & CL vans from him in huge numbers. Remarkably we bought only a very small percentage of our new Bedfords from A & G as always he either couldn’t get delivery quick enough or he couldn’t match the discount we could get from dealers from other parts of the country
Like you say like we were Barnfather & Wilkes were very good customers there every day in the parts department.
Carl Williams:
Hi Eddie Thornton was Service manager at A & G for many years until he left to join us as Fleet Engineer. Whilst at A & G he also lectured (part time) at Durham Prison on car mechanics. I cannot remember exactly what year he joined us but he could very probably have been the name you were thinking of. With us he found life so different as the pressure t get work done & quick turnaround was so different to a Main Vauxhall- Bedford dealership so we transferred him into the Traffic Department where he dealt with customers which was his best quality. He also liased with Alan Henderson who we had replaced him with as Fleet engineer to ensure vehicles were available for 4 weekly checking & servicing etc. and also was first class for charging Bedford for guarantee work we did on our own vehicles (We had an arrangement where we did all guarantee work in our own workshop & were paid directly by Vauxhall Motors for this).Eddie was also an expert for pricing up insurance repairs so we made a decent profit for repairing body work on our own vehicles where thet had been in accidents where a third party was at fault and Eddie got the maximum payment from the insurers.Bill Peacock was sales Manager as you said and won lots & lots of prizes as Top Bedford Salesman in UK (God Knows how) except he was fortunate at Northumbria Water Board bought all their HA & CL vans from him in huge numbers. Remarkably we bought only a very small percentage of our new Bedfords from A & G as always he either couldn’t get delivery quick enough or he couldn’t match the discount we could get from dealers from other parts of the country
Like you say like we were Barnfather & Wilkes were very good customers there every day in the parts department.
Hi Carl,I think Eddy might have just left A&G Durham just around the time i joined. As regards the prices of Bedford’s from other dealer’s i can fully understand why your company went elsewhere.Even as Commercial Sales Manager, Bill Peacock had to have his transactions verified by “higher ups”. Quite frankly i was embarrassed at times when quoting prices for new vehicles and having to give prices for “trade ins” which were always"bottom book" or less!..and asking “top book” prices on their resale.Many a part exchange would stand rusting, brakes seizing and gathering dust until we could shift them! Bill would often come into the office saying he had sold a vehicle, when in fact we did’nt have it in stock (throughout the group) and spend the next few day’s on the phone frantically trying to locate the desired vehicle throughout the country’s dealership’s! Spent many a working day travelling down country picking up chassis cabs, but back the same day of course! No nights away on the wage bill!!
I suppose this was the mark of a good salesman?
I knew of Barnfarther’s (and Wilkes) when i was very young and when i started work at A&G Durham i met the Barnfarther son’s (Tom and Brian?) I seem to remember that certainly Tom was into rallying and i’m sure his car had the 555 registration?
Tom was certainly still very faithful to Bedford’s at the time eventho’ they had been running Volvo’s for a few years.Maybe this was because of his dad’s use of Bedford’s previously and i know he had driven Bedford’s for his dad when younger.
I remember him coming into A&G after reading an article about the Detroit TM’s (i think in the Commercial Motor?) and defending their performance, given by another haulier in the article, slating the vehicle. He was adamant that they (Barnfarther’s) would buy this vehicle from the disgruntled operator and run it themselves!
Anyway i’ll probably come back to that topic again.
Me dad (God bless him) James (Jimmy) Paul was born in Seaham in 1912 and served in the RAF with 107 sq from 1940 to 45 as aircraft mechanic/airframes on Blenheim’s,Boston’s and Mosquito’s. He started his own business (exact dates to be verified by big bro’) about 1950 as a sand and gravel merchant in Seaham. His first motor was a Bedford J type tipper, the factory red in colour, with his name painted on the diesel tank. I’m sure this was bought from A&G Sunderland and was a Sunderland registration (again to be verified by big bro’) My first recollections at about the age of 4/5yrs are of sitting on the passenger bench seat travelling down to West Hartlepool and loading sand off the beach from a Ruston Bucyrus dragline bucket. The driver’s name (or one of the driver’s names) was Dennis, his surname might well be supplied later by you know who! The main haulier leading off the beach was J.Burdon (grey i think) Bedford’s from Hartlepool. Quite a few motor’s if my memory serve’s me? Me dad supplied (certainly) Seaham Urban District Council with “sharp” sand and building (yellow) sand but i can also remember running thro’ to Newcastle quayside, over the swing bridge (North) to a small low ceiling building which absolutely stunk!! Was this a tannery? Maybe someone can recall or know of this building?It’s possible the tipper body could’nt be raised very high and most of the sand was shovelled off? Again i can verify later after speaking with my brother (hopefully i can interview him before he “moves on!”) he’s 76 God bless him and i should really o.k it with him if i’m going to quote names registrations etc.He did of course drive for me dad for about 15 yrs.
Im going to leave it there for now, me ovaltine is getting cold!
Hi Paulycats
Really looking forward to hearing more of your family history. I too have fond memories of school holidays in the 50’s & 60’s spent riding shotgun in various Bedfords and going to Dunn Street ( and later Felling) for spares. My Father bought all ours from A&G,George Dodsworth was the salesman. We had J and O models and then moved on to TK’s and of course KM’s. I think ourselves and Harry Nichol had the first KM’s on Tyneside, both tippers ECN 230E and ECN 231E. one of the TK’s from about 1960 used on livestock had a Leyland engine and Eaton Two Speed axle and was a real flyer, reg for that one was TNL 360.
All of our Bedfords were used for various applications LWB flats / livestock, SWB tippers, mid length for Autobagger household coal deliveries and 7.5 ton tippers for local authority work.
Cheers Tyneside
tyneside:
Hi Paulycats
Really looking forward to hearing more of your family history. I too have fond memories of school holidays in the 50’s & 60’s spent riding shotgun in various Bedfords and going to Dunn Street ( and later Felling) for spares. My Father bought all ours from A&G,George Dodsworth was the salesman. We had J and O models and then moved on to TK’s and of course KM’s. I think ourselves and Harry Nichol had the first KM’s on Tyneside, both tippers ECN 230E and ECN 231E. one of the TK’s from about 1960 used on livestock had a Leyland engine and Eaton Two Speed axle and was a real flyer, reg for that one was TNL 360.
All of our Bedfords were used for various applications LWB flats / livestock, SWB tippers, mid length for Autobagger household coal deliveries and 7.5 ton tippers for local authority work.Cheers Tyneside
Would this have been supplied by A&G ?
pete smith:
tyneside:
Hi Paulycats
Really looking forward to hearing more of your family history. I too have fond memories of school holidays in the 50’s & 60’s spent riding shotgun in various Bedfords and going to Dunn Street ( and later Felling) for spares. My Father bought all ours from A&G,George Dodsworth was the salesman. We had J and O models and then moved on to TK’s and of course KM’s. I think ourselves and Harry Nichol had the first KM’s on Tyneside, both tippers ECN 230E and ECN 231E. one of the TK’s from about 1960 used on livestock had a Leyland engine and Eaton Two Speed axle and was a real flyer, reg for that one was TNL 360.
All of our Bedfords were used for various applications LWB flats / livestock, SWB tippers, mid length for Autobagger household coal deliveries and 7.5 ton tippers for local authority work.Cheers Tyneside
Would this have been supplied by A&G ?
Hi Pete,
Really interesting wagon this one, not many of these around even when new. If you go to the website “Truck Photo’s”, Bedford’s and go to page 17 you can see more on it’s history. As for the selling dealership i would guess at A&G but not sure? Maybe someone on here has information?
Hi Pete & Paulycats, IIRC, This was new to Taits Transport Haydon Bridge & possibley from A&G, Hexham ■■?, Regards Larry.