We were enjoying a nice lie in, good lady says to me “it’s past seven thirty…bet you’d have been out of bed and on the road for a good few hours back in your driving days”.
This led me to thinking that if you could turn back the clock a few years and get back behind the wheel for a week…would you? Or does retirement and the lure of your own bed, a decent shower, proper breakfast and lazy days prove too much and you’d remain as you are?
Me…I’d be away up the road like a rat up a drainpipe.
Personally,after getting up at silly o’clock and working like a good’un with weeks away from home for over 50 years,why the hell would i want to continue now if i don’t have to.Ok,for many people who have a limited income [due to the kindness of successive governements] 
,who are more or less forced to continue working there is Little choice but if you have sufficient income there are many things to do with your time,and who knows how much there is left.This has been discussed Before on here and there are many who continue to work so it is,in many cases a personal thing.
Couldn’t agree more, I was just thinking along a sentimental line…just to do a run for a few days.
Richard J:
Couldn’t agree more, I was just thinking along a sentimental line…just to do a run for a few days.
I’m 70 this year and have just renewed my licence (for the last time 
) I have been doing holiday relief the odd week for an O/D. I know weeks in advance when he needs me and I look forward to the job, but by the middle of the week I’m usually fed up with getting out of bed early and I’m looking forward to not going out to work again!!! I recently told my pal I would only do odd days now as a full week is getting to be too much for me. I’m still pretty fit and if the weather is ok I cycle the ten miles round trip but, the combination of traffic and the physical side of the job has influenced my decision to give up my licence this year. Although as I’ve had the brief since 1970 it will be a difficult move to make when the time comes!!! 
Regards Kev
I worked 49 years driving, I have no intention of EVER doing another days work in my life, what time I have left IS MINE.
If I do get the urge (no, not that) I can get the car out, load my domestic facilities manageress up, have a day out, and come home. Stuff the cab hotel.
I got a lot of job satisfaction when I was working, I enjoyed it, but retirement is a pretty decent career.
Richard J:
…if you could turn back the clock a few years and get back behind the wheel for a week…would you?..
That’s the key part of the question! My answer would be yes, without a doubt! Back to the 80’s and disappear down to Greece in a Daf 3300 Space Cab! I have fond memories (probably rose tinted!) of driving around Europe at that time. I don’t think I would like to do it now though.
I’m just to dumb to retire… Actually I retire every time I get the truck back to the yard, but then about 7 in the evening after enjoying my first evening meal of retirement the boss phones and says " Hay mate… couldn’t do me a favour … "
Sucker !!!
I still enjoying driving about here, it is a bit like Europe in the 70’s and 80’s, I make out my log book if I feel like it. I can drive half an hour and stop for a sleep if I like, or I can go all day with out a brake and just fill in a load of rubbish in my log book to make it look good. The boss doesn’t even bother if I hand it in at the end of the day. Various toys to play with in the yard, everything form an Iveco Daily to Interstate triple road trains.
Would I go back to driving in Europe or farther out … as many people on here have said already … If I could go back to an F12 Globetrotter, 142 Scania, or Space Cab Daf etc in the 70’s 80’s or even early 90’s , in a heart beat…
Jeff…
I finished work and driving HGV’s 14 years ago but still wake up at 4.30-5am most mornings as old habits die hard I guess? Would start driving again tomorrow if things were still as they were when I finished and personal issues were different, I am currently waiting for my HGV licence to return from Swansea but I feel alas that it may not be granted as it has been gone a month. However I keep myself busy repairing vehicles, restoring vintage engines and machinery and doing odd jobs for neighbours etc which makes me feel that I still have something usefull to contribute to the world rather than just festering away until I turn my toes skywards! That said, it is nice not to be outside at 4.30am scraping the car windscreen and then 20 minutes later doing the same to the truck! 
Pete.
I’m contentedly retired, with no intentions of working again, especially in today’s workplace. However, if (as the question indicates) I could turn the clock back and do it for just one week; then yes, I’d be off like a shot. Nice little run, about late springtime in the '90s perhaps, to Spain or south of France in an ERF with a Fuller in it. Decent Routiers every evening. I’d even put up with a tilt for just a week! Robert
windrush:
I finished work and driving HGV’s 14 years ago but still wake up at 4.30-5am most mornings as old habits die hard I guess? Would start driving again tomorrow if things were still as they were when I finished and personal issues were different, I am currently waiting for my HGV licence to return from Swansea but I feel alas that it may not be granted as it has been gone a month. However I keep myself busy repairing vehicles, restoring vintage engines and machinery and doing odd jobs for neighbours etc which makes me feel that I still have something usefull to contribute to the world rather than just festering away until I turn my toes skywards! That said, it is nice not to be outside at 4.30am scraping the car windscreen and then 20 minutes later doing the same to the truck!Pete.
hi Pete, when I were a 15yr old my boss Gordon Stacey (51) says to me " No man lying on his deathbed has ever said I wished I,d spent more time at work" he may have been right, Mind you he also told me “If it weren,t for the hairs on a gooseberry everyone would call it a grape” so make what you will of it, I did
It took me a long time to get out of the habit of getting up at four every morning…but now, I love my lie ins.
Yes, I meant just going back in time for a week or so. I’d love to do my West Country run again, starting off in Brighton, working along the coast…Portsmouth, down to Weymouth…Taunton, Bristol…then on up to Stratford, Malvern…last drop Camberley, then home. Just to see if I could still do it…but the DVLA have my HGV licence, and they wouldn’t give it back, so I shall just have to dream on.
kevmac47:
Richard J:
Couldn’t agree more, I was just thinking along a sentimental line…just to do a run for a few days.I’m 70 this year and have just renewed my licence (for the last time
I’m 74 this year and God willing if I pass another medical I’ll continue doing my two night trunks a week.
I’ve only been saying earlier on a Facebook site, that if I could turn the clock back 40 years and be back on the middle east run, well who wouldn’t?
Would love to get back behind the wheel after 1year off miss the work ethic
K
I’m 65 in August, got all my tickets, the first (licence) runs out in mid 2018. I decided to ‘retire’ in 2010, the day before my 58th birthday purely because I could. After 13 months I was bored witless, loads of hobbies but no motivation to do anything so I went back to work part time for a well known haulier from Potto, after @ 18 months I was amongst other things pulling 60 feet of steel around. Had a little break then went back to the tanker company I left in 2010 working in the T.O or driving, ended up just driving on weekends and the odd nightshift in the T.O but they got took over and I would rather drink my own p*** than work for the new owners so I ‘retired’ again in Sept 2015. Since then it has not at all bothered me about not working, (been on a pension since I turned 60) but lately I have been getting ‘itchy feet’ and considering a couple of options. What I do think is driving does get under your skin a bit and like every one else I would love to know what I know now and have had some of the kit that’s about now when I started off as green as grass in 1974!
windrush:
I finished work and driving HGV’s 14 years ago but still wake up at 4.30-5am most mornings as old habits die hard I guess?Pete.
You only worked part-time hours then, Pete?
Steve
Lawrence Dunbar:
ourse it was a different world in those long gone days, when evryone looked out for eachother, Sad but very true, Regards Larry,
This was my first Foden as an owner driver, I made a few quid & went on for almost 30 years having several motors tippers & flats & artics running on local & long distance work, I still wake up at 4.30am & think Ive overslept, But thats what happens when your in the haulage game, Im 81 now but I do miss the good old days going over The Standedge to Manchester then loading for Rutherglen & going over Shap, & my nights in London on the Hill, Kipping at Tonies in Mansell Street,I would do it all again if I could turn the clock back, Of c
Lawrence Dunbar:
Lawrence Dunbar:
1This was my first Foden as an owner driver, I made a few quid & went on for almost 30 years having several motors tippers & flats & artics running on local & long distance work, I still wake up at 4.30am & think Ive overslept, But thats what happens when your in the haulage game, Im 81 now but I do miss the good old days going over The Standedge to Manchester then loading for Rutherglen & going over Shap, & my nights in London on the Hill, Kipping at Tonies in Mansell Street,I would do it all again if I could turn the clock back, Of c0ourse it was a different world in those long gone days, when evryone looked out for eachother, Sad but very true, Regards Larry,
And this ERF Was the last of Dunbars Transport motors.
I finished in 2004 , bad angina and the nasty man took my licence away . Times were hard for a while but once we’d got things sorted out i got all those jobs done that i had been " getting round to " . We go off on holiday when the mood takes us for as long as we like . I don’t miss the silly o’clock starts one little bit , and although winters can be a bit boring I can look out the window and be thankful I don’t have to go out in the rain and frost . I reckon I did my share in my working life and the younger people are welcome to it now . To be honest I was getting bored with driving towards the end so that made it easier , I even learned to drive a computer once i had time . Dave
Lawrence Dunbar:
0This was my first Foden as an owner driver, I made a few quid & went on for almost 30 years having several motors tippers & flats & artics running on local & long distance work, I still wake up at 4.30am & think Ive overslept, But thats what happens when your in the haulage game, Im 81 now but I do miss the good old days going over The Standedge to Manchester then loading for Rutherglen & going over Shap, & my nights in London on the Hill, Kipping at Tonies in Mansell Street,I would do it all again if I could turn the clock back, Of course it was a different world in those long gone days, when evryone looked out for eachother, Sad but very true, Regards Larry,
lawrence if you didn,t miss the old days they,d be summat up with you, they were marvellous n nobody can take em away from us thank God. I f you feel like getting misty over it all google Van Morrison These are the days on you tube , you,ll be an hard hearted buga if you don,t fill up maybes cheers Paul
