Bunny fell in love with an Irish girl ,left his wife & moved to Dublin & remarried.He lived in the same town ( Sudbury,Suffolk ) as Johnny Edwards. Johnny ended up on Young Bros out of Kent. Before SCA John was a partner in a very successful firm but his passion for golf ruined him. Lost the firm ,lost his wife,lost his house. It was not until the bailiffs removed his golf clubs did it really sink in. But later on he would always take his golf clubs with him everywhere in th cab.And stop off in France ,Spain etc for a round or two. 
Yeah ,I ended up on Containers out of FX .Lovely easy job.But did those guys moan…They were world class. Too much time on their hands…
Yup, Bunny always was a ladies man. Shame about Ann his wife. She really was a lovely girl, in every way. I fell for her a bit, myself.
Is Bunny still with us, do you know?. John told me that he was very ill indeed. Last time I heard from John, he had his own 7.5 tonner on parcel distribution. Seemed to like it OK. Must be in his seventies by now. We once went up and stayed with John and his wife, Glen, in Sudbury. Another very nice lady.
He told me that he had gone bust in a carpet business, although never said it was his fault. He was quite a good athlete for a little bloke. Believe he had a trial for Spurs in his youth.
You remember his “posh” accent? He used to work for Cook’s Travel agents when he was much younger. His job was to meet the VIPs off the planes at Heathrow and ■■■■■■■■ them with his very English accent.
He was a bit selfish in his attitude to me when we teamed together, but overall a good bloke.
We were both keen anglers in thiose days (I still am). We used to pinch a few hours fishing in the Lac Du Zup at Bourg en Bresse. Chambers saw us loading the fishing tackle into the motor one day. Wouldn’t speak directly to us. Too much of a wimp. We got a bollocking off the TM, but Ron Hall, the union steward, said “Some drivers go on the beer in their spare time, but these two go fishing. So what?” Another diamond geezer, was our Ron.
Ron was Ace. I think he married that really attractive girl in the office. Small ,with dark hair. They started a transport business together & did quite well I heard. I never met any of Bunny’s’ wives. I haven’t heard anything about him for years… Were you there when Johnny Ethrington was in his prime…? & that Bob ,was a Jones! Tanker Bill was another driver on SCA for a while. Rowland from Thrapston…Talk about memory lane…
Ah right. Ron married Maureen did he. She was a great girl as well. When I started with SAC she just about ran the show. Office-wise that is. The was just Chambers, Ralph, me, another driver and Maureen. Did hear that Ron and Maureen moved to Canada at some point.
What about Micky (Foxy) Maunders? One of the London shunters. Worked part-time for the twins. Bloody great bloke. Sound as a pound with me though
Yes, I knew Johnny Etherington and his brother Pete. Last saw Johnny at a MSA when he was on MAT transport. Must have been about 1989/90 when I was on Russell Davies.
Do you remember Georgie Drew? From up north somewhere. Also did they still have the hot-lard tankers when you were on there? Daycab Sacnias in my day
Micky started his own business in the West Country…Good mate of mine. He told me that when he was with SCA Maureen invited him round to her flat in London for a meal. While he was there her ex-husband arrived & assaulted her . Micky knocked six bells out of 'im. After that M idolized Micky. Ethrington went with Croomes then ran off with another drivers wife…That Croom fired him, then I heard he was on Muffits & always took her with him…
Great bloke was George…He lived at Wells by the Sea.He used to lend me his car to get home…Austin Princess Auto!
Well I’ll be damned. Micky moved out of London? If ever there was a real east-ender that was our Micky.
Very fit wasn’t he? He would be standing there talking to you in the yard and all of a sudden he’d go “Hup” and, before you could say “Jack the Hat”, do a complete forward somersault from a standing start and carry on talking as if nothing had happened. Very impressive. Most were scared of him, but I never found him aggressive at all, unless forced to be.
I heard that story about Maureen’s ex-husband so don’t doubt it at all. Happened during my time. I went to her flat several times, with others. It was in Leyton, wasn’t it? Her mate was Janie Butler, Frankie Butler’s daughter and a real hard case, father and daughter. My lady friend from the office was a lovely black girl called Addie. The most beautiful eyes you’ve ever seen. Wonder what happened to her. Ah well.
Did you use the pub over the road from the yard. Can’t remember its name now. Tiny little place. Guvnor was Cliffy. Good bloke. His wife had a withered hand. A real laugh in there. Used to get all the old boys from the sailor’s mission just down the road. Got it…The Sir Charles Napier
I lived too close to London to ever have time to go to Maureens place.
I think Adie had left by the time I got there in Island Row…Mickey went onto the international side of SCA before he got his firm. Re: That FIAT. It was RHD ,Front & rear steering on the Truck & ditto on the trailer. I used to come up from the tunnel in East India Dock Road on the inside lane. And when I got to that narrow left turn ,in traffic , to Island Row I used to keep six inches from those railings on the corner & turn in without having to take it wide at all. It followed perfectly. But in bad weather going downhill in the mountains it was a pig when the the trailer started to go from side to side like an ■■■■■■ snake on Vaseline! The other wonderful thing was it didn’t have spring brakes. So when the air was low the whole thing could just go free fall! But to be fair it did have a buzzer to warn you when to jump out
How were SCA doing the Italian run in your time? I left while we were double-manning it. Lovely really, supposed to do it more or less non-stop Calais to Milan/Turin. Johnny and I took longer than solo. Nobody complained. Just after I left, they started that “staging” thing. One driver would spend his 3 weeks running trailers up from Italy up to a bar/restaurant about halfway up France. There a driver who had come down from London would take it back to london, while the Upward driver would take his trailer on down. How long did that last?
Pretty soon after that they took on a load of ODs didn’t they and gradually ran the employed drivers down. Then Andy Dare who had been a Director started Europa and took it all over. He was a good bloke. I liked him. Did SCA go bust or just finish?
Yes, I remember that turn into Island Row. I used to pull round the wrong side of the traffic bollards and go in that way. Even that was bloody tight.
All in all, it was just about the best job going at the time. I was a fool to laeve, but I became bored with the repetition of it all. I was single again at the tiem and lived at home in Hailsham with my old mum. No ties or resonsibilities That Malta run, with the containers, would have done me OK
rexyu All the time I was with SCA ( Just over a year ) they were single manning round trips. The OD’s hadn’t yet started.
SCA did go bust with quite a few drivers still on the Italian run. I believe all the dosh had gone & the word got round to the lads still abroad that if the company owed them money they were entitled to sieze the goods they were carrying . I think the most valuable load was a full shoot of bird cages!
Needless to say nobody took advantage of this law…
Re: Malta Cross. We only went as far as Marsielles. But yours truly had just started TIR & wanted to travel so I persuaded the boss to send me to Italy■■ 
So off I go to Italy with tilts & could never get back onto the Marseilles run.
They later called the firm EuroCross. I left & went with ye infamous Roger Plizka doing Greece,Romania ,etc.
Ah right. So that stupid staging thingy never worked. I never thought that it would really.
I think I remember Malta Cross and the name Plizka rings a host of bells, although I can’t remember why
Roger’s flag was the scull & crossbones…One of the original pirates & rate-cutters on the Continent… He made all the later scourges look tame…We went away broke & came home rich. Trucks were never paid for ,DKV was a luxury… Basically if the drivers wanted to make money then the truck was theirs to to what they wanted once the out load had been delivered… We would find our own loads back & get the money up-front before we left Italy… For instance he went bust twice in the time I was working with him! At one time Avis sent out some detectives in cars looking for us in Europe. Roger had told Avis that we had stolen the trucks but to be careful because we were all armed!!! Chambers knew nothing of this history when I joined…( Nothing repetitive about Roger ) I left SCA because I had no control over how the truck was loaded… One of the last trips was 2t ? of plastic garden furniture on the truck…11t groupage on the trailer…recipe for disaster… :
harry:
[. I think the most valuable load was a full shoot of bird cages!
That reminds me (sorry to ■■■■ in on your very interesting reminiscenses) once when running down to Savona for Mickey White we fell in with a little Lancashire lad with a broad Bolton accent. It was only his second trip and he seemed so lost that my wife took an immediate shine to him, in a motherly sort of way. He told of his first trip with such bewildered innocence that when he got to the bit where he had been pulled over a weighbridge in France and fined for the overload we were most concerned and sympathetic but said that’s what you have to put up with when taking the risk. He still wore the same expression of bewilderment when we fell about in hysterics as he got to the part about the bird cages he was carrying at the time 
.
The final straw was when he was propositioned by a giant ■■■■■■ at the docks while having a pee and beat a hasty retreat into his cab, locked himself in and sat there brandishing a nailbar! When we had recovered our composure we persuaded his admirer to leave him alone.
Spardo You still have to be carefull of those giant trannies down in Felixtowe Docks…! I think they call them ‘straddlers’ as well ,so you have been warned!!
Great pictures and a good tale,Iremember seeing SCA about years ago ,did they have many trucks?.I remember the Fiats ,you couldn’t park them outside if rain was likely ,you,d come back to a pile of rust. regards derek
Rattlesnake Dave:
Yep Geoff, they brought the F89’s over from Sweden when they closed down the depot in Malmö and re-registered them here (they were S Reg if that helps you remember your old motor).They used to pull like a train. No passenger seat 'cos the sink and cooker were there and the fridge was under the bunk. Plant & Engineering at Colnbrook bought 6 of them when PIE closed and I went to work for them for a while. This photo was taken in the yard behind the Riverside Café on the Colnbrook bypass.
This next photo was taken in the desert somewhere and it’s courtesy of my mate Keith Greenfield (pictured). There’s a PIE F89 on the right and the maroon Scania was the the one Keith was driving.
i posted the text below in the 80s thread Dave but it didn’t jogg any memories…
brings back memories for me when i was a kid in the 70s…i was always hanging around in swanstons (tan house farm) as i lived across the road from them in mill st colnbrook…they had 2 trucks from what i can remember back then…one was a scania 141 and the other my favourite of all time and i suppose the truck that got me interested in driving was the volvo f88…the f88 was driven by a guy called peter and i loved going out on local jobs with him in school holidays when he wasn’t lugging plant abroad… was always helping wash his truck down too ect…the 141 i think was driven by a guy called john might be wrong…the house in the pic was owned by swanstons (P&E) and i think it was his son jimmy that lived there who also had a brother called nicky… was Percy the fitter there when you worked for them…he was a top man in my eyes when i was a kid…my dad at the time was driving an artic for farleys and use to bring his ford D series unit home with him and park it in the lane nr where the above pic was taken untill we moved in 1977…
Gaz, this is one driver named Pete that worked for Plant & Engineering, I can’t remember his surname but he used to be an Owner Driver before. He had a yellow F88 with a red roof if I remember correctly and it had a full roof rack with his name on the front. The picture was taken out front of the Mill House and we were loading a CAT of some sort. There were another two drivers named pete, one was Pete Sadler and the other was Pete Pantlin (May not have the surname quite correct). I’d like to say Happy Days, but they weren’'t, the other guys loved it there but I thought it was bloody hard work. It’s the only place I’ve ever worked where the drivers changed their own tyres, and yes I do mean tyres, not wheels, I’ve done plenty of them by the side of the road!
When you say your dad drove for Farley’s, I take it you mean Farley’s Rusks, I remember they had a factory just up the road on the Colnbrook By-Pass
got any more pics Dave…i dont think thats the pete i knew as he had im 100% sure it was a blue f88 and the car he drove was an austin maxi…i use to wash the cars and petes truck in the barn…the one just as you went over the bridge on the right going into the yard and not the barn with the clock above and with the horse’s…old man swanstons wife at the time had a triumph stag which i thought was the dogs danglies…do you remember the red vauxhall VX that all the drivers had use to…was a filthy place to work in with grease and mud everywhere…i use to get the odd drive in an old bedford tractor unit…they would put chains on it and i would give it the beans pulling the tracks off the sides of the cranes and dozers…i must have been about 12 yrs old back then…there was also a breakdown company there called gloways…farleys were based in galleymead rd up at poyle and coca cola were dead oposite…farleys old warehouse is now ocupied by watkins and sole…
Sorry Gaz, may have not made myself clear, the Pete in the photo had a Yellow Volvo before he worked at P & E, I have got a photo of one of their earlier Scania’s and the second photo is the same one on the front of a low loader at the services near Montelimar when it came to take my Scania back after the engine blew.
And as to your question about the Vauxhall, I don’t remember it, this is one of the vehicles we used to drive about in and Pete Sadler is driving it.
And as for the yard, as you say, you needed snow chains in the height of summer to get about!
Spardo:
harry:
[. I think the most valuable load was a full shoot of bird cages!That reminds me (sorry to ■■■■ in on your very interesting reminiscenses) once when running down to Savona for Mickey White we fell in with a little Lancashire lad with a broad Bolton accent. It was only his second trip and he seemed so lost that my wife took an immediate shine to him, in a motherly sort of way. He told of his first trip with such bewildered innocence that when he got to the bit where he had been pulled over a weighbridge in France and fined for the overload we were most concerned and sympathetic but said that’s what you have to put up with when taking the risk. He still wore the same expression of bewilderment when we fell about in hysterics as he got to the part about the bird cages he was carrying at the time
The final straw was when he was propositioned by a giant ■■■■■■ at the docks while having a pee and beat a hasty retreat into his cab, locked himself in and sat there brandishing a nailbar! When we had recovered our composure we persuaded his admirer to leave him alone.
That story rings a lot of bells with me. I think the driver was a friend of mine who pulled for Chris Brearley. His name was Carl Ryan. last seen driving an old 2800 Daf and he parked in an old BRS depot in Bolton.
He had also worked for Archbold from Trafford Park before joining me at Landfast.
I think at that time he was in partnership with another guy (Alan Ashcroft) from Bolton running an old 111
Wheel Nut:
[
That story rings a lot of bells with me. I think the driver was a friend of mine
who pulled for Chris Brearley. His name was Carl Ryan. last seen driving an
old 2800 Daf and he parked in an old BRS depot in Bolton.
He had also worked for Archbold from Trafford Park before j
oining me at Landfast.I think at that time he was in partnership with another guy (Alan Ashcroft) from
Bolton running an old 111
Blimey Malc, you must have time on your hands dredging up an old post like
that - wish I was still working and had so much time to spare.
Anyway just had a word with Fran and she doesn’t connect with any of the facts
that you remember other than that he came from Bolton. He was a wiry little
blond haired youth who may have worn glasses, be about 50 now we think.
We think however that his motor was a blue 110/111 and he was pulling a
stepframe trailer. She says he was a lovely fella and so naive. The sort of
bloke who makes silly women go ‘ahhh, bless’ - so she did.