I know most of them,Dave May and I were best mates,he’s more or less off sick permanently now as he has Parkinsons disease.
Glenda,yes of course.Handsome Ransome,he lives just around the corner from my brother.
I was almost one of the originals,or ‘Royal Family’ as we were called and also remember:
Martin ‘Raspberry Ripple’ Fitzgerald
Colin ‘Tick-Tock’ Pipe
Mick Coombes
Danny Palmer
Eddie Stokoe
Ronnie and Peter Pearce
Richard Collier
Stevie Haddock
John Dale
and many,many more…
As for the Grays drivers,I remember more of them from when Goodways started at Dagenham,in Chequers Lane.
There was Big George and a couple of his sons and Gerry Baldwin.
I also remember a few lads from the Manchester depot in Lyons Rd on Trafford Park.Like Clive Matthews,Les Lee and Alan Bowden to name a few.
I left GTS in 1991 so that was before they took over Tracto and Loadwell’s.
When I started there we had a small yard in Sub-Station Road,just past P&O Roadways and then moved to Ferry Hill,just off Walton Ave. where at first it was just rough ground until they had the whole yard block-paved.
One memorable occassion occured when they’d taken on a new fork-truck driver for the m/t boxes.He came bowling round the yard one evening with a 40’ reefer right up in the air,and turned the whole lot over,narrowly missing the office in which I was standing!
oh,oh,oh, dear boy, yer know smokie haddock, tick tock …wee.wee. , richard collier, didnt know that about mother may tho kw, shame as he was such a nice guy aswell, yer know big “chubby les lee” and little alan he was a decent guys aswell
last i heard from hansome he was on with charles gee, havent spoke to him for about 2 yrs now mind,keep going to ring him but you know how it is you never get round to rining them lol,
guess smoothy harvey macintyre,was their when you was kw?
Yeah Harvey was there.
If I remember rightly the company was started by Peter Miller and Roger Jennings and Harvey bought into the company a little while later.
Sue Cordell was also there from the start,being poached from P&O.
They used to have a small office in P&O and we used to park the trucks there,then they moved to a portakabin in a small yard just up from P&O.
I started there around mid '83 I think,and left at the start of '91.
I know most of the names you mention,Richard Collier,Stevie Haddock,Daisy,Toolbox etc etc.
Though Les Lee wasn’t exactly chubby then!
I’ve got some pics somewhere of various motors I had while at Goodways,I’ll try and sort some out and put them on Picture Post and I’ll get the old brain cells going and try and remember some more names.
ok kw, be nice to see the old piccys, can you remember marshy from manchester and happy brian,
think daisy is now on for j,kembells, was he always swiming when you knew him lol,
sue cordell was still their, nice girl was sue,
globby 480:
ok kw, be nice to see the old piccys, can you remember marshy from manchester and happy brian,
think daisy is now on for j,kembells, was he always swiming when you knew him lol,
sue cordell was still their, nice girl was sue,
When you say ‘happy brian’ I take it you mean Brian who was the yard/fork-lift man?Miserable git sometimes,but other times he was quite amiable.He used to run his own motor,an ex-Russell Davies 111 Scania that was originally in the livery of Evergreen and then he sold it to Dennis someone or other (possibly Dennis Barber?) who then subbed for Goodways.
The yard in Lyons Rd,Trafford Park was taken over from Machin’s Transport who had pulled out of Manchester,and there was a scouse guy running it for a little while (remembering names is’nt my strong point) and then John Tutton came in as depot manager.
At that time there were only a couple of driver’s based in Mcr,and us Felixstowe lads would go up and work out of Mcr containerbase and Seaforth all week.There used to be a cafe just down the road run by a big bloke by the name of Albert,somewhere near a tankwash I think?
Either that or we would go around to the Truckstop and see the strippers,although it was more entertaining watching all the Turkish drivers sitting at the front of the stage with their eyeballs hanging out!
Sometimes we would go and park in Eccles,at the back of the supermarket,and visit one or two drinking establishments!!
I remember one night we were on our way back to the trucks and one of our drivers was having a bit of an argument with an A.A.Griggs driver and they ended up scrapping in the car park,then John Dale grabs both of them by the scruff of the neck and bangs their heads together!John Dale was a great bloke,he’s working for Harvey Macintyre now,as are most of the ex-Goodway drivers I understand.
Daisy has webbed feet!
He used to be on the OOCL/Furness Withy contract and was always parked up somewhere in the middle of the day at a swimming pool!
Yes he’s on for James Kemball.
I’ll get in touch with my brother (ex-Goodway,Port of Felixstowe,Maritime and now Bawdsey Haulage) and find out where they’re all working now.
kw, could you do me a favour please, your brother lives nr hansome ransome doesnt he or your inlaw??, could you ask if they see hansome to get his mobile number for me?? the one i have for him just keeps rinning, guess he may have lost that phone or something??, if dave ask"s who wants the number tell him the MOUTH OF THE NORTH, FROM KIRK SMEATON YARD, or darran… aka DODGY, thanks IF YOU CAN GET IT FOR ME
yep thats brian, god old happy, was a pain some days but the nxt he was good, still thats how people are i guess
