63 years ago
Tony
Bewick:
Dear oh dear John you’ve had more than your fair share of “lumber” in the early yearsI know that Bill’s “nick name” was Kruger but I would never call him that,(not just sure where the name came from) was it something to do with the W11 prison camp at Flookburgh and was Bill the Commandant maybe
Well at least he would have stood no bollox off the inmates eh! Then the camp was used to house Polish ex servicemen who remained in the UK and didn’t one of them become Bill’s Star fitter, apparently he could turn his hand to anything which accounted for the immaculate conversions of the old Guy Invincibles. Cheers Dennis.
You’re right Dennis, Bill’s star mechanic was a Pole. I’d forgotten about the camp. There was a similar camp at Millom IIRC (later converted to HMP Haverigg) and there are a lot of Polish names in Millom now. George C Croasdale at Haverthwaite also had a top class Polish mechanic called Yan, (maybe from Flooburgh too?) who was brilliant at creating the ‘dogs’, which were a scissor like contraption with points on the ends and a couple of chains at the other end, which were hooked onto the crane hook with a C shaped metal coupling and used to grab the tree trunks to pull through the wood and load onto the wagons. These were made from straightened spring steel. My Uncle Jack said that all the angles had to be perfect and Yan had it down to a fine art.
I used to love loading the trucks with the timber - either driving the crane, an ex army Ford with a Jib on the back, or hooking the afore mentioned dog onto the timber and balancing it just right, including my own weight, riding up on the log onto the lorry, then positioning it so that as little weight as possible was leaning on the side supports. Not much in the way of health and safety then!
In a previous post we mentioned the steel mouldings out of Barrow & Workington Steelworks and Cairds etc being held on by gravity. Before I started driving my truck I worked for Uncle Jack doing the above things. The Scots lad who drove the six wheeler which belonged to ‘Wee Jock’ from St. Boswells, used to chain 14 tons of timber - around the timber! I asked Jack what was holding it on to the lorry and his reply was ‘Gravity!’ But he never had one fall off! I used to like the end hooks on the chassis myself!
John
How ahead of it’s time was this then??
Whilst it looks dated, the concept is so Now
Side skirts, teardrop’ish trailer, topliner cab, very aerodynamic looking
HomoFaber:
excuse my ignorance, but what vehicle is this:
■■?Found in one of those 70+ pages…
I wonder if this is the vehicle I used to operate the indicators on for my Dad back in the sixties when I was a very young boy…
i would take a fair guess at a dennis .
its a dennis but don’t know what model
dave docwra:
HomoFaber:
excuse my ignorance, but what vehicle is this:
■■?Found in one of those 70+ pages…
I wonder if this is the vehicle I used to operate the indicators on for my Dad back in the sixties when I was a very young boy…
Sunday,27th September,2015
Dennis Maxim,■■■■■■■ -engined,4x2 - 4,Tractive Unit,Flat-bodied Articulated Lorry,GNJ 289D,1966.
The Dennis Maxim was the top weight Dennis model,and was made in tractive unit and rigid six-wheeler versions. But the Maxim models
were rare.
VALKYRIE
It’s a Dennis Maxim
Toddy2:
0How ahead of it’s time was this then??
Whilst it looks dated, the concept is so NowSide skirts, teardrop’ish trailer, topliner cab, very aerodynamic looking
We used the Carrimores retractors on the car transporters in the early 60s they were more stable than a 5th wheel because of the large plate. The only downer was that it was a spanner job to uncouple, I have a drawing of one in my files somewhere will sort it out.
VALKYRIE:
dave docwra:
HomoFaber:
excuse my ignorance, but what vehicle is this:
■■?Found in one of those 70+ pages…
I wonder if this is the vehicle I used to operate the indicators on for my Dad back in the sixties when I was a very young boy…
Sunday,27th September,2015
Dennis Maxim,■■■■■■■ -engined,4x2 - 4,Tractive Unit,Flat-bodied Articulated Lorry,GNJ 289D,1966.
The Dennis Maxim was the top weight Dennis model,and was made in tractive unit and rigid six-wheeler versions. But the Maxim models
were rare.VALKYRIE
Hiya,
How is there is so much known about the Dennis Maxim the engine and all, yet the
supposed Guy Big J with the 240/50 Percy has never been photographed to prove
or disprove its existence if ever you’re, talking a handful of Dennis’s to hundred’s of
the Guys built by a much larger outfit.
thanks harry, long retired.
Well Harry the mystery continues with no photographic evidence, But there is two fellows who claim to have driven them so knowone can dispute that IMO, Regards Larry.
Lawrence Dunbar:
Well Harry the mystery continues with no photographic evidence, But there is two fellows who claim to have driven them so knowone can dispute that IMO, Regards Larry.
Hiya,
Larry I drove a 180 Gardner engined Atkinson “given a good coat of looking at”
by John Killingback when I worked there the second time and it went better
than any 240/50 I’ve ever driven, now that man could doctor Gardners.
thanks harry, long retired.
I’ve just bought the November issue of Classic Truck and in “The Vault” feature is a haulier called Alan Flavell. He ran Bison tippers for years but the feature doesn’t say what happened to the company (it never seems to in this feature). Did he switch to other makes or slowly dwindle the fleet to extinction?
Muckaway:
I’ve just bought the November issue of Classic Truck and in “The Vault” feature is a haulier called Alan Flavell. He ran Bison tippers for years but the feature doesn’t say what happened to the company (it never seems to in this feature). Did he switch to other makes or slowly dwindle the fleet to extinction?
Hi Nathan, Alan cut back the fleet to just one truck which he drives himself, last time i saw him it was a Daf 65 with a mid lift in Midland quarry product colours, Cheer’s Pete
pete smith:
Muckaway:
I’ve just bought the November issue of Classic Truck and in “The Vault” feature is a haulier called Alan Flavell. He ran Bison tippers for years but the feature doesn’t say what happened to the company (it never seems to in this feature). Did he switch to other makes or slowly dwindle the fleet to extinction?Hi Nathan, Alan cut back the fleet to just one truck which he drives himself, last time i saw him it was a Daf 65 with a mid lift in Midland quarry product colours, Cheer’s Pete
Thanks Pete, always nice to know he’s still going. Wonder if any of the Bisons got preserved?
E.McBride by Niall Daniels, on Flickr
A current memory!
27 years on,and still working daily!
Not sure where to put this, looking through old pictures of Barrow, looking for my Dad’s garages on Duke street.
Found one, but too far out to be of interest.
I think these Brady 112s look good!
When I first started ‘trucking’ in 1969, a trip to London would mean waving at a Brady truck about once an hour - maybe not as often as fast Eddie’s now, but at the time, I remember ‘Edward Stobart - Caldbeck’ as lorries we saw occasionally over Shap!
John.
bubbleman:
Hello again,heres a few from me,Cheers Bubbs,
Does anyone kno w of the whereabouts of a Neville Dump trailer.Please PM me if you know of one.
Cheers Dave.