boyzee:
I remember they used to clear customs at manston,when they moved out of river road barking a dutch company called bleckmans took the wharehouse,s over.Great photo,s they bring back the old memorys.I would some times clear customs in Pantin paris and there would useually be a seabourne tk clearing there but i think Genvillers was their main clearing place in paris.
Seabourne had a warehouse and office at the end of Port-de-Gennevilliers, usually there would be two lorries for Paris each night, one would have the ‘express’ 24 hour guaranteed load and the other, normally a trailer would have the groupage and sometimes up to half a load for Chrysler-Talbot at Poissy, tip Poissy first and then run across to Gennevilliers, normally whoever did the express stayed on to take the express back that night, if you were lumbered with the groupage it meant a reload somewhere and no sleep.
Spring 1978…Three of us tipped in Chrysler, parked for most of the day on Poissy services, next day Syd Basson and Ron Fensome loaded steel out of Vernon and I loaded in Trilport, thats me in the pic with the classy flares and more hair than I seem to have now.
One Seabournes famous KMs, this publicity picture was probably taken at the Vauxhall plant in Luton,
boyzee:
Once again these are great photo,s,Were Deanes on the corner of the estate in river road when seabournes were there?
They were indeed, as you drove into the Lyons Ind.Est. Seabourne were directly in front of you and as you say Deanes (red motors)were on the left corner at the top.
Seabourne were unit 7, it must have been around 1978/9 when they moved round the corner into Thames Road opposite Wilkinsons (parcels not the store)
I’ve been digging and found a few more Seabourne pics…
Because the Spaniards got off the boat first they were up and over this hill outside Dieppe nicely compounding the snow, when we got there it was solid ice, two Seabournes (S.Johns) and Nigel on Charlie Butts spent the night at odd angles with trailers against the barriers, it was only when daylight came the gritters came out…
I’m sure this is the only shot I have of Unit 7, like all these old places it makes you wonder how we got all the motors in and out.
One Friday night a young apprentice fitter at Seabourne decide to get legless and ‘borrow’ a Merc, he burried it in this shop in Dagenham, Saturday morning it was still there because it was holding the shop up! I think the Capri sitting there belonged to Bill Fox.
This is St. Denis August 1979 on the way out of Gennevilliers to the A1 heading back to Calais, the 6-wheeler behind me was Brian Levitt (Yogi) where is he now ?
Loaded ready to roll in Thames Rd. depot…Seabourne had a few TK Bedfords made for Jersey (7’ 6" wide)
In my box of papers I found the list of Seabourne offices and agents in 1978:
Seabourne offices… Barking, Nuneaton, Manston(UK), St. Helier(Jersey), Gothenburg(Sweden), Gennevilliers(Paris).
Clement & Co…Lille (Lesquin airport) France.
Nellen & Quack…Monchengladbach, Germany.
Forwarding Services Ltd…Coolock, Dublin, Eire.
Forwarding Services Ltd. Cork, Eire.
H. Wassing & Zonen…Tilburg, Holland.
Sotrans…Milan, Italy.
Sari S.A…Dendermonde, Belgium.
Hi boys
skandiahamn, Gennevilliers now you have brought back memeries. late 70s early 80s taking steel out of Shotton steel works the last year 85/86 was mostly Paris. clear at Rommel just throught the main gate on the right. Remember the cafe on the left of the gate? Three trucks Leave Shotton Monday morning down to dover ship out to Calais run till hours up, wind clock on drive to Gennevilliers park outside gate and open clock.draw lots for who was getting up early to hand papiers in back to bed for a couple of hours. Get up close clock hopefully now cleared and race to tip before lunch.Quite a few steelstockets around Paris, one was where Concord crashed. If you got tiped before lunch you could run to your reload which could be anyware in northan France.If you were lucky and got loaded in the afternoon you could run back and get a night ferry to Dover whare the clock came back to proper time while you were getting cleared, Tip in uk next day and reload for next week. A weeks work in three days
dessert driver:
Hi boys
skandiahamn, Gennevilliers now you have brought back memeries. late 70s early 80s taking steel out of Shotton steel works the last year 85/86 was mostly Paris. clear at Rommel just throught the main gate on the right.
Remember the cafe on the left of the gate? Three trucks Leave Shotton Monday morning down to dover ship out to Calais run till hours up, wind clock on drive to Gennevilliers park outside gate and open clock.draw lots for who was getting up early to hand papiers in back to bed for a couple of hours. Get up close clock hopefully now cleared and race to tip before lunch.Quite a few steelstockets around Paris, one was where Concord crashed. If you got tiped before lunch you could run to your reload which could be anyware in northan France.If you were lucky and got loaded in the afternoon you could run back and get a night ferry to Dover whare the clock came back to proper time while you were getting cleared, Tip in uk next day and reload for next week. A weeks work in three days
Regards Keith
Hi Keith,
I remember the cafe well, most of the Seabourne office staff used it and we would cadge a lift down there, it makes us sound lazy but it was a good hike, it was a very civilised place to eat in the 70s…like most of France.
We had to wait until about 5pm to get paperwork so a two hour lunch break was welcome, it’s the only place I have enjoyed artichokes, I’ve tried 'em since and nowhere can touch the ones in Gennevilliers.
Cheers, Nick
Hi boys
Nick my post sounds as if we never stoped but far from it, it was a dodal but the only thing I miss is the food and the atmosphere in the cafes. As they used to say always stop at restaurants where the French trucks stop at.
Hi bulwark I have only just your thread about Seabourne. In 1968 when I was working at Elliotts of York the driver that I was with got a return load through Seabourne one day. It was a Seabourne Trailer from somewhere near Elland road in Leeds (did they have a depot there?) Anyway our old S20 Foden had no susie pipes of its own because at Elliotts all our trailers had susies on while the units did not! So what should have been a simple job of picking up the trailer and away turned into quite a bit of a saga. The driver was extreemly keen to do this job so had to convince the guy at Seabourne that he could make it work, but there were several more problems to be solved before driving away. After a long phone call to our depot manager we returned to York to drop our trailer off and equip the unit with a set of susie lines and then return to Leeds for the trailer. However upon reversing the unit under the trailer we found that it had a"long pin" and the trailer headboard was up against the tackle box behind the cab! No problem though as the tackle box could easily be removed, but what to do with it now? With the Seabourne trailer coupled upto the Foden and ready to go the driver borrowed a rickety old Landrover from Seabourne to take the tackle box back to our depot at York after first stopping to fill it up with petrol on our agency card. I was now removed from the equation as it was turning into quite an expensive exercise with all this tooing and froing from Leeds and the driver returned to Leeds on his own to complete the job.
As a result of this episode all drivers were banned from ever accepting return loads in the form of unaccompanied trailers!
This ban came into force after Elliotts received their aganct card bill of course!
Great thread and great pictures, it seems the trunk to Paris and the car plants hasn’t changed much, apart from the customs and the trip taking a week, now they want three trips
Wheel Nut:
Great thread and great pictures, it seems the trunk to Paris and the car plants hasn’t changed much, apart from the customs and the trip taking a week, now they want three trips
Nothing changed then…in the 70s if we shipped out on Sunday we did three trips to Northern Europe finishing Saturday, maybe there wasn’t so much traffic then because we didn’t bust a gut, Seabourne had customs at their warehouses or agents so we didn’t often have clearance issues, if we shipped out Monday we did two trips and finished Friday, I did mainly Sweden towards the end of the S. John days so it was a week or two week trip depending on the load.
I did a trial load doing all the deliveries instead of dropping the groupage in Goteborg & Stockholme, I started in Goteborg and zig-zagged 5 or 6 drops down to Malmo, then did about 6 or 7 drops on the way up to Stockholme and then the normal 3 to 4 drops around Stockholme before starting the collections on the way back down to Goteborg. I had the little F.86 at the time (1975) and the Swedes found it highly amusing the fact I was dragging a 12m tilt around with a motor they used for shop deliveries and dustcarts.
Happy days…looking back Seabourne was a slick operation, offering a guarranteed daily service in those days was fairly brave, but it worked 99.9% of the time.
whiplash:
By whiplash_012 at 2011-02-19
Taken at Rosslare,which was a helluva long way off their beaten path.
PHOTO COURTESY OF JOE MOONEY.
Shipping back through Rosslare was normal after tipping and loading in Cork with a couple of collections at Waterford Glass & Wexford on the way to the dock…I was sitting in Rosslare waiting to board when news came through that Elvis had died.
Really thought that Dun Laoghaire was your prefferred point of entry Skandia.Bonded straight through to Colock,with customs Dun Laoghaire knowing the lads coming in,manifest layout,bond letter etc.,
Was Rosslare regular for Seabourne?I thought Coolock was their only destination in Ireland.
Ah the good “old” days I worked for Seabourne based at Manston Airport where the trucks cleared customs.
Used to trunk to Mechelen B and Munchen Gladbach D and to Tilburg, NL on alternate weeks.
Out & return via Sally Ferries and their Smorgasbord made me the size I am today LOL.
Occasionally did Jersey /Guernsey and Holyhead runs!
Names I can remember John Cannon (deceased), Mick Wiles, Alan Crocker, Johnny Rivett ( still there - Seabourne taken over by UPS), Mark Metaal, Ray Miller,
Others will sping to mind…eventually…
Always wanted to do the double run to Italy but got fobbed off by Management!
whiplash:
Really thought that Dun Laoghaire was your prefferred point of entry Skandia.Bonded straight through to Colock,with customs Dun Laoghaire knowing the lads coming in,manifest layout,bond letter etc.,
Was Rosslare regular for Seabourne?I thought Coolock was their only destination in Ireland.
We did use Holyhead - Dun Laoghaire for Dublin, clear at Stack-F (Customs House) and reload Coolock ind.est.
Odd occasions if it was more than just groupage we would deliver out in the sticks, we did a few full loads of telephone switchgear from L. M. Erikson near Stockholme & run through to Mullingar, and then reload Coollock if there was too much for the Seabourne rigids.
On a few occasions they loaded Dublin and Cork on the same trailer, it was a push to get Dublin off and get down to Cork in their guarranteed 24hour delivery time, trying to miss the brick batts lobbed at the lorry as you went through Portlaoise, to help their aim some rented trailers had a Union Jack front (DABBS TRAILER RENT)…(thanks Michael Dabbs, wherever you are)
Cork was usually Swansea - Cork into Ireland and back from Rosslare to Pembrook Dock and later into Milford Haven. That was when the M4 only reached as far as Cardiff…that felt like an eternity getting back to Barking…I once had the pleasure of going to Barking via Manston airport (Kent) to clear customs, no M4 until Cardiff, no M25, no limiters, it was great job and a lot of fun.
That was the Coolock reference I meant Skandia,the rigids if I recall were straight up to Coolock,park up,tip,loadup,and back down to Dun Laoghaire.
Like the reference to the Portlaoise welcoming commitee!
