Frankydobo:
Depends what you mean by popular, I remember as a young lad being disappointed with this series and looking through the clip from you-tube you can see why, most of it is talk which I found totally boring while waiting to see scenes of lorries and what did you get an old TK pulling a very old single axle trailer out the yard. I quickly lost interest and found the later series with James Hazeldine a better watch. Franky.
Series 6 and 7 at least seemed to have their moments with the 6v71 TM being a bit more impressive.Then in the Newhaven Dieppe scene with the interesting Transcon 16 tonner ,probably draw bar prime mover,which must have been fun to drive in those pre limiter days without a trailer.
But yes a lost opportunity to produce what could have been a great piece of transport history in film with more money spent on it with more emphasis on the trucks and the journeys they were doing and less on the silly office and management life bound stuff.
I think the point to be made about the series is that it was called The Brothers, not Truckers On The Road. It was always intended that the road haulage side should be a background to the lives of the three Hammond brothers and the Boardroom battles to keep the company afloat. In this they succeeded as the weekly battles with each other and outside interests attracted up to 12 million + viewers. But if you wanted a show that was about the drivers themselves, then no this would not be it.
I think that’s a good summing up, for that’s how I saw it. For a more drivers’-eye view one needed to watch the '80s series called (I think) ‘Truckers’. That was just as boring and much it was plain banal. After watching the recent raft of American, Australian and English documentaries about the job I so much enjoyed, I’ve come to the conclusion that trucking just isn’t a spectator sport: it’s very much a participation sport. In a film you don’t get the seat-of-your-pants driving experience, the smell of diesel or the rocking-and-rolling road. Even a truck simulator in a bar wouldn’t give you that end-of-the-day Les Routier experience! Robert
Carryfast:
Series 6 and 7 at least seemed to have their moments with the 6v71 TM being a bit more impressive.Then in the Newhaven Dieppe scene with the interesting Transcon 16 tonner ,probably draw bar prime mover,which must have been fun to drive in those pre limiter days without a trailer.
But yes a lost opportunity to produce what could have been a great piece of transport history in film with more money spent on it with more emphasis on the trucks and the journeys they were doing and less on the silly office and management life bound stuff.
I think the point to be made about the series is that it was called The Brothers, not Truckers On The Road. It was always intended that the road haulage side should be a background to the lives of the three Hammond brothers and the Boardroom battles to keep the company afloat. In this they succeeded as the weekly battles with each other and outside interests attracted up to 12 million + viewers. But if you wanted a show that was about the drivers themselves, then no this would not be it.
I think that’s a good summing up, for that’s how I saw it. For a more drivers’-eye view one needed to watch the '80s series called (I think) ‘Truckers’. That was just as boring and much it was plain banal. After watching the recent raft of American, Australian and English documentaries about the job I so much enjoyed, I’ve come to the conclusion that trucking just isn’t a spectator sport: it’s very much a participation sport. In a film you don’t get the seat-of-your-pants driving experience, the smell of diesel or the rocking-and-rolling road. Even a truck simulator in a bar wouldn’t give you that end-of-the-day Les Routier experience! Robert
To be fair who wouldn’t have wished to see a story line involving that Transcon 4 wheeler doing an express run to Istanbul or at least Italy.With plenty of on board filming interspersed with on going management arguments in the office about fuel consumption v the rate in the the job.Added to by the driver going for a record breaking time over the Cenis or Simplon or Brenner followed by a phone getting chucked out of the office window when the driver gave them the news of how far ahead of schedule he was.
When I was on the road sales-repping for F.G.Hammond International I used to spin the yarn that it was our yard in Stratford E15 that was used for filming after they left HTS but there was no truth in it.however it gave us lots of street cred and, I’m pleased to say, business!
John West:
I remember an interview with Ralph Hilton after the demise of HTS (can’t remember if ‘roadships’ was still going.) He was quite wistful about having realised the company had been failing, but that he still had to present a happy face to the world since his two power boats were still involved in some international racing.
I also recall an earlier interview where he said that they scrapped all of their trucks, rather than sell them second hand (I seem to remember they had a lot of Fords) because he didn’t want his opposition benefitting from well maintained second hand trucks. Seemed like a foot shooting exercise to me! I can understand scrapping some for spares, but the parts you needed were always the ones that were knackered on the scrapped truck anyway…
By coincidence I reread last year, the paperback that was Produced from the TV series. There were a couple of things that had amused me at the time and still did.
The road foreman is chatting to the oldest brother (Glyn Owen’s character) and the brother says he could still manage an artic. The foreman says something like ‘well, you might struggle with one of the new Scanias’. Anyone who had driven the previous generation of lorries wouldn’t have ‘struggled’ with a Scania!
The same road foreman is bollocking a driver and says ‘you were twinning’ I had never heard the expression before - or since for that matter. He obviously meant that 2 drivers were running together, which for some strange reason was forbidden. Peculiar at the time and on rereading the book!
John.
I remember the strange expression’‘you were twinning’. i never really figured out what he meant.
I think i came to the conclusion that he meant ‘tailgating’ .
Jazzandy:
When I was on the road sales-repping for F.G.Hammond International I used to spin the yarn that it was our yard in Stratford E15 that was used for filming after they left HTS but there was no truth in it.however it gave us lots of street cred and, I’m pleased to say, business!
Frankydobo:
Depends what you mean by popular, I remember as a young lad being disappointed with this series and looking through the clip from you-tube you can see why, most of it is talk which I found totally boring while waiting to see scenes of lorries and what did you get an old TK pulling a very old single axle trailer out the yard. I quickly lost interest and found the later series with James Hazeldine a better watch. Franky.
I think ‘Truckers’ was the series with the late James Hazeldine in it. The 1987 series, not the much later ‘Truckers’ set in Nottingham.
Phil Davies,Kenneth Cope and Bill Maynards son also appeared in it.
I remember i really fancied the woman would played one of the leading roles as Picards (Hazeldine) girlfriend.
Now i cannot even remember her name.!!
The first 8 episodes of the BBC 1987 series " The Truckers " were put on Youtube a couple of weeks ago.
If you fancy having a watch, don’t leave it too long, because BBC programs have a habit of being removed I believe
Regards. John.
Watching the episodes in research of my book about The Brothers, one thing that keeps cropping up is talk of road transport being nationalised. Was this a real possibility in the mid 1970s does anyone know?
You have got to remember that for most of the 1970s trade union power was at its zenith, so the TGWU in particular was making noises about re-nationalisation of road transport when Labour Governments of Wilson and Callaghan were in power. But was there any serious probability of re-nationalisation? No, even Labour Governments in debt to the unions would never have contemplated giving themselves even more headaches with union militancy.
gingerfold:
You have got to remember that for most of the 1970s trade union power was at its zenith, so the TGWU in particular was making noises about re-nationalisation of road transport when Labour Governments of Wilson and Callaghan were in power. But was there any serious probability of re-nationalisation? No, even Labour Governments in debt to the unions would never have contemplated giving themselves even more headaches with union militancy.
Its a lot of years ago now & I was young at the time, but I am almost sure at The General Election when Harold Wilson won & became Prime Minister, Nationalisation of Road Transport was on the Labour manifesto.
Wilson was considered a real Left winger and all hauliers were very worried. In the event when he became PM his bark before the election was much worse than his bite and he proved to be two faced, a leftie when it suited but a calming moderate when things put into practice. However the fear of nationalisation stayed in the clouds for a decade
gingerfold:
You have got to remember that for most of the 1970s trade union power was at its zenith, so the TGWU in particular was making noises about re-nationalisation of road transport when Labour Governments of Wilson and Callaghan were in power. But was there any serious probability of re-nationalisation? No, even Labour Governments in debt to the unions would never have contemplated giving themselves even more headaches with union militancy.
Its a lot of years ago now & I was young at the time, but I am almost sure at The General Election when Harold Wilson won & became Prime Minister, Nationalisation of Road Transport was on the Labour manifesto.
Wilson was considered a real Left winger and all hauliers were very worried. In the event when he became PM his bark before the election was much worse than his bite and he proved to be two faced, a leftie when it suited but a calming moderate when things put into practice. However the fear of nationalisation stayed in the clouds for a decade
Not sure of the exact timeline being referred to regards episodes and content.But the turning point either way in that would have been the leadership struggle/contest involving Benn/Shore/Callaghan.In which I’m sure that either of the former two might well have introduced at least some form of more interventionist control of the industry regards rates and foreign haulage quotas,probably all for the better.Bearing in mind that one person’s idea of ‘competitive practices’ is another person’s idea of race to the bottom under cutting.Unfortunately Callaghan won out in that regard and the rest is history.
Nationalisation of several industries was always being mooted by Labour politicians, especially in the 1960s, and when Wilson became PM in 1964 he was the first Labour PM for 13 years, and memories of the Nationalisation programme carried out by the 1945 Labour Government were still relatively fresh in business owners’ memories. It was the Wilson Government, and its Minister of Transport Barbara Castle, that legislated the 1968 Transport Act that replaced the Quantity Carriers Licence Scheme, i.e. ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ Licences with Quality Licensing. i.e. Operator Licences which opened up the industry to newcomers. Whilst parts of the Act introduced more regulation, such as Annual Testing and Plating, other parts such as ‘O’ Licensing were actually free market ideas, and probably not what the Labour Government intended. By the late 1970s when The Brothers was being shown Nationalisation of road transport would have been very difficult and almost impossible. By then the industry was a completely different animal that it had been 30 or so years earlier in 1948 when it had been nationalised as part of the British Transport Commission.
gingerfold:
Nationalisation of several industries was always being mooted by Labour politicians, especially in the 1960s, and when Wilson became PM in 1964 he was the first Labour PM for 13 years, and memories of the Nationalisation programme carried out by the 1945 Labour Government were still relatively fresh in business owners’ memories. It was the Wilson Government, and its Minister of Transport Barbara Castle, that legislated the 1968 Transport Act that replaced the Quantity Carriers Licence Scheme, i.e. ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ Licences with Quality Licensing. i.e. Operator Licences which opened up the industry to newcomers. Whilst parts of the Act introduced more regulation, such as Annual Testing and Plating, other parts such as ‘O’ Licensing were actually free market ideas, and probably not what the Labour Government intended. By the late 1970s when The Brothers was being shown Nationalisation of road transport would have been very difficult and almost impossible. By then the industry was a completely different animal that it had been 30 or so years earlier in 1948 when it had been nationalised as part of the British Transport Commission.
Thanks for clarifying the series timeline gingerfold.From memory I also thought it was a programme of the latter half of the decade.In which case the political climate at that time was all about that struggle within Labour for its soul between the Bennites and/or Shore supporters ( like myself ) v Callahan’s and Jenkins’ Williams’ etc.In which case as I’ve said I’m sure that the O licence issue would have been made with the intention of being run within the strictly controlled markets ideals of Benn and Shore as opposed to the free for all race to the bottom which Callaghan etc laid the ground rules for.Bearing in mind that it was ( rightly ) Shore and Benn who held more influence over Wilson than Callaghan and co during the main part of the Wilson era.That influence then unfortunately being lost when it was needed most.
As usual “CF” you are talking bollox my Son! After BRS was decimated in the 50’s as a result of de-nationalisation and following on into the 60’s with the re-election of a Labour government there was neither appetite nor finance to re-nationalise the Road transport industry as this had already been proved to have been an unmitigated disaster the first time around plus BR had become a “basket case” by the 60’s and there definitely was no practical possibility of that behemoth being offered for privatisation by the Labour government at that time ! For what it’s worth I cant recall the idea of nationalisation ever being mentioned in the late 60’s or early /mid 70’s. Anyway during the time line I am talking about BRS were on their way “out” they couldn’t compete with the private sector unless they cut the bottom out of a job “ratewise” which of course they were still able to do but they eventually morphed into the NFC then Maggie in her wisdom privatised the residual heap of ■■■■■ and sold it for 1p in the £ to the management and to a lesser extent to the Workforce !! Don’t get me started on that debacle !!! Bewick.
The programmes were on in the early seventies, not the late seventies, if you look at earlier comments on the thread, Ralph Hilton’s trucks were used in the first series and he was bankrupt by 74.
As one who started in transport in '69, I can assure you there was no serious talk of renationisation then, apart possibly from some die hards. In fact the only thing I can remember from around then was talk of bringing in a maximum of 100 mile radius of working, so that all long distance work would revert to the railways. This would have crippled the economy, since the railways were not in any position to cope. The economy was hardly in great health to begin with and the idea died quietly away.
Bewick:
As usual “CF” you are talking bollox my Son! After BRS was decimated in the 50’s as a result of de-nationalisation and following on into the 60’s with the re-election of a Labour government there was neither appetite nor finance to re-nationalise the Road transport industry as this had already been proved to have been an unmitigated disaster the first time around plus BR had become a “basket case” by the 60’s and there definitely was no practical possibility of that behemoth being offered for privatisation by the Labour government at that time ! For what it’s worth I cant recall the idea of nationalisation ever being mentioned in the late 60’s or early /mid 70’s. Anyway during the time line I am talking about BRS were on their way “out” they couldn’t compete with the private sector unless they cut the bottom out of a job “ratewise” which of course they were still able to do but they eventually morphed into the NFC then Maggie in her wisdom privatised the residual heap of [zb] and sold it for 1p in the £ to the management and to a lesser extent to the Workforce !! Don’t get me started on that debacle !!! Bewick.
Going by gingerfold’s description,of the deregulation of the entry conditions,under Wilson’s late 1960’s administration,which opened up the industry to many more new start operators.It’s obvious that we’re talking about a very different definition of ‘nationalisation’ than the one which you’re thinking of.
IE by gingerfold’s timeline the relevant minister of economic affairs would have been Shore at that point in time with Barbara Castle minister of transport.In which case it’s a reasonable bet that the idea was ( correctly ) all about stimulating much more growth in the industry to create more employment in it.Together with government control in the setting of rates and hopefully public investment in equipment.As opposed to an industry reliant on the foibles and vagaries of race to the bottom rate cutting free markets and private funding which could leave operators and their employees repo’d and out of business virtually over night.
However Labour lost the 1970 election in favour of Heath’s shambolic Conservative administration which took us from Shore’s tiger economy,of the late 1960’s which it inherited,to the mess of 1974.Followed by Callaghan’s and Healey’s,among others like Jenkins’ and Williams’,hijacking of the Labour Party.The rest is history.
,probably draw bar prime mover,which must have been fun to drive in those pre limiter days without a trailer.
Bewick.