Learned to drive on an open back mk 1 Transit with Perkins Diesel (a good grounding for Gardner hell later 
) collecting and delivering tyres on L plates, luckily passed first time in a real Mini.
Moved into tyre fitting so drove the Morris 1000 van and the Morris FG thruppeny bit cab at Marshams with the hand operated winch for getting earthmover and crane tyres/wheels on board.
Moved area and worked for a while for a central heating company, Morris 1000 van and Bedford CA, both of which could perform superb exhaust backfires if you switched off the ignition on a long overrun, yeah i know but it was fun at the time.
Got into small van transport, so drove all sorts of mainly Transits, twin wheel petrol flatbed for ages, twin wheel vans both petrol and the then new York Diesel, got given an A series 7.5 tonner but the base model still with that same York 2.4 NA Diesel, runs to Scotland once a week were sloooow…it was a dropside but needed a covered higher volume body for one lucrative contract for weekly Paisley run so boss bought (or more likely found and borrowed) an old National Carriers croquet-post shaped aluminium trailer body, which fitted more or less, which we kept on oil drums when not in use and manually slid it onto the deck then roped and sheeted the body on to make it a van which despite the manky body with barely a lick of paint left on it looked really quite presentable with smart blue sheet over matching the blue cab, and yes that was where i learned to take a pride in roping and sheeting well, made many a silk ■■■■■ from a sows ear then and since.
Thinking more that van body might have been ex whatever came before national carriers, recall what paint there was being two tone, one of the colours maybe a pale reddish tone, i suspect it came off a trailer towed by a Scammel Scarab, must have 25 years old at least in '74, it did the job.
Got issued a new Ford D707 4 pot with van body, unfortunately someone there who never drove the thing 
persuaded Ted to have a step down arse end cos removal work said gob could bring in…motor only ever did one removal…and that rear step down made normal transporting a PITA all the time i had it, had a frame and boards made up to fill the back step-down, but that still left a ledge about 4 ft in, so sliding pallets in and out was a right game, couldn’t use a pallet truck with 1 ton pallets cos the floor was softwood so it was push three in and pull them out with rope levering them over the ledge, all in all a white elephant.
Engine on that blew on my birthday mid morning near Lesmahagow, got towed into a small commercial garage for repair then thumbed it back to Herts and just managed last orders at the pub.
Took an extra unpaid weeks holiday to do my class 1, age 21 and 2 months, two week course, good job i passed first time because Ted was going to sack me anyway for taking that extra week off, or so he said.
I liked Ted, he was a proper character large as life, sort of a less large version of Frank Cannon but with a drooping Mexican moustache.
I did lots of London work on the vans and covered lots of miles all over the country, i still reckon it’s a good grounding for new HGV drivers to try van driving distance work to get the feel and learn the roads before they spend £thousands for an HGV when the job may not be for them after all, sadly the foreigners have sewn up so much of the van work here, both in foreign regd vans but also the number of foreign bods on home deliveries, so not so easy to find good paying jobs on vans any more, i earned near enough general haulage money working for Ted driving vans in the early 70s, which was a blessing because it gave me the impetus to chase the money and not the flash wagon when i got onto the lorries.
Earlier vans had timing chains, an item that generally lasted until the engine needed an overhaul or replacement, now we had a lacky band which needed attention probably two or three times during the engine’s life expectancy; an item that took a fatal dislike to antifreeze from leaking water pumps. Fine the engines now lasted a bit longer, except now we had the issue of access to see properly while attending to the most vital setting associated with the engine. This meant in many cases special tools or improvising to change the things. That was after we’d removed half the vehicle, or hung the lump from a skyhook in the case of smaller vans. Once you had got the belt in place came the business of installing expensive dial test indicators to set the injection timing.
