John West:
harry_gill:
Hiya,
Er’ Carl, did the servicing lad get a hug and told "don’t worry son anybody
can make a mistake, or given directions to the dole office, that was some
costly mistake to make in my maintenance days the sump plug was always
the last thing to be checked and double checked.
I had that happen to me with the Leyland Mastiff. I was southbound on the M6 near Wigan I noticed the oil pressure falling away and pulled onto the hard shoulder. No sump plug. Dunderdale and Yates came out from Preston with a new sump plug and oil. Mike Mills who was chief mechanic at Bowater Scott’s where they ran Mastiffs, had serviced it as a foreigner the day before. His only comment was ‘Well, I tightened it - good job you’re a professional driver and kept an eye on the dials!’
Did any mechanic own up to their failures? Another time, I had loaded in Bowaters and was heading for Abbey road along Ainslie Street in Barrow. The nearside front wheel came off, brake drum and all and demolished a garden wall, coming to a halt about 50 yards up the road. Bould Irwin at Ulverston were doing my servicing at the time. Keith Irwin insisted that this was an ‘Act of God’, despite the fact that they had replaced the nearside bearings 2 days before. I presume that they hadn’t tightened the locking nut. I had nightmares for weeks after, if a mother had been wheeling a pram along that pavement…
Hi John
We had another problem on another occasion.
Again it was a Bedford a TK we had bought 2 years old from a removal contractor just outside of Leeds. I think it was Morley. He hadn’t his own mechanic using a Bedford main agent for maintenance.
We got a phone call that one of our vans travelling from Spennymoor down the then A! now A167 had a half shaft come loose. Fortunately nearside I got one of our fitters into my car after he’d grabbed his tool box and dashed down t the scene hoping to get there before the police.
Going along the road was a rare site. The van had stopped immediately about 1 ft off the kerb & the two rear wheels were outside of the body & had been stopped coming out by the kerb. Quickly put back in & taken back to Spennymoor to be checked over. Obviously it was another case of being taken out & put back in without putting a split pin in to stop it not coming loose. On that occasion no one owned by us could be blamed as it was not visible that the split pin had been omitted.
You were lucky with the Mastiff as it had an oil pressure gauge The bedfords only had a red light and by the time it came on it was too late, as the damage was done
Carl
jshepguis:
Hi Carl thought would pop this picture from the buses,coaches thread as it has one of your Transits just in view heading says taken in Bishop Auckland1974.
0
Hi are you a member of Bring back OK Travel facebook page as I’m sure they would appreciate the photo & your description. If you are feel free to share, if not please let e know & I’ll let them share it
Best wishes
Carl
Eddie Ramsey known as Old Eddie whilst he worked for us was born 1913, and when he left school at 14 he joined Milburn & Ellis of Durham who were glazing contractors as an apprentice, something that came in very handy years later during his time with us as he could cut toughened & laminated glass that was used in windscreens and he often used this ability for cutting glass to replace windscreens on our Marsden & vanplan integrals, which many times returned with temporary Perspex cut & fitted by Windscreen companies when they replaced, as a get you home measure.
As soon as he reached 21 he joined J. G Johnson & Son Removal contractors of Durham, where he worked originally for the father then after his death for son Fred for over 30 years.
I first met Eddie when I was about 7years old at Toothill Furniture Manufacturers Aycliffe Industrial Estate when I was with my dad, as he often sub contracted work to Johnsons when we had too much , and we were there to oversee the loading a load of 3 piece suites. I have very vague recollection of the van Eddie was driving those days as I did on another occasion about 2 years later when we oversaw him loading a load of Rolls Twin Tub washing machines at another of our customers, Tallent Engineering of Aycliffe who manufactured twin tub washing machine, but my faint recollection was a Morris Commercial about 1955 vintage with about a 1800 cu ft luton Body.
Fast forward to about 1967 and I had the job of negotiating the purchase of Fred Johnson’s business from Fred who by that time had alcohol problems. I had known Fred for several years and of late when we wanted to speak to him to see if he had a spare van to either give him surplus removals or offer him other work we needed to speak to him before 11.00AM opening time or he was then in a local pub for the rest of the night. He managed to do all his estimates before 11.00AM. I also met his elderly mother who as well as dealing with telephone enquiries and keeping exceptionally accurate sets of books. This was very sad as she was heart broken at him selling her late husband’s business, which had occupied so much of her life.
Everything was kept quiet until the Saturday morning that we took over their 5 staff, not including of course Fred & his mother. The two that stood out was Eddie & Geoff Pye who stayed with us until we closed in 1986. The following few mornings (before 11AM of course) Fred took me to meet all the customers & introduced me. We incorporated the business into our own as our name was already well known in Durham City and saw no benefit as running it as a separate company.
We took over three vans a 1962 Morris Commercial Bedford TK both on ‘A licence & Morris J4 parcel van on a ‘B licence’ The Morris was either an FF or FH 7 tonner (For the younger reader that was Carrying capacity as we didn’t know what GVW was back then) which had been supplied new to Fred Johnson by ■■■■ Barrett-Atkin the North east Sales legend who was then with Morris Commercial agents Turvey’s Sunderland. It had a massive body on it of about 2.100 cu ft which I later found out had in fact been built by Eddie Ramsey & had Saurer Diesel Engine.
When we took over Johnson’s we were still at Marmaduke street Spennymoor, prior green Lane ind Est and the Morris would not go into our garage as it was too high (almost 14ft) The TK was painted in our livery and the J4 kept for about 3 to 4 months until it was replaced by a bigger van. We were undecided what to do with the Morris as although Eddie had done a good job building the body, it really was not up to our standards & our fitters were having to maintain it outside as it wouldn’t go inside to get it over a pit. It was, however well maintained & in good mechanical condition, until one day my dad took it up to the top of Marmaduke Street to park it up & found it had almost no oil pressure, and we had had it doing about 1,200 mile per week. Eddie said not to worry as he nursed it and it had 40,000 mile left in it if he kept driving it & we didn’t give it to another driver who didn’t know it.
So Eddie was allocated the next new van we were waiting for Marsden to build which was EUP488G a Bedford KF integral which was in fact our first built to TIR specification. Unfortunately although for years I had the original TIR certificate & photo in thick plastic coating, it went missing and I don’t possess a photo of this van it was identical to the row of Marsden integrals in this photo and also in the days when it was new photo copying & scanning didn’t exist and so Yellow Pages made a copper print block (which they charged us for & we kept) for our latest ‘Yellow pages advert’ & we used this block for much of our advertising including the advert in the second photo. Although you can’t make it out in the magazine advert I have copied, in the original Yellow pages adverts you could make out the reg no EUP488G and I always had a laugh wherever I stayed in hotels throughout UK when I looked in Yellow pages some removal contractor was always using a copy of our block with our name obliterated but looking carefully you could see EUP488G.
When this van was ready to collect from Marsden we noticed their signwriters (In those days they had 2 full time signwriters) had in error painted all the writing we always had red in brown. The shading and everything else was correct and Ken Marsden offered to correct it into red which would have delayed the collection by two days, but would have necessitated it having to be re-photographed, & examined & further TIR documentation produced which would have taken much longer so we accepted the brown writing. It ran about 7 years until when we repainted it it finally fell into line with red writing like all its identical sisters.
Few will still be alive in Spennymoor who remember Dennis Darling who was manager of domestic appliance manufacturing at Thorn’s Smart & Brown factory where they manufactured Tricity cookers Dennis was favourite to take over as Managing Director when he decided to leave and take over as Managing Director at North of England School furniture Darlington NESCO as it was known had made school furniture from the 1800s and in fact I remember sitting in the Chemistry Lab at my school which had been fitted out by them Old oak desks with sinks & cupboards that would last forever. However they had fallen behind times & had gone into liquidation & been bought for £1 by Toothill upholstery & Dennis Darling had gone as Managing Director to bring them up to date.
I remember Dad coming back from being shown round the factory by Dennis who was tearing his hair out at the true craftsmen working in a factory that was out of the ark. We had done some work for them & Dennis was saying they had no money but they needed a van to deliver their products as he didn’t want to use us & find he couldn’t pay us. He pointed out of his upstairs window to a one of his sales staff driving into the factory with a Morris 1100 saying see that car will you swap that for a van & dad agreed to swap the Morris commercial Eddie had driven for the Morris 1100 car which we soon sold.
Incidentally Dennis then went as Managing Director of York Trailers Northallerton & sold us 4 new 40 ft van trailers at highly discounted prices. Dennis then found his feet manufacturing prefabulated school classrooms complete with school furniture which he sold & supplied round the world making himself a multi-millionair only to suddenly die from a heart attach in his early 40s
Eddie drove EUP488G for several years until we got delivery of the first of several Seddon Pennine’s (Their passenger chassis) built by Marsden ( Vanplan also built one for us) VUP812L. Here are 2 photos of that van, and it was that van Eddie used to move Karl Kenmire of Spennymoor’s famous furniture factory from the late 1800s till they sold out to Vono Ltd the bed manufacturers in about 1962. At one time Kenmires has been Spennymoor’s largest employer (Apart from Coal mining) and when Karl had decided to retire & move from his home near Kirk Merrington, Spennymoor to Switzerland.
In the late 70s I was invited by Spennymoor Rotary club to be their Guest Speaker and after I had ended the talk & taken questions Frank Kenmire, Karl’s brother was tasked with giving ‘The vote of thanks’ and during thanking me he told the story of Eddie delivering his brothers furniture to his new home, Apparently VUP couldn’t get traction in the snow as Eddie attempted to reverse up the mountainside to his home. Unfazed Eddie had walked up to the house and apologised to Frank & his wife, telling them he would be delayed about an hour, and asked to use their phone to book a taxi. Eddie had then got the taxi to take him to where he could hire snow chains, fitted them to the van and reversed up to the house & effected the delivery.
When I got back to our Green Lane premises my dad asked me how it went. Being a Rotarian himself he had not attended in case his presence had put me off, & so I told him about Eddie & the snow chains a few years earlier. When Eddie came back from his next journey dad said ‘’Now you old devil, I’ve just heard how you got yourself snow chains & fitted them yourself during the Kenmire removal, you never told me about that. (Dad had the habit of asking each driver when they returned from anywhere ‘How did it go’) ‘Well !’ said Eddie ‘Why did I need to tell you it was nothing special I paid for the taxi & the chains & put the receipts in with my expenses & was refunded’ That summed up Eddie nothing was ever a problem.
Dad always joked that Eddie who was not very tall always just packed to his own height, not that he couldn’t pack to the full height when needed. In those days we packed front to back & most drivers loaded the luton & the front of the van fully and as they got towards the rear & knew they had enough space eased off a bit. Eddie knew exactly how high he needed to go to get the load on & so when he loaded a van it was the same height throughout. Amongst his tools he always carried furniture polish just in case, which rarely happened a little scuff occurred he polished it out before taking it into the new home and carried air conditioner which he sprayed into the back of the van after folding blankets & sweeping out the body so his vans always smelt fresh inside the bodies. Over the years Eddie worked for us doing hundreds of removals & working with umpteen porters we never had one complaint or claim.
As I said Eddie got on with his work & nothing was ever a problem but when he was 64 approaching his 65th birthday & retirement he started to grumble and we should have spotted something was wrong. Dad asked if he would like to take it a bit easier and it was decided he should stop driving and take up the job as warehouse manager. Strange as it was Geoff Pye who had come with him from Johnsons was doing the job & was wanting to return to driving & so they did a job swop & Eddie went into the warehouse.
About 2 months before his 65th birthday ( An event that had never been discussed whether or not he intended to retire) it was Christmas Eve and he was waiting for a van to return to load a removal out of store which was due for delivery the first day we were returning to work in January. At lunchtime dad said to Eddie ‘Why don’t you pack up early & we can load it on the morning before delivery. ‘No said Eddie I don’t want to go home till I see it loaded’ The van shortly returned & Eddie & the driver started loading when suddenly Eddie dropped down dead. The police & doctors were called and he was pronounced dead on the tailboard of the van he was loading, At home his wife of 40 years or so was waiting for him coming home for Christmas. Dad spoke to the police and it was agreed he could go with them to break the news to Mrs Ramsey.
During our time at Green Lane industrial Estate Spennymoor we had 2 deaths Eddie Ramsey & Alan Wharrier who died parking a van at the bottom of the parking area.
One of the last new trailers we ran before we finished, Its rather grubby but has our three north east offices and phone numbers then underneath, Also at Sheffield, Wellingborough and London (Our non North East warehouses & depots
When we closed we were operating over 40 trailers
the trailer was, like many of ours built by our own company, Coachskill Ltd in our bodyshop at Green Lane Industrial Estate Spennymoor
When my Grandfather started our business in 1919 and he bought a horse & cart, and with it he got a regular customer, Broughs Ltd who were grocers in Spennymoor, delivering groceries to homes in Spennymoor area. Although he bought his first Ford model T in 1920 he still operated the horse and cart until about 1926 working along with his motor vehicles and the business developed into removals & storage, carrying of cattle and general van haulage.
Throughout the years grocery deliveries played a part of our business until mid 70s, delivering for Spennymoor coop & Broughs before my time and from 1926 when they opened their shop in Spennymoor Thompson Stores who we also delivered for Chilton, Ferryhill, and West Cornforth stores & Walter Willson Spennymoor.
As I said this continued until 1975 and I can remember going out delivering ‘The Groceries’ from the age of about 7 & starting driving from 17 on School holidays with a variety of small vans like this Ford 15cwton photo through to Transits like the second photo.
The grocery deliveries came to a natural end with the opening of Supermarkets and increased car ownership, but history repeats itself and now particularly due to the Coronavirus crisis this is becoming more and more popular.
I myself an now confined to home being over 70 and a high risk category & am having Morisons deliver to my door, which brings back so many memories.
Although today they deliver some frozen food, which has developed with the supermarkets and in our days the grocers sold Groceries & provisions, as customers still bought their meat from butchers our average delivery were much heavier & bigger than todays as we delivered large bags of flour, potatoes sugar lard etc as less ‘Prepared food’ was sold. However I suspect we delivered much more tinned food. Again the grocery shops re-used cardboard boxes originally from the likes of Heinz and other suppliers delivered to them, so no re-usable plastic containers.
The one thing I noticed was that by the time the driver gets out of his cab we would have effected the delivery & be delivering to the next home. The Morrisons driver stood with his mouth open when I explained we would deliver aprox 125 deliveries on a morning before we went back to the shop for a second load for the afternoon & had to run with the deliveries from the van to the houses & back to get through our work.
Times change & history returns but somehow I cannot help but think this present generation, in so many cases don’t understand what work was like & we infact enjoyed it.
Carl Williams:
A little bit different but a little that goes behind the scenes in our business in the mid to late 70s.
The 2nd photo shows a young Linda Turnbull sitting at our Burroughs accounting machine, which in its day before computers was the latest in high-tech. This photo was used by Burroughs in office magazines to advertise their latest machine. Whereas a computer uses electronic technology & microchips whereas the Burroughs machine was mechanical using cogs. It was used for our sales ledger, purchase ledger & payroll calculation including giving us a print out of the total amount of wages bill including a breakdown of number of £20, £10 &£1 notes and coinage which we rang into Barclays Spennymoor branch on a Thursday afternoon so they had the money prepared ready for Securicor to collect & deliver to us on a Friday morning, in those days when all our staff including my father & myself were paid weekly in cash.
In the office typewriters were rife as all invoices, letters were still typed but the Burroughs machine did print out Statements to send to our customers and Remittance advises to send along with cheques to our suppliers. Cheque were still written out and our cheque books were three cheques per page with carbon paper to keep a copy on blank pages & hence no cheque stubs, whereas once we went computerised the computer printed off the cheques.
On a night it was usually hell as I was always brought letters & cheques galore to sign to be stuffed into envelopes & franked as usually the prettiest member of staff was deputised to chat to the postman to encourage him to wait till they got the last letters done.
In those days our telephonist-receptionist still used a plug in switchboard like the one illustrated in the photo, which necessitated in them being GPO trained (The GPO still operated the nationalised telephone service before the establishment of BT (British Telecom) My dad always thought the first contact with us by many customers was the telephone & so demanded on the phone being answered within 5 bleeps & often would ring in to ensure it was. Similarly it was not possible to directly ring out from any of the extensions. For instance, if I wanted to ring anyone I picked my phone up & it went to our switchboard and I asked our telephonist to get me someone on the phone she would ring them and say ‘I have Mt Williams on the phone for you, putting you through now’. It was 1980 until we got a more modern system where I could dial 9 to get an outside line.
The final photo is a Telex machine which was like a tickertape machine where messages were sent from a tape with holes in it onto a similar at our side. This was then put into a printer which printed out the message to us. Today the Email system makes life so easy but that gong in the background with fair regularity was quite noisy. About 1980 we got Fax machines but several of our customers in particular Great Universal Store companies including Kays catalogues still demanded the use of Telex.
We went computerised about 1980 long before Bill Gates came along with Microsoft. It was almost like a Wurlitzer Organ in size. I remember a programme had to be designed and written for our specific use which had the capability of giving it all information about each of our 100 vehicles including how much they had cost each week to run per mile even giving us a monthly profit & loss account, but like all things needed so much information inputting it was extremely time consuming process manually gathering all the information. It had two huge discs about two feet in diameter, and at the end of each night we had to back up all work onto a disk & take it down to our vehicle parts stores keeping it far enough from the office block in case of fire of theft giving us back up. How simple this task would be today as we could just save to cloud. Our accountant who also had the task of being office manager had a terminal in his office so he could access directly onto the computer had to ask whoever was using it at the time to shut down their work for him to get access.
Going back to the Burroughs Accounting machine time: My dad insisted that I could do everything from driving & doing a removal through to any office tasks so I could cover in the event of illness, with the exception of mechanical, so our workshops were safe from my efforts, but I still had to know what they were doing, how long it would take & a rough idea of cost. So when our staff were trained into the use of the Burroughs accounting machine I had to watch & take it in as well.
I had travelled down to London by train & was returning the following afternoon to arrive at Darlington Station the following afternoon (Thursday) at 6.00Pm at night and the driver picking me up told me the payroll hadn’t been done as the wages clerk had taken ill & not come in on the Thursday morning.
Her job entailed collecting all time sheets, Clock cards & work records on a Monday so she could on Tuesday & Wednesday work out our bonus scheme the hours worked 40 hours single time, time & half remainder apart from Double time Sundays. Check how much cash subsistence payments they had received & collate to see if further was owed or overpaid so all information was ready to process. All office staff were regular amounts but our maintenance staff were all on bonus schemes based loosely on Bedford hours so their hours & bonuses needed calculating, and thank god all this had been done ready to be inputted into the accounting machine to calculate PAYE & NI . The bank had been informed & had ordered to money to be brought to the bank based on the previous week & said provided we rang them for 9.00AM the could adjust to our payroll
So about 7.00Pm I gathered all the information together & sat down at the machine to spend the next 7 hours of so inputting the data. Racking my mind to how it worked I stumbled at the first hurdle as I couldn’t switch it on & power it up, so I had to ring a member of the office staff to find out how to start it up & fortunately once I’d achieved that I managed to do the payroll finishing about 3.00in the morning.
As I said in those days all wages were paid in cash so it used to take two hours to count out the money & put it into the pay envelopes & always before we were finished there was several wives waiting to collect their husbands pay packets.
Hi Carl, The Burrows payroll machine brings back memmories, When I drove for Baxters on the Quayside in the 50s I used to deliver them with A Bedford van, It was a good number for me, As I got the same running times as the wagons, Took them as far as Manchester , Glasgow, Edingburgh, Of course this was when their place was on Westgate Rd in the town, They moved to Dudley in later years , Take care & Stay safe, Regards Larry.
Lawrence Dunbar:
Carl Williams:
A little bit different but a little that goes behind the scenes in our business in the mid to late 70s.
The 2nd photo shows a young Linda Turnbull sitting at our Burroughs accounting machine, which in its day before computers was the latest in high-tech. This photo was used by Burroughs in office magazines to advertise their latest machine. Whereas a computer uses electronic technology & microchips whereas the Burroughs machine was mechanical using cogs. It was used for our sales ledger, purchase ledger & payroll calculation including giving us a print out of the total amount of wages bill including a breakdown of number of £20, £10 &£1 notes and coinage which we rang into Barclays Spennymoor branch on a Thursday afternoon so they had the money prepared ready for Securicor to collect & deliver to us on a Friday morning, in those days when all our staff including my father & myself were paid weekly in cash.
In the office typewriters were rife as all invoices, letters were still typed but the Burroughs machine did print out Statements to send to our customers and Remittance advises to send along with cheques to our suppliers. Cheque were still written out and our cheque books were three cheques per page with carbon paper to keep a copy on blank pages & hence no cheque stubs, whereas once we went computerised the computer printed off the cheques.
On a night it was usually hell as I was always brought letters & cheques galore to sign to be stuffed into envelopes & franked as usually the prettiest member of staff was deputised to chat to the postman to encourage him to wait till they got the last letters done.
In those days our telephonist-receptionist still used a plug in switchboard like the one illustrated in the photo, which necessitated in them being GPO trained (The GPO still operated the nationalised telephone service before the establishment of BT (British Telecom) My dad always thought the first contact with us by many customers was the telephone & so demanded on the phone being answered within 5 bleeps & often would ring in to ensure it was. Similarly it was not possible to directly ring out from any of the extensions. For instance, if I wanted to ring anyone I picked my phone up & it went to our switchboard and I asked our telephonist to get me someone on the phone she would ring them and say ‘I have Mt Williams on the phone for you, putting you through now’. It was 1980 until we got a more modern system where I could dial 9 to get an outside line.
The final photo is a Telex machine which was like a tickertape machine where messages were sent from a tape with holes in it onto a similar at our side. This was then put into a printer which printed out the message to us. Today the Email system makes life so easy but that gong in the background with fair regularity was quite noisy. About 1980 we got Fax machines but several of our customers in particular Great Universal Store companies including Kays catalogues still demanded the use of Telex.
We went computerised about 1980 long before Bill Gates came along with Microsoft. It was almost like a Wurlitzer Organ in size. I remember a programme had to be designed and written for our specific use which had the capability of giving it all information about each of our 100 vehicles including how much they had cost each week to run per mile even giving us a monthly profit & loss account, but like all things needed so much information inputting it was extremely time consuming process manually gathering all the information. It had two huge discs about two feet in diameter, and at the end of each night we had to back up all work onto a disk & take it down to our vehicle parts stores keeping it far enough from the office block in case of fire of theft giving us back up. How simple this task would be today as we could just save to cloud. Our accountant who also had the task of being office manager had a terminal in his office so he could access directly onto the computer had to ask whoever was using it at the time to shut down their work for him to get access.
Going back to the Burroughs Accounting machine time: My dad insisted that I could do everything from driving & doing a removal through to any office tasks so I could cover in the event of illness, with the exception of mechanical, so our workshops were safe from my efforts, but I still had to know what they were doing, how long it would take & a rough idea of cost. So when our staff were trained into the use of the Burroughs accounting machine I had to watch & take it in as well.
I had travelled down to London by train & was returning the following afternoon to arrive at Darlington Station the following afternoon (Thursday) at 6.00Pm at night and the driver picking me up told me the payroll hadn’t been done as the wages clerk had taken ill & not come in on the Thursday morning.
Her job entailed collecting all time sheets, Clock cards & work records on a Monday so she could on Tuesday & Wednesday work out our bonus scheme the hours worked 40 hours single time, time & half remainder apart from Double time Sundays. Check how much cash subsistence payments they had received & collate to see if further was owed or overpaid so all information was ready to process. All office staff were regular amounts but our maintenance staff were all on bonus schemes based loosely on Bedford hours so their hours & bonuses needed calculating, and thank god all this had been done ready to be inputted into the accounting machine to calculate PAYE & NI . The bank had been informed & had ordered to money to be brought to the bank based on the previous week & said provided we rang them for 9.00AM the could adjust to our payroll
So about 7.00Pm I gathered all the information together & sat down at the machine to spend the next 7 hours of so inputting the data. Racking my mind to how it worked I stumbled at the first hurdle as I couldn’t switch it on & power it up, so I had to ring a member of the office staff to find out how to start it up & fortunately once I’d achieved that I managed to do the payroll finishing about 3.00in the morning.
As I said in those days all wages were paid in cash so it used to take two hours to count out the money & put it into the pay envelopes & always before we were finished there was several wives waiting to collect their husbands pay packets.
Hi Carl, The Burrows payroll machine brings back memmories, When I drove for Baxters on the Quayside in the 50s I used to deliver them with A Bedford van, It was a good number for me, As I got the same running times as the wagons, Took them as far as Manchester , Glasgow, Edingburgh, Of course this was when their place was on Westgate Rd in the town, They moved to Dudley in later years , Take care & Stay safe, Regards Larry
.
Hi Larry, we had a similar thing
When Courtaulds opened their massive Spennymoor plant in 1969, employing 2,900 workers we were fortunate in securing all the transport requirements, which eventually needed about 40 vans.
About 1975 they decided they wanted a Transit sized van to be available to quickly deliver samples throughout the UK. Often it was just one box of yarn. (about 2ft square & 2 ft high. We bought a new Transit 15 cwt Transit van ex-stock from Elliotts Motors (The Bishop Auckland Ford agency) and within 48 hours had it painted in Courtaulds livery, signwritten & available. One of our class 3 drivers Fred Wallace volunteered to drive it. We had chosen a petrol for speed as in those days the diesel transits were slow.
Like you said Fred was still being paid class 3 rate with the same bonus’ as before. Where-ever he went sometimes Devon, London etc he was back and ready for his next assignment 9.00AM the following morning, in time for their sales office to open. This continued 12 months until the decided to discontinue and send the samples along with normal loads. They had discovered provided the gave a time they would deliver & kept to it customers would accept even if they had to wait 24 hours.
We sold the 12 month old Transit which had about 150,000 mile on the clock. In that 12 months it must have been the most profitable vehicle we ever ran.
Like me I expect you are housebound & I hope keeping safe
Carl
Hi Carl,
Hope you are keeping well. I have found a couple more photos that may be of interest.
The first one is at Harrogate at the end of the Trans Pennine run. You are on the next one, I think it was a Bedford rally, not sure where though, you may remember.
All the best,
Mark
LR Man:
Hi Carl,
Hope you are keeping well. I have found a couple more photos that may be of interest.
The first one is at Harrogate at the end of the Trans Pennine run. You are on the next one, I think it was a Bedford rally, not sure where though, you may remember.
All the best,
Mark
Thanks Mark,
Did you notice the different painting on the two photos? The first was on its first longish trip with its original 26 hp engine which had a cracked block & was replaced with a 28hp as we were unable to get a 26 hp, but my dad explained that would be authentic as all similar aged 2 tonners we had had 26 hp engines replaced with 28hp.
I haven’t a clue were the next photo was taken but an early one before we fitted the name board on the front of the roof.
Hope you are keeping well. For about 10 weeks now I’ve never been out of Kirk Merrington. When this is over I would love it if you could sometime arrange for me to bring my son Paul (Who chauffeurs me about these days) t see your Land Rover
Best wishes
Carl
Carl Williams:
LR Man:
Hi Carl,
Hope you are keeping well. I have found a couple more photos that may be of interest.
The first one is at Harrogate at the end of the Trans Pennine run. You are on the next one, I think it was a Bedford rally, not sure where though, you may remember.
All the best,
Mark
Thanks Mark,
Did you notice the different painting on the two photos? The first was on its first longish trip with its original 26 hp engine which had a cracked block & was replaced with a 28hp as we were unable to get a 26 hp, but my dad explained that would be authentic as all similar aged 2 tonners we had had 26 hp engines replaced with 28hp.
I haven’t a clue were the next photo was taken but an early one before we fitted the name board on the front of the roof.
Hope you are keeping well. For about 10 weeks now I’ve never been out of Kirk Merrington. When this is over I would love it if you could sometime arrange for me to bring my son Paul (Who chauffeurs me about these days) t see your Land Rover
Best wishes
Carl
Hi Carl,
When things get back to normal, you are very welcome to come over and see the Land Rovers.
Hope to see you soon!
Mark
We operated two Magirus Deutz 7.5 ton luton vans based at our Sheffield depot. Here is a photo of one partially hidden behind our breakdown whilst at Spennymoor. I must admit I never drove one. even for a run round the block which I usually would have done. They were air cooled and I don’t think much trouble, and certainly looked two smart looking vans
Carl Williams:
We operated two Magirus Deutz 7.5 ton luton vans based at our Sheffield depot. Here is a photo of one partially hidden behind our breakdown whilst at Spennymoor. I must admit I never drove one. even for a run round the block which I usually would have done. They were air cooled and I don’t think much trouble, and certainly looked two smart looking vans
I had one of those Carl a 1981 x reg , my first 7.5 tonner. It did around 55 mph i think , quite reliable too servicef at Carrs of Morley
ramone:
Carl Williams:
We operated two Magirus Deutz 7.5 ton luton vans based at our Sheffield depot. Here is a photo of one partially hidden behind our breakdown whilst at Spennymoor. I must admit I never drove one. even for a run round the block which I usually would have done. They were air cooled and I don’t think much trouble, and certainly looked two smart looking vans
I had one of those Carl a 1981 x reg , my first 7.5 tonner. It did around 55 mph i think , quite reliable too servicef at Carrs of Morley
Yes they were OK & fairly rare, you didn’t see many about. These two had been bought new by a pine furniture company from , I think, either Sherburn or Easington Lane near Durham. When they bought them they appeared in Commercial Motor & shortly afterwards the company went bankrupt & I bought them just under a year old for a price we couldn’t afford to miss. I suppose we were one of the last to break away from having an all British fleet as we had 9 Mercedes and one Daf 2800 tractor unit and these Magirus Deutz had helped break the mould.
In the early seventies we were getting an increasing number of removals to Europe, and it is difficult to know how to deal with Customs unless you, yourself had some experience.
We had an enquiry from NATO to give an estimate to remove a British member of their staff who was based in Naples to move to NE England and we estimated the load to be about 600 cu ft and our price was accepted. It was the ideal opportunity of learning by going to Italy and carrying out the removal.
Phil Riley, who was then a porter was to accompany me and our route was set ferry Dover-Ostend into France, Switzerland into Italy and down to Naples.
We had three Leyland (BMC) 350 FG’s with 3.8 litre diesel engines and 750 cu ft fibreglass bodies by Marsden of Warrington. I chose to take the newest, CPT404L which was just about three months old at that time. For those of you who remember the FG’s had the threepenny bit cabs which in their larger form were mostly used as bread vans. The advantage these had for us was that under 3.5 ton gross was free from operator’s licence. At the time we also had two 3.5 GVW Transits with 650 Cu Ft Marsden Bodies and a Bedford CF equivalent making up our smaller vans we operated and the FG’s were certainly better than these, having a proper chassis and conventional springs, and strange for Leyland at that time were fairly reliable.We also had had larger fuel tanks fitted. On the downside the unladen weight was about 2.5 ton giving a load limit of just 1 ton, the cab was particularly uncomfortable (In fairness they were designed for urban deliveries not high mileage work), and finally they had a crash gearbox, when fitted with the larger engine.
We set off on a Monday morning, making it to Ostend (Via Dover) in good time and proceeded into France where we found somewhere to stay about a mile off the main road. Although I took French at school I was not very good and the inn where we stayed had no one speaking English. With my broken French we managed to get something to eat and a few drinks before going to bed. Next morning we made an early start. At one point Phil was able to tell me ‘See that house there, the third one down, we moved them in there’… At one customs post I managed, trying to get as close as possible the customs officer’s office, to bump his flag with the front corner of the luton.
I believe we were going to cross the St Gothard’s pass in Switzerland, I believe now it’s now been tunnelled but as we headed towards the summit the FG heated up and we were empty. We stopped for something to eat and let the engine cool down and fill up the radiator. THE PHOTO BELOW IS AT THIS POINT (If you enlarge you can just make out the van)
We headed on and our next stop was to stay overnight on the outskirts of Florence.
Next morning we carried on without stopping and approaching Naples we were starving. I saw a restaurant at the side of the road and we pulled in. They could only speak Italian and we managed to make signs to show we were hungry and wanted something to eat. We hadn’t a clue what was on the menu but were brought a plate of spaghetti which we ate thinking this was it, but to our delight it was followed by two massive steaks.
By some miracle and Phil’s wonderful map reading we arrived at the house. Kindly they welcomed us and gave us bunk beds to sleep in that night. We were up next morning to start to load.
One thing neither of us had anticipated was the heat. Also the chap we were moving was a collector of stones. By about 11am we were loaded, and what a load it was. With Phil’s skilful packing we managed to get everything on but the weight. It must have weighed about three ton. We were grossly over-loaded and we had the Alps to cross, and in a vehicle designed for urban deliveries. We decided to start out and not stop just buying drinks as we refuelled, and at seven o’clock at night we reached the bottom of our climb of four hours in second gear. The 3.8 litre diesel engine drove you sick with its continual drum drum noise, never the less we managed back again at 11 o’clock at night without overheating to where this photo was taken where we stayed overnight. Phil said ‘Thank heaven we are up here’ However I had to explain what goes up must come down and I had no brakes. They were not designed for this heavy a load.
Next morning we got up early and after breakfast we started our long journey. I held the van in second gear and slowly down we went. It took almost 4 hours but at least we were safe.
Approaching the French Customs’ we could see them pointing at us and laughing. ‘No ping this time’ the customs officer had said as he waved us through, obviously remembering me bumping his flag on the last time.
Our paperwork was made out in Italian, French and English and as well we had a letter addressed from NATO asking them to assist our journey.
Passing through France, once again we did not stop just getting sandwiches and soft drinks as we refuelled.
We travelled along their A1 Which led us to cross customs and travel into Ostend where Phil, from his previous journeys, assured me we would have a good night out? Especially as it was a Saturday night.
The customs post at that time between the France and Belgium had high towers at each side where they could see each other with a strip of no man’s land in between. The French customs let us through and when we went to the Belgium customs I was met with dismay. I could not understand what the customs officer was saying. He obviously didn’t speak English and with my broken French I could not understand him. After talks for a long time where he had made it obvious we could not cross.
Eventually in perfect English he told me that as our paperwork was not made out in Flemish and we could not speak Flemish we could not enter. In my ignorance I never knew there was such a language. I asked when I could see someone to discuss it and was told 9-00AM Monday morning
We were in no man’s land neither in France or Belgium, starving hungry and tired from the journey. There was nothing there not even water to drink, so I went back to the French side. I told him what was wrong and he phoned up his Belgium counter part. We could see him answer the phone and they argued like mad with one another. The French customs officer then decided he would let us back into France and suggested we could go to Dunkirk and catch the hovercraft. ‘Not with that ‘ I pointed to the van, which was far too high to drive onto a hovercraft. He immediately got back on the phone to the Belgium Customs Officer again and was shouting to him down the phone. All to no avail and our only option was go back into France and travel to Calais where we arrived at four in the morning. We waited for the ferry and I don’t know how Phil managed but I fell asleep with my head on the steering wheel.I had to reverse onto the ferry, with the sun bright and dazzling my eyes into what seemed ‘The black hole of Calcutta’ but the ferry staff guided me into place.
We had a good crossing and got something to eat only to find when I pulled off the ferry at Dover and started to drive on the left, the van was very unstable. We had packed to compensate for the camber of the road being right in Italy and it was leaning well over with the left camber.
Things got worse. The customs demanded the van was unloaded so they could inspect the contents.
I reached agreement that Phil would stay with the van at Dover and I rang back to Spennymoor and arranged for one of our large vans which was loaded for Dover to take a driver with him and they could tranship from one van onto the other whilst the customs watched and I returned to Spennymoor by train
In the end I suppose it had a fortunate ending as had I been daft enough to try to drive back in England I would no doubt have been stopped by the police and been prosecuted for overloading.
Perhaps if Phil or any of his family read this and ask him about it they’ll have one of the biggest laughs of their life, as I have done many times, as I look back but at the time it was not so funny.
Two of several Leyland (BMC) Lairds we sadly operated… I don’t know who drove these perhaps someone might remember? All I remember was they cost us a lot of money as they were continually breaking down. Along wit Leyland Boxers which we had several (one example on second photo), Leyland Lynx tractor units and Dodge 24 ton gross tractor units with Perkins 634 engines they contributed towards the end of our company. The Leyland Lynx with the fixed head was a good start for Leyland. Our first broke down in Leicester at about 3 months old with gearbox problems. Apparently they were OK on the level but the oil ran out when they went up hills. Ford and Slater towed it in and told us it needed a new gearbox. But they were on back order and they had several in the workshops all waiting for gearboxes and they thought they would take at least 6 months to get them. Who can afford new vehicle off the road for six months waiting for spares? and we were in the process of painting two more new Lynx’s we had bought. I read in Commercial Motor that Des Pitchard had been appointed as head of Leyland Trucks and intended to sort them out. My dad made a ‘Person to person’ telephone call booked to Des Pitchard, who was taken back when he received the call and was full of apologies and said Ford & Slater would receive a gearbox within 48 hours. We rang Ford & Slater and told them they would have a box within 48 hours. ‘We’ve heard that all before’ they joked, but within two days they rang back saying ‘How on earth did you manage that?’. Person to Person phone calls were a good idea, I don’t know if they are still available.
Carl Williams:
Two of several Leyland (BMC) Lairds we sadly operated… I don’t know who drove these perhaps someone might remember? All I remember was they cost us a lot of money as they were continually breaking down. Along wit Leyland Boxers which we had several (one example on second photo), Leyland Lynx tractor units and Dodge 24 ton gross tractor units with Perkins 634 engines they contributed towards the end of our company. The Leyland Lynx with the fixed head was a good start for Leyland. Our first broke down in Leicester at about 3 months old with gearbox problems. Apparently they were OK on the level but the oil ran out when they went up hills. Ford and Slater towed it in and told us it needed a new gearbox. But they were on back order and they had several in the workshops all waiting for gearboxes and they thought they would take at least 6 months to get them. Who can afford new vehicle off the road for six months waiting for spares? and we were in the process of painting two more new Lynx’s we had bought. I read in Commercial Motor that Des Pitchard had been appointed as head of Leyland Trucks and intended to sort them out. My dad made a ‘Person to person’ telephone call booked to Des Pitchard, who was taken back when he received the call and was full of apologies and said Ford & Slater would receive a gearbox within 48 hours. We rang Ford & Slater and told them they would have a box within 48 hours. ‘We’ve heard that all before’ they joked, but within two days they rang back saying ‘How on earth did you manage that?’. Person to Person phone calls were a good idea, I don’t know if they are still available.
I got a flood of replies regarding this post from various Facebook Pages very few defending Leyland Redland Products (BMC Austin-Morris) Here I one from one of our ex drivers:
George Whitehead They worked out of Courtaulds and ATM Crook you needed to put blinkers on headlights to get up hills I drove one for two weeks pleased when i got my Bedford Marsden sleeper back
Carl you deserve a medal for driving a BMC FG all the way to Italy and back. They were the noisiest and most uncomfortable commercial vehicle I have ever driven. Just changing gear was a challenge… a double jointed shoulder would have made it easier. When I worked for Mothers Pride i frequently went from Wigan to our sister bakery at Darwen to collect bread they produced for Wigan bakery. That round trip was far enough in a FG, and climbing Bull Hill out of Darwen with a full load of 2-lb loaves of sliced and wrapped bread was a deafening experience. Goodness knows how you got one over the Alps. My deep respect to you.
gingerfold:
Carl you deserve a medal for driving a BMC FG all the way to Italy and back. They were the noisiest and most uncomfortable commercial vehicle I have ever driven. Just changing gear was a challenge… a double jointed shoulder would have made it easier. When I worked for Mothers Pride i frequently went from Wigan to our sister bakery at Darwen to collect bread they produced for Wigan bakery. That round trip was far enough in a FG, and climbing Bull Hill out of Darwen with a full load of 2-lb loaves of sliced and wrapped bread was a deafening experience. Goodness knows how you got one over the Alps. My deep respect to you.
I think the bigger FG was the really noisy one. The little FG 30cwt ‘threepenny-bit’ lorry wasn’t so bad. Mine had a 2.2 BMC diesel in it and I ran it as my private car for a couple of years and used it to help at harvest times! The noise was a bit wearing on long journeys up and down the country but for pottering about it was fine. Ro
You could even get artic ones!! 
Ro
NMP
I quite liked driving all the FGK range, working for a dealership I drove plenty of them and all different types! Lockhart Catering Equipment in Reading ran some of the early 3.4 engined three tonners with Luton bodies on their Scottish trunk in the 60’s, later they bought the FGK 100’s with the 5.1 six cylinder engine which were faster of course. Apart from the engines overheating we didn’t get that many issues with the Laird range as most (but not all) of the problems with the previous FJK range had been sorted by then, the Bathgate built engines were still the worst of course! 
The Boxers with the Perkins 6.354 were almost bomb proof though and we had a Boxer tipper at our quarry and the engine lasted for around four years before needing major overhaul. If only the 40 or so Gardner’s we ran could have lasted as long, still they got me a lot of overtime so not all bad! 
Pete.
