W.H.WILLIAMS (spennymoor)

[carl_williams]

Suedehead:

Carl Williams:
TK by Bedford probably if not the best selling & most produced commercial vehicle ever certainly up in the top ten. We had them in all shapes and sizes Box vans Luton vans Flats,breakdown and even a tipper and of course umpteen pantechnicons mostly built by Marsden’s of Warrington like the one in the photo below. based on the TK chassis scuttle, including a few (about 20 built by Vanplan)
We had 4 cylinder 220, 300, 330, 380, 466 & 500 cu in engines. All apart from 220 & 380 were a success with all the TK pantechnicons we ran lasting 13-14 year lives with 700,000 mile plus on the clocks before we sold them into second lives. Most engines achieved 300,000 miles and we then fitted new factory supplied short motors that usually achieved similar mileages. And the drivers loved the TK pantechnicons which did not suffer from the cramped TK cabs.
The breakdown in the photo was a new Bedford short wheelbase tipper chassis with body built & lifting gear as a purpose built breakdown by Robsons of Consett in 1964. It towed everything including on more than one occasion artics fully loaded with 20 ton on their back. Not bad for a humble 330 cu in diesel engine. If we had a breakdown which was loaded we sent it to tow including multi drop loads until they were empty & then back home. It had a new short motor fitted at just over 300,000 miles, & when you imagine what it had pulled home it was probably the hardest of all miles. It also had a new cab fitted when it was about 18 years old. As I said it never was registered taxed or tested running its whole life on trade plates, but like all our vehicles it was well maintained. However I don’t think today we would have got away with such a light weight breakdown. Pulling AEC Leyland BMC Ford Dodge Guy Atkinson Mercedes Magnius, DAF Seddon & of course Bedfords. But the little Bedfords favourites which it pulled more than any others were Leyland Lynx, Boxer, Laird and of Course Dodge.

Wasnt above 300 6 cylinder engines?

Sorry for the confusion I did put a comma after 4 cylinder 220, Of course all other engines were 6 cylinder

[suedehead]

Carl Williams:

Suedehead:

Carl Williams:
TK by Bedford probably if not the best selling & most produced commercial vehicle ever certainly up in the top ten. We had them in all shapes and sizes Box vans Luton vans Flats,breakdown and even a tipper and of course umpteen pantechnicons mostly built by Marsden’s of Warrington like the one in the photo below. based on the TK chassis scuttle, including a few (about 20 built by Vanplan)
We had 4 cylinder 220, 300, 330, 380, 466 & 500 cu in engines. All apart from 220 & 380 were a success with all the TK pantechnicons we ran lasting 13-14 year lives with 700,000 mile plus on the clocks before we sold them into second lives. Most engines achieved 300,000 miles and we then fitted new factory supplied short motors that usually achieved similar mileages. And the drivers loved the TK pantechnicons which did not suffer from the cramped TK cabs.
The breakdown in the photo was a new Bedford short wheelbase tipper chassis with body built & lifting gear as a purpose built breakdown by Robsons of Consett in 1964. It towed everything including on more than one occasion artics fully loaded with 20 ton on their back. Not bad for a humble 330 cu in diesel engine. If we had a breakdown which was loaded we sent it to tow including multi drop loads until they were empty & then back home. It had a new short motor fitted at just over 300,000 miles, & when you imagine what it had pulled home it was probably the hardest of all miles. It also had a new cab fitted when it was about 18 years old. As I said it never was registered taxed or tested running its whole life on trade plates, but like all our vehicles it was well maintained. However I don’t think today we would have got away with such a light weight breakdown. Pulling AEC Leyland BMC Ford Dodge Guy Atkinson Mercedes Magnius, DAF Seddon & of course Bedfords. But the little Bedfords favourites which it pulled more than any others were Leyland Lynx, Boxer, Laird and of Course Dodge.

Wasnt above 300 6 cylinder engines?

Sorry for the confusion I did put a comma after 4 cylinder 220, Of course all other engines were 6 cylinder

My mistake i misread your post. Should have put my glasses on

[carl_williams]

Hearing of the death of Mohamed Al-Fayed reminded me of when many years ago I was invited and attended a garden Party at Buckingham Palace…We stayed at a Thistle Hotel walking distance from the palace and next morning we were heading for Harrods. I had read that Al-fayed often had breakfast in Cafe Rouge which was situated at the rear of the Harrods. It was about 8-00AM so off we went to Cafe Rouge for breakfast. It was a nice sunny morning, so we chose a table outside facing Harrods. I was engrossed reading the morning newspaper with photos of the celebrities who had attended (Why did they omit my photo LOL) Anyway Al-Fayed never came for breakfast but I was most amused to see two Rolls Royces pull up at the other side of the street, and out gets an wealthy Arab and his six wives following him into Harrods. If I got six wives I would have been locked up for bigamy and I can’t understand why we allow law breaking by foreigners. although being married once I cannot beleive anyone could survive with 6.

[windrush]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

As long as the Arab didn’t marry them in the UK it wouldn’t be illegal Carl. Until recently we had a carer from South Africa, he had a wife and child still in Jo’burg and intended getting another wife while in the UK as his current wife agreed that he would need a woman while living here and had no issues with that. He was amazed when we told him it would be illegal here! Both his father and grandfather have five wives, and the law is trying to be changed for women to have more than one husband but the females are not keen on that!

Pete.

[john_west]

Hi Carl,

I haven’t been on here for many months. No particular reason, I think I may have wished Dennis a Merry Christmas, but that’s it. Just to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed delving through your recent posts today.

My Dad was possibly more like your Grandfather than your Dad in terms of starting up. I wish I’d asked him more about his early life, but when you’re young it’s of no importance! Born in 1905, he served his time as a Fitter and Turner in the Vickers shipyard in Barrow. After that he joined the Merchant Navy and sailed the world. He came home in the depression of the thirties. With the money that he had, he bought a sterilised milk round (nobody had fridges then.) He worked at that for a few years, making about £5.00 per week, not a bad wage in the thirties. In about 1935/36 the government changed the price of milk. From £5.00 a week, he was earning £35.00 a week! This gave him the capital to start a removals firm, but was nationalised in 1948, the year I was born. His firm was taken over by Athersmith Bros, the largest firm at the time, to run under the name of BRS and Pickfords. Another firm you may have heard of T. Brady and Sons, was too small to be nationalised. Dad said that he had a Jensen, which Bradys wanted to buy, but they couldn’t afford it!

A photo attached of one of his vans, a postcard at the time, passing the Ritz cinema by chance in 1939. I have somewhere other photos of his vans, but like me, he was no photographer!

He bought another firm after Nationalisation finished, with a couple of vans, but his heart was no longer in it. He sold the vans and A licences to Alan Cooksey, who became a large local removals firm, eventually working for Bowater Scott and selling out to Blue Dart in the Seventies.

I guess haulage was in my blood. When i was 21 I bought a Leyland Comet and started pulling Timber from the Scottish borders to Lancashire, mainly Riding and Anderton’s Seven Stars Sawmill in Wigan, to be converted into pit props for the many pits around then. Eventually I did overland, then stayed in Saudi for 11 years, coming back and bought an ‘AMTRAK’ parcels franchise. Worked 15 hours a day for 20 years, watched Roger Baines sell the Franchisor for 86 million, without acknowledging any input from the franchisees, then when Amtrak finally folded in 2008, not what you want at age 60, was left with a large overdraft having expanded the depot to include CA postcodes. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Luckily, my wife is careful with money and I have worked since, and still do!

Hey, life is what you make it!

John.

[mushroomman]

John West:
Hi Carl,

A photo attached of one of his vans, a postcard at the time, passing the Ritz cinema by chance in 1939. I have somewhere other photos of his vans, but like me, he was no photographer!

He bought another firm after Nationalisation finished, with a couple of vans, but his heart was no longer in it. He sold the vans and A licences to Alan Cooksey, who became a large local removals firm, eventually working for Bowater Scott and selling out to Blue Dart in the Seventies.

Hey, life is what you make it!

John.

Hi John and Carl, that’s probably opened a can of worms. I think that all of us regret not taking enough photographs over fifty years ago and if I would have done so at the time then I could have shown Carl quite a few photos of Bedford Marsden’s. I have been over Carl’s great thread a number of times and never seen a photo of any of Vitafoam’s Marsden’s, the one that I drove was registration number TVR 712 K and I also remember one as being on a F registration number plate.

Vitafoam, British Vita and Vita Luxan must have had a least a dozen Marsden’s in the sixties and early seventies and as it has been mentioned before, they were a marine ply, wooden cab. After a couple of years, most of them started to let water in whenever it was raining and with a six-inch foam mattress on the wide back parcel shelf, (a perk of the job) you could always get a good night’s sleep.

I have been meaning to mention this to you for years now Carl but I can remember a couple of W.H. Williams drivers, flashing their lights at me while going up the A1 in the early seventies. As Vitafoam also had a depot at Fencehouses near Haughton le Springs, I wondered if you ever did any back loads for them from their Middleton factory.

John, Alan Cooksey junior was my first traffic manager who I.I.R.C. was about 25 years old at the time. I had great respect for Alan who really looked after me and I often wondered what happened to him after he left Blue Dart. I can only remember staying overnight in Cooksey’s yard in Barrow just once, just once was enough.

[carl_williams]

John West:
Hi Carl,

I haven’t been on here for many months. No particular reason, I think I may have wished Dennis a Merry Christmas, but that’s it. Just to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed delving through your recent posts today.

My Dad was possibly more like your Grandfather than your Dad in terms of starting up. I wish I’d asked him more about his early life, but when you’re young it’s of no importance! Born in 1905, he served his time as a Fitter and Turner in the Vickers shipyard in Barrow. After that he joined the Merchant Navy and sailed the world. He came home in the depression of the thirties. With the money that he had, he bought a sterilised milk round (nobody had fridges then.) He worked at that for a few years, making about £5.00 per week, not a bad wage in the thirties. In about 1935/36 the government changed the price of milk. From £5.00 a week, he was earning £35.00 a week! This gave him the capital to start a removals firm, but was nationalised in 1948, the year I was born. His firm was taken over by Athersmith Bros, the largest firm at the time, to run under the name of BRS and Pickfords. Another firm you may have heard of T. Brady and Sons, was too small to be nationalised. Dad said that he had a Jensen, which Bradys wanted to buy, but they couldn’t afford it!

A photo attached of one of his vans, a postcard at the time, passing the Ritz cinema by chance in 1939. I have somewhere other photos of his vans, but like me, he was no photographer!

He bought another firm after Nationalisation finished, with a couple of vans, but his heart was no longer in it. He sold the vans and A licences to Alan Cooksey, who became a large local removals firm, eventually working for Bowater Scott and selling out to Blue Dart in the Seventies.

I guess haulage was in my blood. When i was 21 I bought a Leyland Comet and started pulling Timber from the Scottish borders to Lancashire, mainly Riding and Anderton’s Seven Stars Sawmill in Wigan, to be converted into pit props for the many pits around then. Eventually I did overland, then stayed in Saudi for 11 years, coming back and bought an ‘AMTRAK’ parcels franchise. Worked 15 hours a day for 20 years, watched Roger Baines sell the Franchisor for 86 million, without acknowledging any input from the franchisees, then when Amtrak finally folded in 2008, not what you want at age 60, was left with a large overdraft having expanded the depot to include CA postcodes. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

Luckily, my wife is careful with money and I have worked since, and still do!

Hey, life is what you make it!

John.

Hi John £5 per week must have been an incredible wage in the 30s

I was born in 1947 and can remember being told in the 50s a driver got £2.50 per week and a porter got £2

Now we just have our memories to look back onto and I hope you, like me can say overall I have no regrets

Take care

Carl

[carl_williams]

mushroomman:

John West:
Hi Carl,

A photo attached of one of his vans, a postcard at the time, passing the Ritz cinema by chance in 1939. I have somewhere other photos of his vans, but like me, he was no photographer!

He bought another firm after Nationalisation finished, with a couple of vans, but his heart was no longer in it. He sold the vans and A licences to Alan Cooksey, who became a large local removals firm, eventually working for Bowater Scott and selling out to Blue Dart in the Seventies.

Hey, life is what you make it!

John.

Hi John and Carl, that’s probably opened a can of worms. I think that all of us regret not taking enough photographs over fifty years ago and if I would have done so at the time then I could have shown Carl quite a few photos of Bedford Marsden’s. I have been over Carl’s great thread a number of times and never seen a photo of any of Vitafoam’s Marsden’s, the one that I drove was registration number TVR 712 K and I also remember one as being on a F registration number plate.

Vitafoam, British Vita and Vita Luxan must have had a least a dozen Marsden’s in the sixties and early seventies and as it has been mentioned before, they were a marine ply, wooden cab. After a couple of years, most of them started to let water in whenever it was raining and with a six-inch foam mattress on the wide back parcel shelf, (a perk of the job) you could always get a good night’s sleep.

I have been meaning to mention this to you for years now Carl but I can remember a couple of W.H. Williams drivers, flashing their lights at me while going up the A1 in the early seventies. As Vitafoam also had a depot at Fencehouses near Haughton le Springs, I wondered if you ever did any back loads for them from their Middleton factory.

John, Alan Cooksey junior was my first traffic manager who I.I.R.C. was about 25 years old at the time. I had great respect for Alan who really looked after me and I often wondered what happened to him after he left Blue Dart. I can only remember staying overnight in Cooksey’s yard in Barrow just once, just once was enough.

Hi Mushroomman

This site is dreadful Here is my fourth attempt before it crashes

WE never did any work for Vitafoam as I aleays thought they were fully serviced by Blue Dart, but also we were always paid both ways by all our customers so back loads were not a nescesity , and Mancheser was often a day run. We did work for Lancaster Carpets from Manchester and the inly foam I remember was Sheffield Insulation who we did some loads from Sheffield
I never remember Vitafoam Marsdens. Are you sure they were not bodies which looked quite similar buily by Bowyer Bros Congleton (Boalloy) which would rain in as they were badly built but we never had a Marsden no matter how old ever have a leak.

Thanks so much for contacting Best wishes CARL

[mushroomman]

Hi Carl, you are not the only one who thinks that this site is dreadful at the moment but hopefully, normal service will be resumed shortly.

I had to reread your very interesting story from August last year about ‘The History Of The Pantechnicon’, where you mentioned about Bowyer Brothers. I now realise that the Bedford T.K. that I was driving fifty years ago was what we called an ‘Abrams’ and that it was not fitted with one of the Marsden bodies that Vitafoam had at the time.

You did mention a couple of years ago in another story that they were supplied by the Vauxhall/ Bedford dealer Syd Abrams.
Thanks for clearing that up and apologies for my senior moment.

[ceetee]

Carl Williams:
One of our ERFs in its after life I can’t remember who drove it when i was new

alfie ridley,billy bennet or farrah clark.

[carl_williams]

ceetee:

Carl Williams:
One of our ERFs in its after life I can’t remember who drove it when i was new

alfie ridley,billy bennet or farrah clark.

Yes they were each given New ERFs with sleeper cabs but I can’t remember which

[carl_williams]

Tom Liddle had 16 of these built by Northern Assemblies Consett (I think) All identical and maintained to the highest standards (He was a perfectionist) In the background was his original workshop & warehouses which he had built on a massive old disused quarry at South Moor Stanley When he sold out to P & O Storemasters they built huge massive warehouses on the site (Leaving Toms buildings which they dwarfed) Toms bungalow which stood at the entrance of the site which had a small adjoining office was converted into offices. I hate to think how much it all cost and a few years later they closed & a housing estate now stands there. The deal was Tom stayed as manager but after a month or two he was gone as he couldn’t stand their way of working.
We bought a couple of the Bedfords which we painted in our livery & ran for a year or so but found the were just too small for our use

[pete_smith]

Carl Williams:
One of our ERFs in its after life I can’t remember who drove it when i was new

Morning Carl,
The ERF passed to Triumph Furniture and then to Mick Jones aka Jona Haulage, I remember him saying the cab was a lime green colour when he bought her, he has since sadly passed away,
Cheers Pete

[carl_williams]

A photo of one of our old Bedford SB petrols that appeared in a recent article in THE Northern Echo
In about 1962 aged 9 year old it went into Semi retirement dong a daily return load from Thorn Electrical Industries Spennymoor factory with about 7 ton load of lighting fitments down to Thorn’s warehouse at Leeds and bringing a load of components back to Spennymoor replacing a 1949 Bedford OB pantechnicon LPT which had been doing this work for a number of years. In 1964 we had a new Bedford Marsden SB and it had to be laid of as we had no spare A licence so it was fully loaded with removals in storage and parked in a warehouse we had in Coundon near Bishop Auckland, but even then after that it made a final bow. At November 1965 we applied for a temp extra A licence to cover Xmas rush which was grated for 3 months and out came HTH, unloaded & washed and back on the road after a 12 month rest We were then successful in getting that extra vehicle added onto our A licence so HTH stayed on the road until the next new Bedford Marsden came along and its final trip was drive by The late Colin Watson Devon & Cornwall about 1,300 mile round journey before it was sold to Don Clegg a removal contractor of Stanley. So it was still earning its corn till the last trip.

[carl_williams]

Carl Williams:
A photo of one of our old Bedford SB petrols that appeared in a recent article in THE Northern Echo
In about 1962 aged 9 year old it went into Semi retirement dong a daily return load from Thorn Electrical Industries Spennymoor factory with about 7 ton load of lighting fitments down to Thorn’s warehouse at Leeds and bringing a load of components back to Spennymoor replacing a 1949 Bedford OB pantechnicon LPT which had been doing this work for a number of years. In 1964 we had a new Bedford Marsden SB and it had to be laid of as we had no spare A licence so it was fully loaded with removals in storage and parked in a warehouse we had in Coundon near Bishop Auckland, but even then after that it made a final bow. At November 1965 we applied for a temp extra A licence to cover Xmas rush which was grated for 3 months and out came HTH, unloaded & washed and back on the road after a 12 month rest We were then successful in getting that extra vehicle added onto our A licence so HTH stayed on the road until the next new Bedford Marsden came along and its final trip was drive by The late Colin Watson Devon & Cornwall about 1,300 mile round journey before it was sold to Don Clegg a removal contractor of Stanley. So it was still earning its corn till the last trip.

I don’t think we ever got round to fitting flashing indicators to HTH but unusually for an HGV it did have old flashing indicators which were situated just behind the driver on the sides of the body but not only were the unreliable but not too easy to see so it was hand signals even in the 60s

[carl_williams]

I’m very sad to say I’ve just heard that another of our long serving drivers has died. John Ward. At one of the re-unions John was telling me that he had done my dad a favour once and got an urgent delivery completed on time where time was very tight. Dad thanked him and told him that he would give him the next new van which was due from Marsden’s within a few weeks.
John said he was very pleased but when it came SGS seen in photo was fitted with the Bedford 330 cu in engine instead of the 500 cu in that we were specifying in all our Bedfords at the time. However he got used to it and in the end came to quite like SGS

[carl_williams]

I’m not wishing everyone a very happy Winter Holiday

I’m wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New year

Except the ‘WOKE’ lot who hate Christmas

So Merry Christmas Everyone

[marktaff]

Carl Williams:
0I’m not wishing everyone a very happy Winter Holiday

I’m wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New year

Except the ‘WOKE’ lot who hate Christmas

So Merry Christmas Everyone

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you Carol.

[marktaff]

marktaff:

Carl Williams:
0I’m not wishing everyone a very happy Winter Holiday

I’m wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New year

Except the ‘WOKE’ lot who hate Christmas

So Merry Christmas Everyone

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you Carl

[kempston]

Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you and your family Carl.