W.H.WILLIAMS (spennymoor)

[carl_williams]

240 Gardner:

240 Gardner:

Carl Williams:

240 Gardner:
I wonder if you’ve seen this photo?

flickr.com/photos/roadtransp … hotostream

Hi 240 Gardner

Thank you so much I hadn’t seen that photo, and had just faint memory of that Guy GGG325L

It was fitted with Gardner 180 engine and I think it is probably been driven by Kenny Hardy who I have previously mentioned on this thread. Its wonderful to see vehicles working instead of static publicity shots and its also very rare to catch one of our tractors pulling one of our 40 ft platform trailers.

I don’t surpose anyone knows where the photo might have been taken.

Also is there anyway that I can obtain a copy to post on this thread.

Best wishes
Carl Williams

I just happened to spot it, and remembered this thread!

The chap that posts them sells prints - if you follow the links back to his profile, there are contact details there

And here’s another… flickr.com/photos/roadtransp … otostream/

Hi gardner 240

Once again thank you so much I will arrange to get a copy

Best wishes

carl

[carl_williams]

Hi Tynesode

{ am having problems with my computer this afternoon so I cannot reply as normal

But re your comment about Rex Preston its a small world isn’yt it

Did he save you some money as well7

regards
Carl

[tyneside]

Hi Carl
Not sure of the finances at that time as I was bit too young. The family house was next to the yard and was most times an extension to the office and I remember Rex often sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea with my parents.
After selling the business, Rex moved up to Northumberland (Longframlington or somewhere not far north of Morpeth) and my father called to see him in the early nineties. No nothing of his whereabouts now.

[carl_williams]

Since the early fifties until about 1984 we did work for New Equipment Ltd now NESS Furniture at Croxdale.

During the early sixties Neil Corner, son of the founder of the business had been renovating an old Rolls Royce of about 1908. When he had finished it he had let Rolls Royce examine the car and they had stated although the first built Rolls Royce was in their possession and about a year older than Mr Corner’s his was in better condition.

About 1964 he had decided he would enter this car in a vintage Car Auction that was to be held at the National Motor museum Beaulieu. Arrangements were made for their joinery shop to make a ramp so that the vehicle could be loaded onto one of our pantechnicons. Although the car was not too high to fit in the van body the angle of loading up the ramp was going to cause a problem. If the car could drive on the level on and off the van OK but it was going to be difficult.

Dad suggested that it might be easier if we could arrange for a car transporter to do the job and so he contacted Glendennings from Shotley Bridge. They explained that modern day (Modern in 1964) car transporters would not be high enough but they had an old transporter that would be ideal

It was arranged that Glendennings collected the car so it was loaded ready to make the journey the following morning. Oliver Whitewood was their driver who was given the job. The car was chained onto the transporter and Mr Corner had insisted that it was sheeted by a sheet he had to save it getting wet in the rain.

Dad had two massive brass paraffin lamps that fitted onto brackets that served as the car lights, and I remember them placed in the middle of the hall that evening when I returned home from school. Dad met Glendenning’s driver, Oliver the next morning at Thinford and the lights were put in the cab with him.

Whilst the arrangements were going on for the transport dad asked old Mr Corner who was there at the time, what value should the car be insured for. He replied hat he was sure if Neil got £5,000 he would be delighted. Neil had also requested that he would like the driver to wait until the next morning so he could watch the car being unloaded.

Oliver Whitewood rang my dad later that evening to say he had had a good journey down and had unloaded the car and it was safely put into a marquee.
The next morning we heard over the grapevine that Neil Corner was on the war path because the car had been unloaded in the rain and that the sheet had slightly scuffed the front wings and that he had had to pay to have it dried and polished.

The day of the sale was the following day a Saturday and on that evening I was travelling over to Blackpool for the remainder of the weekend when the news came on the car radio.

‘1908 Rolls Royce sold for £10,000 making it the dearest ever second hand car sold’ dad knew then that there would be no mention of the car getting wet etc and had a peaceful weekend. The car as sold to an American and exported to USA. Some years later dad had been speaking to Mr Neil Corner and he had stated by then the car would have been priceless.

[tyneside]

Oliver Whitwood was mentioned a few days ago on this thread. My father was one of the founder members of the Tyneside Transport Training Group and I went there to train for my HGV in 1974. Oliver was my instructor. He must have done a pretty good job. I am still alive and kicking.

[carl_williams]

tyneside:
Oliver Whitwood was mentioned a few days ago on this thread. My father was one of the founder members of the Tyneside Transport Training Group and I went there to train for my HGV in 1974. Oliver was my instructor. He must have done a pretty good job. I am still alive and kicking.

Hi tyneside

Likewise we were founder members of Darlinton Driver Training and I was appointed a director in about 1977.

Fortunatly I was old enough to not have to take an HGV test as I mentioned in one of the posts when I tell of going to MOTEC on a Drivers Assessor Course

Best wishes
Carl

[maggied]

Hi Carl,

Thank you for a brilliant thread and great stories of road transport as it was.

I thought of you last week as I delivered to Kenwoods in Havant and remember seeing your vehicles in there years ago,I’m afraid the factory has been converted to industrial units now,and the Kenwood (De Longhi) factory shop and unit only take up a very small part of the original site
Hurry up and write that book !!
Kind Regards
Richard

[carl_williams]

MaggieD:
Hi Carl,

Thank you for a brilliant thread and great stories of road transport as it was.

I thought of you last week as I delivered to Kenwoods in Havant and remember seeing your vehicles in there years ago,I’m afraid the factory has been converted to industrial units now,and the Kenwood (De Longhi) factory shop and unit only take up a very small part of the original site
Hurry up and write that book !!
Kind Regards
Richard

Hi Richard thanks you for the complement.

I never went down to Havant although my dad did several times as it was the location where most of the senior management of Thorn EMI domestic Appliances were based… Of course staff from Havant often came to visit us at Spennymoor.

It’s sad to hear what has happened there after Thorn EMI sold off the Domestic Appliance division to Electrolux. Like all foreign companies they were keen to move employment and manufacturing abroad either because of cheap labour or in order to protect the jobs in their own native European Country. Swedish companies, French companies, German companies and Italian Companies always seem to look after no 1 first and next between each other and to hell with the British.

I was reading a thread last night that was telling of the closure of Foden and ERF, same sort of thing. But in fairness our own workforce was very much to blame for the problems at Thorn EMI as with the Commercial Vehicle Manufacturing. At the Spennymoor plant at one time over an eight year period there was not one day without a strike, go slow or work to rule. If that had not been allowed to occur places like Spennymoor and Havant might not have closed and we and our drivers might be still delivering British made fridges cookers and washing machines.

As I told on another topic Cess Ramsey did a trip twice weekly to Havant and return. Taking down products for staff sales and anything else needed from Spennymoor. He returned with a similar load from Havant, but like I said so much management were based in Havant including printing, publishing etc his load was made up of publicity matters, post and management information including as I mentioned cheques paying for expenses at Spennymoor including the vast wage bill for several thousand workers.

Cess was very popular at Havant as he personally called in about 30 departments and asked if they had anything to go to Spennymoor and more than often called back just before he was leaving to collect urgent items that weren’t available earlier.

Whenever anyone came up they always asked after Cess and praised him. That illustrates the power a good trusted driver instils with customers on behalf of the haulier.

Back to my book. I have written chapter one that takes me up to 1921, and I intend to start on chapter two shortly. Although I get rushes of thoughts come to me of what I should include in this thread, and after all I will be using all of the items written here as a base and as I think of more to say on here and get information from kind people like you telling me about Havant today it gives me more information.

If and when I do write I hope it will be a fuller version of whats gone on with more details of how we fitted into the bigger pictures of the days, and that way I hope that anyone reading this thread will get even more enjoyment out of the proposed book.

Many thanks for your message

Best wishes

Carl

[carl_williams]

Auto Electric work was carried out originally by Durham Auto Electrics and as I said before we regularly picked up from them at what is now The Swan and cygnets in Elvet Durham.

When we moved to Green Lane we employed a full time Auto electrician who was there to deal with any electrical problems. Perhaps some reader will remind me his name. We also made him a small workshop in a void area underneath part of the offices adjoining the first workshop. His job entailed repairing starter motors alternators etc and repairs that had occurred when vehicles were away. He was excellent on technical problems saving his weeks wages on many occasions by jobs he did with ease.

A regular simple occurrence in winter conditions was a build up of snow on the wiring pulled out the wires from the rear lights. On the vans this could be easily resolved by re routing the wire inside the bodywork rather than along the chassis and drop well chassis extension. The chap we employed several times completely replaced wiring harnesses.

One day my dad met a Police sergeant that he knew who asked if he had got rear lights repaired on a certain vehicle. ‘How did you know?’ asked dad. ‘Oh I was out training a pc in a patrol car the other night and at Chilton we saw your driver heading home with no rear lights and the PC had wanted to pull him in’ he went on to say ‘Oh he’s Ok he’s nearly home and it will be fixed tomorrow, we’ll follow him up to Thinford to make sure no one runs into the back of him’

Sometimes having a good reputation for vehicle maintenance pays off.

[carl_williams]

Carl Williams:
Tom Liddle was a real character. He ran his removal business T.T. Liddle from Stanley. In the fifties he had a fleet of 5 ERF pantechnicon vans which were all identical and beautiful vans. When my dad was taken by ERF for a tour of their factory in the late 70’s, they had a photograph of one of these vans on display. Like us he also had a Thames 4D Luton and my dad and Tom could swop recollections of all the things that had gone wrong with their respective 4D’s.

Throughout the fifties if we went out onto the A1 I always watched to see one of Liddle’s ERFs and also Alfred Bell’s in their easily recognisable green and red livery.

Tom liddle’s main customer was Vono beds from Tipton. He had three large warehouses at Stanley where he brought them from production at Tipton and delivered them as ordered to furniture shops in Northern England and Scotland. He replaced the ERF’s with Bedford TK Luton vans in the sixties and went on to have 16 of these once again all identical. For some reason about 1964 Tom decided to buy a New Bedford TK chassis cab and have the same body builders who built his vans build a new breakdown. Tom had very few breakdowns so it rarely was used, ran on Trade plates and was never registered.

We could never justify the costs of building one like that, and when he was bought out by P&O we got the opportunity of buying his old vans which all were in excellent condition. It was said that if a driver had no work on a day he was given a paint brush and paint to paint the wheels & front bumper bar and then proceed inside the vans cream for the sides and grey for the floor. Unfortunately his vans were not as high inside as ours and weren’t too useful to us so we only bought two.

At the entrance to his depot he had a very large bungalow with adjoining office, which P&O took over as their offices, so Tom passed away some time building a massive new bungalow. I remember him telling me that one wall was knocked down several times until he was perfectly happy the pointing was precise. (Most bricklayers I have known would have told him what to do) He had two huge kitchens one being the old kitchen from the old bungalow which was used the second just for show. Like all hauliers he got bored and bought out Stanley Removals Ltd and went on to expand it until he lost a large contract and decided again to pack in. He had by then mostly arics with boxvan trailers, but had four newish rigids and the cherry on the cake, his breakdown. We bought the rigids and the breakdown. It only had about 2,000 miles on the clock from new. Here it is once we had painted it. I do wish I had taken a photo in Tom liddle’s livery and I do wish I had photographed one of his 1950’s ERFs

IAt the time I wrote this i thought it would be unlikely I would ever see again a photo of one of Tom liddle’s ERF but thanks to Bumper on the old north east hauliers thread I have borrowed this

[carl_williams]

A few posts ago Transporterman mentioned Paynter Stadium and it brought back to me a little bit of memory that this was the company from whom we bought several new ERF B series. Also seeing the photo of Tom Liddle’s ERF pantechnicon.reminded me of these vehicles.

I think my father and I both envied ERF owners but it was not financially viable for us to use for a base for our usual pantechnicon vans.

Yet we had suffered terrible results in running tractor units to a greater degree. Some were worse than others but even Bedford which had always served us well as rigids even let us down. We didn’t carry very much weight and so 20-24 to gvw were ideal weight range, but really no one offered a good machine.

We had need for one 32 toner and bought an AEC Mandator second hand from A1 transport Leeds, but it was uneconomic with its fuel consumption at 20 ton GVW.We bought a Foden but unfortunately chose Rolls Royce Eagle engine (I will write about this later) which gave dreadful fuel consumption, and I don’t know why after the good service we received with the Guy Otter with 4 cylinder Gardiner engine we never considered trying a 32 to GVW with Gardiner.

Eventually we bought an Atkinson borderer, which seems to have been photogenic as I have another photo of it to add shortly and a GUY Big J which has appeared in a photograph on this thread. Running these at 20 ton GVW produced both wonderful fuel consumption and reliability, even though they were relatively old when we introduced them into our fleet.

We eventually bought about 4 new ERF and 3 second hand ERF with Gardiner engine. I seem to remember the last new one had a turbo charged engine. What amused me was that they always said don’t use Easystart in diesels as they get addicted and here were modern vehicles that had a sophisticated version of easystart as the cold starter.

However I have always said that strangely my memory fades from the eighties onwards but I am almost sure we never spent very much on spares for the ERFs and perhaps that’s why I had forgotten about Painter Stadium as we didn’t need to use them much, and not many invoices appeared from them.

Although the ERFs had cost a bit more in capital expenditure as opposed to 24ton GVW tractors from other manufacturers, they soon saved the extra cost in much improved fuel consumption and an immeasurable amount of money in reliability and maintenance costs.

In my next post I hope readers don’t mind if I stand on a soapbox and give my thoughts and opinions of the end of the day of the likes of ERF Foden and Atkinson and also of course Gardiner Diesel Engines.

[carl_williams]

The following I had intended over one posts but due to length I intend to split into two

Part 1 AEC Leyland Maudslay GUY Thornleycroft and Scammell.

The following are my thoughts and comments not based on any scientific evidence just my views and thoughts based on information passed to me and my experience in my years in road haulage.

AEC and Maudslay merged and in my view this was a sensible move.

Eddy Howe originally started his business running the OK Bus service between Bishop Auckland and Newcastle in 1926. He was originally taught to drive by my grandfather. Because of an exhibition in Newcastle the service was so successful that he chose to split the service with Emersons who formed OK Motor Services at Bishop Auckland.

Orriginally Howe ran Rio’s. And as he went on he discovered AEC. The basic service to and from Bishop Auckland required 3 busses. Plus 3 duplicates at times. One week Howe provided one Bus plus duplicates, whilst OK provided 2 then switched the next week.

Howe tended to run AEC where as OK ran more Leyland. I understand just before the war Howe bought a Leyland which provided dreadful results and he was pleased when it was compulsory taken from him by the army. He never again bought a Leyland. From my knowledge in 1955 he bought an AEC Service bus in 1954 RUP. It was run on the service for some reason almost every day. 7 days a week just being taken off when it needed certificate of fitness. I believe he may also have had Hodgson’s of Newcastle fit a new engine about half way through its life. When he retired in about 1967 and sold out to Emmersons they still ran this bus for several years. Over the years Howe used it; it was parked up from about quarter past eleven at night and started again about half past six on a morning. It did an incredible mileage

We bought several AEC Mercuries and again these tractors provided excellent service, reliability and running costs. When our stupid government of the day allowed Leyland to take over AEC they should have been certified, as surely through something like the Monopolies Committee they could have stopped this. When AEC were closed down by the ill managed Leyland what were we offered to replace the Mercury. The LYNX.

Guy produced good products and in my opinion was blessed with poor cabs.
With Daimler who they joined with before Leyland got their fangs in they also produced good double decker busses. We found Guy Motors good to deal with. In the interests of the UK as a manufacturing country they should have been provided either by banks or the government themselves to continue and develop their products. Joining with Leyland and fitting Leyland Engines as an alternative to Gardiner was an act of madness.

We had a Scammel breakdown with a Gardiner engine and it would pull a house down. Any manufacturer that could produce such a vehicle should have been developed and encouraged by the arm forces buying only British vehicles. I can see the logic that they should have merged with Thorneycroft and as a company should have continued producing specialised vehicles, but without Leyland engines, ownership and bad management.

[carl_williams]

The following I had intended over one posts but due to length I intend to split into two

Part 2 Foden ERF Atkinson

The following are my thoughts and comments not based on any scientific evidence just my views and thoughts based on information passed to me and my experience in my years in road haulage.

We ran 1 Foden with Rolls Royce diesel engine

1 Atkinson with 180 Gardner engine

Several ERF with Gardner Engines

Fibreglass cabs

I have heard criticism of fibreglass cabs. We had a history of running various light weight pantecnicons with Marsden and Van Plan coachwork with integral fibreglass cabs

I the case of Bedford SB,s and Seddon Peninine which had complete fibreglass which were trouble free, also several others such as Bedford TK which were based on the Chassis scuttles and in these cases the only problems were the bits of tin that was provided by the chassis manufacturers that was hidden within the fibreglass rotting.

I have over the years heard arguments that the fibreglass cab wasn’t as safe during impact in accidents. In my experience this is untrue as when we had fairly serious accidents with cab impact the cabs didn’t suffer the damage that one could expect by fibreglass disintegrating, and the drivers safety was always protected, and in any event with today’s advances with the likes of carbon fibre it would be easy to build a fibreglass cab that is much stronger than any steel cab.

However from my knowledge all steel cabs suffered from rotting and in many cases the effects of this on the strength of the cab has never been investigated, but I suspect the cab rot sets in much earlier than we can see with the human eye, so steel cabs will not always give the protection they were originally designed to offer.

Large manufacturers like Mercedes, Scania, and Volvo etc can afford the crash test their products however coachbuilders like Marsden and I suspect smaller manufacturers like ERF, Foden and Atkinson also had limited funds.
Had they had the opportunity I think the tests would have turned out favourable.

One thing is that you never would see a rusting fibreglass cab. Personally I don’t think Foden was as nice looking or as well finished as Atkinson or ERF but if grants had been made available to these manufacturers I am sure their products could have been made even better

Mergers and takeovers.

We operated several Seddon vehicles and I have said in previous threads that although they were more expensive than Bedfords they were not that much better.

In my opinion they could not compare with Atkinson. I have heard rumours that Leyland through shares they owned were able to influence the merger between Seddon and Atkinson and I wouldn’t be surprised because it seems to me that Leyland Motors have done more than any other organisation to destroy the British commercial vehicle manufacturing industry.

I think that Atkinson should have been encouraged by grants etc to stay as an individual company. The three companies should have been encouraged with government financial injections to remain independent and competitive.

I believe that they should have also been encouraged to get together in a company that was jointly owned and funded by the government for research and development. None of the three companies were large enough to spend in this area anything like the investment to compete with the foreign manufacturers. They needed help and encouragement. But common sense tells us that they started from a better position making superior products to the European competition.

It’s easy to say that due to common market laws the government wasn’t allowed to give financial grants. That is rubbish as all European countries apart from UK manage to find their way round this and any grants given would have been refunded over and over if we had emerged with a strong vehicle building industry. What would have happened if a British Company had wanted to take over Daimler Benz commercial vehicle manufacturing?

Emission and Engine Building:

We had probably with Gardner the finest diesel engine manufacturer this world will ever see.

I personally don’t believe in Global warming and think it is evolution of the planet that will happen whatever we do but again applying common sense what is the most economic diesel engine giving the best MPG ever produced?
If the Gardner Engines were not wasting fuel they must have been half way there with emissions. Once again they were a small company and needed financial help to develop their products. I’m sure over the years like everyone else they had been taxed excessively to pay for the follies of British Leyland Motor Corporation. When payback time came and they needed help to modernise and further improve their engine design where was our government?

Economic Consequences:

I trained as a mathematician not an economist but when I hear of what happened to the factories never mind the jobs it makes me feel disgust.

About 5 years ago my I had to go near Sandbach in Cheshire and my dad went out for a ride with me. It was his last journey outside of county Durham and one of the last few car journeys he made. We enjoyed the day and I am very pleased I took him. We had lunch in a pub on the outskirts of Sandbach and because of his age he was cold and started to shake. Seeing this landlord came over and poked the coal fire and put on a bit extra coal. I asked him where was ERF’s factory. ‘Oh that’s been knocked down and they have built a Lidel shop on the site, together with car park’

I read on one of the threads on this site that Foden has been demolished and housing is being built on the site.

I don’t know what has happened over at Preston but no doubt something equally daft.

When will politicians learn that we need manufacturing jobs ideally exporting where possible but if that is not possible fuelling the British Market and not taking our money out of our country to pay for German or Swedish wealth?

The money that will be paid out over the next years to pay for unemployment and other benefits that are necessary because of the wilful destruction of our commercial vehicle industry would never have been needed had our government invested a small amount into our commercial Vehicle Industry.

They soon found the money for the banks, who in my opinion would have soon pulled themselves together and been self sufficient had Northern Rock been left to go down. That shock would have proved an immediate remedy.

Fair enough all was lost at Leyland. Let them rot in hell but the rest should have been saved.

In the next few days I will give my opinion on Bedford.

[carl_williams]

Being involved in road haulage means you never can have a normal life.

In 1961 I passed the common entrance examination and was accepted as a pupil of Durham School, Caffinates house. My father and mother were with me invited along to meet my housemaster Norman Mcleod. Just before the end of the Summer Term ready for me to start in the autumn.

To normal families this is a simple meeting where you meet the housemaster who shows you round the house, in this case Caffinates,so the new pupil has some idea of the way round and who some of the staff are before starting and off you go.

Not in my case the naval section of the schools combined cadet force owned a boat, a whaler, which had broken loose and drifted down the river wear and it needed to be brought back by road upstream back to Durham (It would not float back over the waterfalls) So instead of seeing round the house off we went with Norman Mcleod to see where the boat had drifted to and had been pulled onto the riverbank for safety.

Although Durham School was well known for its rowing team with the long slender eights or fours as you see on the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, the whaler was a large wide boat about 40 odd foot long. To make matters better the place where the boat was difficult to access even in a car, basically only accessible by what were footpaths through fields and along the riverbank a the River Wear weaves its way towards Sunderland.

Being keen to impress my new school my father readily agreed to sort it out for them. That Saturday morning was the ideal time for Norman Mcleod as he would be able to get a bunch of six formers together with himself to assist in loading what was a heavy boat onto a furniture van and then unloading again at the school boathouse upstream at Durham.

Dad chose the old Bedford SB HTH for the job as it was due a repaint and felt the hedges etc the van had to weave through on the fields at the side of the river Wear would make the repainting even more urgent. The driver he chose was Harry Smith who for many years had been a porter and who had just recently started driving. Harry however was very resourceful and although a little rough and ready would never let anything get the better of him.

The problem was that HTH was 27ft 6 in long the maximum legal length when it was built in 1953 and this only gave 21 foot body length apart from the extra 6ft 6in of luton space which was of no value accommodating this boat.

It took Harry the best part of the Saturday and some visitors to Durham told us of their amazement of seeing one of our vans negotiating its way through the Market Place and round the police box with this massive boat sticking out of the back with less than half in the van.

HTH882 was repainted with a brown cab and cream bumper and the corner pillers were cream instead of brown in the attached photo, making it look similar to the bedford Marsden SB diesels we were putting on the road in the sixties.

[carl_williams]

The other day Bubbleman entered a photo of an old Scammell pulling a tanker trailer behind it crawling along the road with a long row of vehicles behind it and it brought back memories of a Scammell recovery vehicle we had in the mid seventies.

On top gear Jeremy Clarkson often said that you have never driven a car until you drive an Alpha Romeo, with the excitement of driving intensified by the uncertainty of whether or not you will break down. In my opinion you have never driven a goods vehicle until you have driven a normal control Scammell with their gate gearbox. Certainly the excitement of driving such a presence on the road and the need to really drive in a technical sense in my case took away what would have been pure boredom in another machine progressing along the road at such a slow pace.

I do not profess in any way being a professional driver and have the greatest admiration for those who do, but I’m sure all that have experienced the time doing so would certainly agree that it certainly sorts out the men from the boys. And I wonder how many of the present day Scania enthusiasts who think these vehicles are the be all of the vehicle world could manage to drive a Scammell. But words cannot express the pity of someone who had to drive one every day for a living.

We had a Bedford RL ex army truck that was in incredibly good condition that our fitter ■■■■ Porter altered the body and fitted a Harvey Frost Crane and made into a feasible breakdown truck .Initially road holding was bad and so we converted the wheels to take normal road tyres and made the rear twin wheels instead of the one large tyre on either side, managing to retain the four wheel drive… It made a good vehicle of but it was petrol with poor fuel consumption, and all our breakdowns usually occurred a long way from home. As I said that RL was in good condition and painted in our livery made a smart vehicle (Later we bought another RL which was just painted in our colours but left as an army type vehicle to use on site towing vehicles out when stuck in snow)

It was thought we needed a more heavy duty vehicle and when dad saw a Scammell recovery vehicle advertised at Southampton he thought that might be an answer. Although never being registered it was pre war and we thought about 1936. It was bought new and constructed by Pickfords as a breakdown for their Scammells used in their Heavy Haulage Section. With a Gardner diesel engine it was chain driven and strangely just a four wheeler that suited us as at that time most of our drivers were class 3 HGV and so it gave us the flexibility that any driver could drive it, where as this would not have been the case had it been a six wheeler.

Dad went down by train to Southampton to see it together with photos of our RL. A demonstration was arranged where it pulled a heavy boulder up a cliff edge using the winch and a deal was done taking our RL in part exchange.
Ken Armstrong, one of or fitters left with the RL to go down and leave the RL and bring back the Scammell… The next morning he rang me telling me he had done the changeover and was on his way back but was almost in tears saying it would only do 9 mph and at that rate he would never see his family again for a long time.

I arranged I would drive my car down to Watford Gap and he could go home in my car and I would bring back the scammell. Fortunately at MOTEC in Shropshire I had been given a brief instruction of how to drive one a year or so earlier.

I must have achieved a little more that 9 mph or I would not have got back that evening but it certainly didn’t reach much over 14 mph. When my dad finished work that evening he and my mother decided to drive down the A1 to see how I was progressing, and the memory seeing me still lives with my mother today. They met me where there was a contra flow and from a long way off they could see the Scammell towering above all other traffic and slowly coming towards them with a long line of traffic stuck behind.(Somewhat similar to Bubbleman’s photo)

It was parked up when we got home. Dad phoned Scammell up at Watford and they had records of the vehicle of when it was originally built and they said it would be impossible to get any extra speed out of it.

Looking at it to repair and paint required very little. The cab was so simple. It had two small wings over the front wheels which could have simply been made out of aluminium and the doors if stripped and resheeted In new aluminium ,and perhaps two new side covers for the engine was all that was needed The bodywork apart from the cab was perfect and it had done few miles from new. (Pickfords mustn’t have had too many breakdowns)

However before we got round to doing anything Colin Noble the well known north east showman heard we had it and came along and made us a good offer that showed us a little profit and we sold it to him.

He collected it from us and the next week was the Hoppings fair on the Town Moor at Newcastle and it had been a complete washout, raining every day, and Colin, he later told us, made more than what he paid for the Scammell on charging for pulling out other showmen stuck on the muddy Town Moor.

[tyneside]

Hi Carl
Interesting reading about the Scammel. When I started work at BRS TVTE in 1970 a 6 wheel DiamondT wrecker had just been acquired. Not sure where it had come from but it had a properly built body with storage boxes etc and full hydraulic boom etc which I think was TFL ■■? The whole thing looked really smart in BRS red and I wish I had taken a photo of it.
I was too young to drive it on the road but shunted it around the yard a couple of times.
I accompanied a fitter on breakdowns several times and I think the top speed was about 25 mph. Not sure about the exact spec but I believe it had a Hecules engine ■■? I know it would pull a large building down if asked !!!

[carl_williams]

tyneside:
Hi Carl
Interesting reading about the Scammel. When I started work at BRS TVTE in 1970 a 6 wheel DiamondT wrecker had just been acquired. Not sure where it had come from but it had a properly built body with storage boxes etc and full hydraulic boom etc which I think was TFL ■■? The whole thing looked really smart in BRS red and I wish I had taken a photo of it.
I was too young to drive it on the road but shunted it around the yard a couple of times.
I accompanied a fitter on breakdowns several times and I think the top speed was about 25 mph. Not sure about the exact spec but I believe it had a Hecules engine ■■? I know it would pull a large building down if asked !!!

Hi Tyneside

Pity we couldn’t have had a race to see which was the slowest

Best wishes

Carl

[carl_williams]

Perhaps someone can explain something to me I never understood.

We had rotting problems with Bedford TK cabs. In fairness to Vauxhall motors Ltd this was I suspect after the vehicles had served a good working life and probably after the designed life of the vehicles had expired.

When I collected wings and cab parts from Adams & Gibbon they flopped around all over and were far from strong. I suspect the steel or tin used was at the minimum specification, in order to maintain the relatively cheap price of the Bedford Vehicles.

Then we look at Leyland Groups Ergomatic cabs, which seemed to suffer from premature rotting. In this case the wings and cab parts were clearly strong and quite heavy as compared to the Bedford parts. Once again this was reflected in the greater price for the products. Yet they rotted and deteriated so much quicker.

I would have expected the heavier, stronger, more expensive parts to have lasted so much longer. I wonder why they didn’t?

[carl_williams]

In the seventies one of our mechanics was Stan Harper from Bishop Auckland. He was a hard worker and bought the occasional car from car auctions and spent his spare time in repairing and selling them.He was very popular amongst the female office staff, who admired his looks. Through hard work he managed to buy a vehicle workshop in Willington near Crook and left us to start his own business. Over a short period of time he obtained an adjacent car showroom, and seemed to have a good future ahead of him, when he obtained the Austin-Morris franchise. British Leyland and its inherent troubles then destroyed his business.

[carl_williams]

In 1925 my grandfather started carrying cattle. He claimed to be the first in the area. In any event he was one of the first and a pioneer.

The marts he covered were The Gaunless at Bishop Auckland, Darlington on a Monday and Sedgefield on a Tuesday. I also believe he did Barnard Castle and Newcastle occasionally.

From what I can understand the platform bodies were fitted with removable drop sides a little higher than you normally would experience with a chock rail on the top with slots that would allow the sides to fit into and .it was possible, I was told, to break them down back to a platform in twenty minutes. There was no roof on just metal bars across the top and of course the rear was ramps like an ordinary cattle truck.

The day was extremely long starting about 5-00am picking up the cattle from the farmers and getting it to mart before there was a close off point when a ballot took place to set the order the livestock were sold. There could be advantages to sell first as time went on and the butchers bought their allocation there were less bidders, and so it was best for a farmer to get his sold first.

After delivery to the mart, the wagons went back to Spennymoor and broken down into platforms and washed out they went on to do their normal days work, returning to the marts about three o’clock on the afternoon to start the second part of delivering the cattle purchased to the butchers. The day for a drive often finished as late as 10PM.

My grandfather, so I was told used to travel to the mart on a morning, by car and meet the drivers as they arrived at the mart and to oversee the unloading of the livestock and see it was ready for the ballot, and then attend the auction seeing what was bought by each of the butchers and marking the livestock accordingly so he knew what belonged to who, and then seeing the wagons loaded on their return for delivery to the butchers

The carriage of cattle went on right up to and including the first part of the war and over the time my grandfather had built a good reputation for reliability and standard of service and had built up any incredible amount of customers from both farmers and butchers.