hiya,
What a thread Carl very interesting, I certainly enjoy my daily fix of “Williams” keep up the good work.
thanks harry long retired.
harry_gill:
hiya,
What a thread Carl very interesting, I certainly enjoy my daily fix of “Williams” keep up the good work.
thanks harry long retired.
Hi Harry
Thank you for comenting. I try to vary the subjects to try to keep it interesting and was beginning to think I was getting too heavy and loosing reders interest
Best wishes
Carl
Hi carl harry is right, every day i look out for your daily page great reading so much info into the workings of your company,always seen your waggons never knew what they carried till now .thank you
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 you mention the Ergomatic cabs suffer from premature rotting I dont think we had a big problem other than a little bit around the grills, the model before them was more of a problem with the LAD cabs, the bottom of the cabs used to rot and the wings fell off, not so bad with the Comets with the small wings but the Albion style such Beavers Badgers Octopus Retrievers etc were prone especially tippers where the drivers used to get out of the cabs and stand on the wings to look in to the bodies.
The following I had intended over one posts but due to length I intend to split into four
Part 3 Bedford
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.
I must admit I have a soft spot for Bedfords. I have heard people say that compared to Atkinson, ERF, Guy, Leyland, AEC and Foden they are not a proper motor, but over the years they made us a lot of money as they did with many other haulage contractors. Sure enough from time to time they let people down and some models didn’t live up to expectation. Probably our worst experience was the 220 cu in diesel engine and although we never had one I have heard the KM was not too hot. Certainly we ran a few TM tractor units and although we had worse experiences with some manufacturers, we did expect a lot better
In 1929 my grandfather bought his first Chev truck. Until that time he had used only Ford and Morris Commercial. I never heard him criticise the Ford’s he operated, and I suspect as there was nothing much to go wrong with them nothing much did. When I was about ten I met a French Man who was in his seventies and who spoke exactly like Maurice Chevalier. He had a shop come vehicle workshop along King Street Spennymoor and he had done all the repairs for my grandfather on his Fords and when I met him, when he visited us he and grandfather spent hours reminiscing about the old model Ts and both claimed they were marvellous machines.
Grandfather had told me of the terrible troubles he had suffered with the various Morris commercials he had operated and when the first new Chev arrived everyone was amazed at what a good vehicle it was. Certainly smarter and better looking than what he had run before, it was better to drive and the engine was oh so smoother.
It was to set the benchmark and with the exception of the Morris pantechnicon that was taken over by the army .at the start of the war, Bedford made up the small fleet. In fact until 1956 when dad bought a Thames 4D luton van the everything for nearly 20 years had been Bedford/chev.
Really looking back I cannot praise them enough and in the 7.5 to to 12.5 ton Gross vehicle range I think they were unsurpassable.
Certainly the CF never took on the Transit. We had three diesel Transits with luton bodies by Marsden.At that time they had Perkins diesel engines and although they at that time were underpowered because of the wind resistance the large van body caused they were good machines… We had one similar CF and it had lots of troubles with broken wishbones etc. and not half the van.
Similarly I read people praising the D Series against the TK, and I can only speak from our experience and I would rate the Ford as only 75% as good as the Bedford.
What went wrong and why end manufacture: I have heard several theories but in my next article I will give my opinion. And hope to receive comments from others with their thoughts
Carl I agree with your comments about the Transit and the CF’s. The Transit with the Perkins I think it was 4-108 was a great truck as you say it was under powered, Ford brought out there own York engine which went better but was a disaster the engines were very unreliable we then moved onto the Merc 306 front wheel drive 3.5 tonner, they went better than they looked and were very reliable but not a good driver truck. You are right about the CF which was useless all round
What went wrong with Bedford?
Why did they stop production?
I have heard many explanations and from what I read in ‘The Commercial Motor’ during the times when the various negotiations were happening I give you my thoughts.
Bedford wanted to buy out Leyland Trucks and it would appear a deal had been struck with a government minister under the Thatcher Government unofficially and to be finalised. The condition was that Land Rover was part of the deal. British Leyland car side apart from Land Rover was not.
According to what I read it was virtually agreed and at the last minute broke down.
The claim was that Bedford wanted Leyland to establish a heavier truck making facility. They had introduced the TM but it was not the success they had hoped for.
They also felt that they could develop Land Rover and increase its success.
When I read that Leyland had their grubby hands in the mixture over the joining of Atkinson and Seddon which they preferred to Atkinson ERF link I can imagine that they wouldn’t like Bedford coming in and interfering with their cosy set up. When we see what happened to Leyland anything would have been an improvement…
As with land Rover being taken over by BMW then Ford, it has come to something that the fairness and good business comes thanks to Tata of India.
I wonder if BMW would have had the Z5 without the help of Land Rover technology and then both Ford and Volvo (owned by ford) somehow managed to get the 4 wheel drive technology.
Bedford had produced 4 wheel drive for the British Army for years, and good machines at that Land Rover would have fitted comfortably with that division of Bedford. Certainly they didn’t want Land Rover for the technology.
When the deal was rejected by the government GM closed Bedford down, it was done suddenly without much warning and no one could believe it would happen.
The other excuse I’ve heard was that with the weight changes that allowed heavier vehicles it was thought the demand for Bedfords traditional market would not be there anymore as operators bought heavier vehicles.
Certainly today there are far too many Transit size vans on the road. In the original days of the ‘A licence’ the justifiable reason was it controlled the number of vehicles on the road and I think the Operators Licence is better, but I do think it is wrong that a driver can pass their car test on a Corsa and then jump into a Transit and drive away without the skill or the experience of driving a larger vehicle. Everyone tells me they are a nuisance on the road and a special test and driving licence for these vehicles would have kept them under control and cut congestion as many transit users would have used traditional hauliers to deliver in larger (Bedford Size) vehicles.
However Bedford was UKs largest (by volume) commercial vehicle manufacturers, and if they had continued producing their core market I’m sure we would still see them selling in high volumes.
It was also said the TL had not been a good replacement for the TK but it is known that they were well advanced in design for a TK/TL replacement.
In 1987 went for a holiday to Portugal and in a square in the middle of a town I saw a new chassis cab about 12 ton gross parked, and on the front was the name Bedford. To me it looked very smart and completely original and modern. I began to think I had dreamt it but could this have been the New Bedford that never happened?
Unfortunately we lost Bedford as a vehicle producer. Earlier in this thread I listed over 200 vehicles we had bought between 1961 and 1986 and I do know if everyone of these had been a Bedford instead of the assortment of manufacturers we used we would have been a lot better off.
Interesting story of the Bedford Carl.
I agree that a Bedford link up with Leyland / Land Rover would have been a good deal for the British manufacturing industry and the armed forces. I can see a Scammell Tank Transporter in the mix along with the DROPS system on a TK replacement.
Bedford became AWD for a while who were quite successful with the Multidrive system, again a good addition for the British army.
I cut my teeth on a TK Bedford and much preferred it over its replacement TL and obviously so did my company, United Carriers who dropped the Bedford like hot cakes and bought Leyland Roadrunners and Freighters for C&D along with replacing Bedford KM with DAF for the Drawbar Fleet. UCL were totally geared up for the Bedford and had different depots specialising in different areas of expertise. Each Workshop would rebuild something. We did engines, someone did gearboxes, another depot did cabs, trailers, axles, and so on. If a depot in Devon needed an engine, one was sent down on the overnight trunk and it could be up and running by lunchtime, they were that simple, the old removed engine was sent back to our workshops and it was completely rebuilt for stock.
Sorry to derail your thread and hope you can get it back on track, like others have said, we all saw your company vehicles around, but not many knew what you did. A great memory for me, and I hope you are enjoying recounting and recording it.
Well regarding the rust problems with wagons, all the vehicles I ran with steel cabs, were rust prone ,regardless of the best quality paint that we allways used, in my oppinion was caused by water traps that the cab designers ,overlooked, I drilled holes in various places & sprayed waxoil in to try & combat the problem, even on the brand new ones. Regards Larry
February 15th
15/2/1952
May Thompson — Low Spennymoor
Every Friday Ellen Kipling had dinner with her friend May Thompson. On Friday, February 15th, 1952, Ellen knocked on May’s door in William Street, Low Spennymoor, Co. Durham, and went in. May was lying in the kitchen. She had been stabbed 36 times, and bruising on her face suggested she had fought with her killer.
Her pay packet was untouched on the mantelpiece and no attempt had been made to ■■■■ her.
May, 18, a factory worker, wore thick glasses, spent her evenings knitting, had no boy friends and was described as “not pretty.” A Sunday newspaper claimed that she must have had a secret life and invited readers to send in their ideas. Despite a first prize of £10 and three runner-up prizes of a fiver each, the killer was never identified.
I was 4 years old and the police had decided to do a door to door enquiry interviewing every male in the Spennymoor area.
They came, one evening to our house and only me and my mother were in as dad was still at work. Mam rang Marmaduke Street to ask when dad would be home as the police would like to interview him.
As she was on the phone the police were talking to me, a four year old. ‘Is there a bike in the house?’ Yes I had said’ and when my mam came off the phone, she told them dad was on the way home and had information to tell them… While they waited perhaps thinking dad was going to confess, they asked to see the bike. It was my ‘fairy cycle’ not the type of bike they had hoped for.
When dad arrived in the house they interviewed him and he told them he had been passed the house with Bedford SB pantechnicon NUP at the time of the murder.
The house was on the corner of William Street and a street light was on the corner. They asked dad was the street light on and he told them it was not. Going on they asked was there a bike leaning against the wall of the gable end, and dad said there was not. ‘How do you know?’ they asked, and dad went on to tell them that NUP was a very large van (Maximum size for its time) and if there had been a bike he would have had to get out and move it.
Dad explained he was making a delivery of furniture to a house in William Street for Hardy & Co one of our customers for many years and he was unable to deliver till 7.00pm or afterwards as the homeowner was not in from work to that time. Dad couldn’t understand that during the police enquiries no one who lived on the street,(One of the poorest areas of Spennymoor) could remember seeing him with this large van. Usually people would have heard the van going down the street and would have watched out of the curtains to see what was being delivered. Not many in those days in Low Spennymoor would have been able to afford new furniture, relying on second hand.
A few weeks later one of the police called at Marmauke Street to thank dad as his information had reduced the time during which the murder could have happened to 30 minutes. Also when they went back and re questioned neighbours they confirmed seeing the large furniture van making its delivery
Some time later a chap called to book a removal for his daughter and her new husband. Housing in the early fifties was in short supply and the only house available was the murder house. There were a number of bloodstains on the wall and the police would not let him decorate over them. He said that he and his daughter’s new husband had had a difficult job to persuade his daughter to move into the house, and at that stage all the stains had been covered except one large one which the police had demanded was left.
Dad was moving the furniture into the house when a detective called and dad heard an eruption of shouting. The new tenants’ father had papered the wall and covered all the bloodstains and the police officer was demanding the paper was stripped exposing this one stain. He had told them to leave now as they had sufficient time to take any samples and photographs and he could guarantee if he, his daughter or son in law ever heard, or saw anyone suspicious the police would be the first to know.
The murder was never solved.
A few years later I went with my Grandparents to St Albans, and we stayed at the Peahen Hotel in the town centre. My grandmother’s sister and husband, her twin brother and one or two cousins lived there and one evening we were sitting in my great aunt’s house when the subject of this crime came up. I suppose as most present had originated from Spennymoor they liked to hear of what had gone on back home.
My grandfather gave his opinion, which certainly had credibility.
The young girl’s father had been the main suspect, but had an alibi. It was said who ever did the murder would have been covered in blood as she had been stabbed 37 times. The father was seen in a local public house, very near the murder scheme within minutes of the murder. It was possible that he could have got there if he had been the murderer but he could not have got changed and cleaned up in the time. There was never any blood stained clothes found. As well as her factory job she was also a receptionist at our local doctor’s surgery. Dr Brauer.and she had left there at 6-00PM.
My grandfather’s opinion was that her father had run a bath of water and was waiting for her to arrive home and was naked. After stabbing his daughter he would jump in the bath and quickly dry, dress and go to the pub for his alibi. The father was always the prime suspect and it was thought he was going to admit the crime on his death bed but he did not.
Researching the murder details this week I discovered that NUP was registered 1 Jan 1952 not 53 as I had thought.
A Sunday newspaper claimed that she must have had a secret life and invited readers to send in their ideas. Despite a first prize of £10 and three runner-up prizes of a fiver each, the killer was never identified.
And I thought media intrusion was new 
blackbox:
Hi carl harry is right, every day i look out for your daily page great reading so much info into the workings of your company,always seen your waggons never knew what they carried till now .thank you
Hi blackbox
Thank you so much for your comments. Sometimes it takes it out of me to put my thoughts into words and I think, why bother.
Comments like yours makes it all worth while.
thank you so much
Carl
.
transporter man:
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 you mention the Ergomatic cabs suffer from premature rotting I dont think we had a big problem other than a little bit around the grills, the model before them was more of a problem with the LAD cabs, the bottom of the cabs used to rot and the wings fell off, not so bad with the Comets with the small wings but the Albion style such Beavers Badgers Octopus Retrievers etc were prone especially tippers where the drivers used to get out of the cabs and stand on the wings to look in to the bodies.
Hi Transporter man
We must have been unlucky with the Leyland cabs but we did have rust. We inherited 2 AEC Mercury 16 ton boxvans when we took over ATM’s transport Crook. ATM had operated a replacement policy that got rid of vehicles at 5 years old and depreciated flat line over 5 years. Part of the contract for us doing their transport was we bought their 9 vehicles at book value, so they suffered no paper loss. The one AEC was just reaching four years old so we got it for nothing, but it had a very low box body making it almost useless.
Thinking back in recent weeks I could never understand why we didn’t fit a new large body on it. I realised it was 16 ton gvw and heavier than we would need but still it was a very good lorry, and in excellent condition. You have reminded me why. The cab on the front, round the grill had serious rust problems and it was felt we couldn’t get it up to standard and look good enough to warrant a new body, whereas a Bedford a few months younger was
Given a new body and re painted and looked almost like new.
Like you say with the CF where do you start? The monoleaf springs frightened us although told they would not break one did. We found strangely the BMC-Leyland 350 FG was a much better option than the CF or the transit. Although the cab with its threepenny bit look wasn’t the best looking we never got any rust at all and like Barratt Atkin had promised the cab doors would open and close forever. Inside the cab was basic to say the least but even the clumsiest of drivers could do no harm. They had a normal commercial chassis wit conventional springs and the only problem at 3.5 tons gvw when we subtracted the unladen weight with large Marsden Fibreglass bodies we could only carry 1 ton at the most.
Wheel Nut:
Interesting story of the Bedford Carl.I agree that a Bedford link up with Leyland / Land Rover would have been a good deal for the British manufacturing industry and the armed forces. I can see a Scammell Tank Transporter in the mix along with the DROPS system on a TK replacement.
Bedford became AWD for a while who were quite successful with the Multidrive system, again a good addition for the British army.
I cut my teeth on a TK Bedford and much preferred it over its replacement TL and obviously so did my company, United Carriers who dropped the Bedford like hot cakes and bought Leyland Roadrunners and Freighters for C&D along with replacing Bedford KM with DAF for the Drawbar Fleet. UCL were totally geared up for the Bedford and had different depots specialising in different areas of expertise. Each Workshop would rebuild something. We did engines, someone did gearboxes, another depot did cabs, trailers, axles, and so on. If a depot in Devon needed an engine, one was sent down on the overnight trunk and it could be up and running by lunchtime, they were that simple, the old removed engine was sent back to our workshops and it was completely rebuilt for stock.
Sorry to derail your thread and hope you can get it back on track, like others have said, we all saw your company vehicles around, but not many knew what you did. A great memory for me, and I hope you are enjoying recounting and recording it.
Hi Whee Nlut
We set up another company Coachskill Ltd to do our bodywork and encourage outside work and we d painted about twenty TK boxvans that needed repainting for United Carriers at the Dragoville depot in Durham.
ALL INFORMATION LIKE YOURS MAKES THE THREAD MORE INTERESTING SO THANKS FOR CONTRIBUTING
Best wishes
Carl
Lawrence Dunbar:
Well regarding the rust problems with wagons, all the vehicles I ran with steel cabs, were rust prone ,regardless of the best quality paint that we allways used, in my oppinion was caused by water traps that the cab designers ,overlooked, I drilled holes in various places & sprayed waxoil in to try & combat the problem, even on the brand new ones. Regards Larry
Hi Larry,
Good advice. The only problem is by the time you realise the need to
its too late.
We were lucky that on the integrals we had fibreglass cabs and no rust problems
and that why we took it so badly when we did.
I often wonder when I hear peopl question fibreglass cabs
Best wishes
Carl
I am very pleased to say that Linda Turnbull (now Davison) has been in touch with many memories of working for W.H.Williams. I will develop on many of these over the coming weeks. Linda is also kindly sending some photographs she has and these are mostly staff photos and she says the fashions they wore are now becoming popular again.
The first photo she has sent me is of her sitting at the Burroughs Accounting machine (Before computers) This was replaced in the early 80’s by our first computer system. I remember the software was written for us by a company called Systems 800 who also had provided Newsastle Airport at that time. This was long before Windows and excel etc and the software cost £18,000 a lot of money in 1982
We always did our own body repairs and it often caused arguments with insurance companies when they were looking for a third party invoice for repair work. We therefore formed Coachskill ltd as a company to do the body building and painting function.
It was based at our green Lane Premises and shared all office functions and telephone; however had a separate designated number. Eddy Thornton who I will explain about later with his experience was able to calculate all costs of repairs that insurers would be happy to approve. For ourselves we built quite a few boxvan bodies, some directly onto chassis and some demountable, we also built quite a lot of 40ft van trailers. Of course all painting was carried out by Coachskill for ourselves.
We tried to promote the company for non W.H.Williams work and were successful in doing this to a degree.
As well as insurance repairs for other operators we built several 40 foot trailers for Direct Transport at Shildon and painting for companies like United Carriers, Thorn EMI and Black and Decker. As we heard from a contributor on this site we also offered to repaint our old vehicles when selling them into the livery of the new owner.
One of the most unusual jobs we did was to paint a fire tender for Black and Decker.We had already painted all their fleet of rigids, tractor units and trailers and they must have been happy… Like so many companies that operated on large sites insurers had demanded that Black and Decker had their own fire tender. In most cases you see these parked up on the sites as red fire engines just as they had been purchased from the fire authorities, Not so for Black and Decker, they had purchased a ex fire engine but they wanted it painted in white and orange and sign written with their logo and identity.
A fire engine is not one of the easiest of vehicles to paint especially as red is ‘A bleeding Colour’ and so it first had to be painted blue to obliterate the red before various coats of white. To me when finished it looked daft but the customer is always right.
Another different photo of our Atkinson Borderer. This time with a hired curtainside trailer.
Why people chose to photo that when we had some new shiny ERF I don’t know. It’s dirty and the front bumper is rusty. In fairness it was only bought as a short stop gap and the preparation to painting the bumper must have been short changed. Never the less its working hard.
However when it arrived at Spennymoor Colin Watson who had worked for us over 20 years took to it preferring it to tractors 6 years younger.
I don’t know where it was taken and if anyone has any ideas I’d like to know.
I suspect it is probably at the premises of a furniture manufacturer that makes flat pack furniture. The mail order companies contracted us to go to several of these where we picked up full loads to take back to Spennymoor to be unloaded by forklift and then split up and labelled with ultimate customers address and then sent to our depots for final delivery to the customer’s home.
It was a longish process bringing them back to Spennymoor then in some cases sending them back south again but for security control it was the only system we had at that time. However on one 40 foot trailer load there would be several hundred deliveries to every part of uk
Obviously the popularity the Atkinson must have influenced the photographer in his choice of subject
Carl Williams:
I am very pleased to say that Linda Turnbull (now Davison) has been in touch with many memories of working for W.H.Williams. I will develop on many of these over the coming weeks. Linda is also kindly sending some photographs she has and these are mostly staff photos and she says the fashions they wore are now becoming popular again.The first photo she has sent me is of her sitting at the Burroughs Accounting machine (Before computers) This was replaced in the early 80’s by our first computer system. I remember the software was written for us by a company called Systems 800 who also had provided Newsastle Airport at that time. This was long before Windows and excel etc and the software cost £18,000 a lot of money in 1982
Looking through the note that linda sent me I had forgotten that this photo was taken and was published in a magazine, unfortunatly Linda has mislaid her copy, but she says the machine was very inovative for its time, but was very difficult to use with everything having to be stored on punch cards. I wonder how many young girls of today who are the age Linda was would be able to use it…
When you think about it the same can be said of todays lorry drivers,.Give them an old Scammel with the gate gearbox many would reach for their depression tablets…
Carl Williams:
Carl Williams:
I am very pleased to say that Linda Turnbull (now Davison) has been in touch with many memories of working for W.H.Williams. I will develop on many of these over the coming weeks. Linda is also kindly sending some photographs she has and these are mostly staff photos and she says the fashions they wore are now becoming popular again.The first photo she has sent me is of her sitting at the Burroughs Accounting machine (Before computers) This was replaced in the early 80’s by our first computer system. I remember the software was written for us by a company called Systems 800 who also had provided Newsastle Airport at that time. This was long before Windows and excel etc and the software cost £18,000 a lot of money in 1982
Looking through the note that linda sent me I had forgotten that this photo was taken and was published in a magazine, unfortunatly Linda has mislaid her copy, but she says the machine was very inovative for its time, but was very difficult to use with everything having to be stored on punch cards. I wonder how many young girls of today who are the age Linda was would be able to use it…
When you think about it the same can be said of todays lorry drivers,.Give them an old Scammel with the gate gearbox many would reach for their depression tablets…
hiya,
Carl don’t think I’d ever master the Burrough’s even with loads of instruction from the pretty young lady, but the Scammell with the gate change I would be able to make talk, I did use to modify them a bit, I always removed the gate it did make gear changing quicker when you got the knack of it but had had to refit same when motor in the yard just in case someone else needed to move it, the conversion only took a few moments the studs that held the gate in place only being finger tight I’ll dare bet that there aren’t many drivers on here could get out of first gear gate or no gate.
thanks harry long retired.