The fire at the Rovers Return on Coronation Street took my memory back to an event that happened in the early seventies
During the 60’s we had bought the Excelsior Hotel at Middlestone Moor near Spennymoor from Cameron Breweries to use as a warehouse. It was a very large building and we filled it with about 40 household removals.
In the early seventies we were contacted by the fire brigade that a fire had broken out in one of the smaller ground floor rooms.If my memory serves me correctly some youths had broken into the building and had been smoking. I went straight up to Middlestone Moor and met the fire officers dealing with the fire to be told it was under control, but they needed to move some of the furniture within the building to ensure there was a significant gap to ensure nothing else occurred whilst it cooled down, and they wanted someone to go in with them to see what they were doing as it would hep us to ensure nothing got muddled between the various removals.
Muggins donned a yellow hat and went into the building. I don’t know if anyone reading this ever went into a building that had been on fire but I can testify it is a very unpleasant experience. The heat and fumes were considerable and that was after it had been put out.
There are very few civil servants or council workers I ever can respect as I think in the majority of cases they don’t know what work is and still after the cuts get paid far too much money for the little work they do, but after that experience I think fire workers deserve every penny they get.
Another interesting line up of 22 vans.
Two Mercedes Benz are poking their noses out and illustrate changing times.
Just four years before this photo was taken we still had a 100% British fleet of vehicles. When the photo was taken we were operating nine Mercedes Benz, two Magirus Deutz and one Daf and had we carried on, by today we would have most probably have by now have had no British vehicles in the fleet.
It just illustrates what bad years the British industries suffered during the seventies.
It is only now, that following the final demise of the company that was calling itself Rover we have once again a car industry to be proud of, based on quality, with the names of Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, Bentley and Rolls Royce surviving as beacons of our once great country.
Isn’t it sad that all this didn’t change before the loss of our once great commercial vehicle manufacturers?
A rather poor photo of two of our vans, back to back transhipping
Carl Williams:
Another interesting line up of 22 vans.
Two Mercedes Benz are poking their noses out and illustrate changing times.
Just four years before this photo was taken we still had a 100% British fleet of vehicles. When the photo was taken we were operating nine Mercedes Benz, two Magirus Deutz and one Daf and had we carried on, by today we would have most probably have by now have had no British vehicles in the fleet.
It just illustrates what bad years the British industries suffered during the seventies.
It is only now, that following the final demise of the company that was calling itself Rover we have once again a car industry to be proud of, based on quality, with the names of Jaguar, Land Rover, Mini, Bentley and Rolls Royce surviving as beacons of our once great country.
Isn’t it sad that all this didn’t change before the loss of our once great commercial vehicle manufacturers?
If you look at te photo starting with the first Mercedes, the eighth van up is OVR561R in the Barratt’s housebuilders colours complete with oak tree, as seen below as I suspect it still is. For anyone who remembers it is the VanPlan pantechnicon that after an accident and amputation of its ntegral cab had a standard TK cab implanted making it into a boxvan.
One of the things dad often talked about was our cattle carrying days. I surpose it was because of so many strange, unusual tales to tell.
i can just vaguely remember our last cattle truck, a 1952 bedford O model that we finally parted with when he decided to call it a day in about 1956, saying that he would get rid of it, before it got rid of him.Even Peter will not be able to recall it and it was long before Eddie started. In those days we only did Darlington and Sedgefield marts, and getting paid by the farmers, who always didn’t want to part with their money was more difficult than doing the work. However friendships with both farmers and butchers remained with him till the end of his life.
In my memory it was only dad or Tommy Stodard who drove the cattle truck and the difficulty of getting drivers to do so was the reason to get rid.Household removals were particuarly hard work, but cattle was much worse, with very long days, early mornings and very late nights, because you never knew what you were going to have to put up with during your day’s work.It was the days of the small butchers, all with their own slaughter houses, and up to ten in a small village/town like Ferryhill alone. I think our regular customer, all with outstanding bills on the day we stopped trading was over 120 farmers and butchers.
Cattle, sheep and pigs are very unpredictable and dad was certainly sick and tired of running from the mart into the centre of Darlington trying to catch them when they got away. The chase inevitably involved who ever was second man on the cattle truck and several of the mart staff, when something got away, and dad told of one instance when a bullock even managed to get inside the Binns department store on the High Row, to the shoppers no doubt terror.
Hi Carl You are correct about the livestock job. In the 50/60’s we ran 5/6 vehicles purely on livestock. By the time we packed up in 1988 that was down to 2. Partly due to a lot of farms disappearing under Washington New Town and the general expansion of Durham, Newcastle and Gateshead. Early mornings and late nights were always the case. We used to work for some of the large wholesale butchers but some of their finances were on the knife edge due to fluctuating prices and seasonal demand. Getting paid was always a concern. Some farmers would think nothing of paying three figure sums per head for store cattle at the likes of Hexham Mart and then argue over two or three shillings to get them transported home.
As you say there is always a tale to tell. I have been into back street slaughterhouses where the sheep were hit over the head with a meat hook to stun them before slaughter and one where the sheep simply had their throats cut without being stunned. I arrived at the large S/house at Sunderland one night to find the place in chaos. Somebody had left a gate open and a couple of bullocks had absconded up the road into the Mill Garage yard who at the time were BMW and I think Mercedes agents. The two bullocks were having a good time amongst all the new German cars. I unloaded and went up to try to help round them up. One we managed to get into a corner and onto the wagon. The other one was too agitated to handle and so the police were called and the local Wyatt Earp downed it in one straight between the eyes. Unfortunately by the time we got it back to the S/house to bleed it was too late and the carcass had turned black and had to be condemned. I never heard of any damage caused to the cars.
Bedford Marsden Integral full fibreglass body and cab built on Bedford TK 11.15 ton GVW chassis scuttle with 330 cu in diesel engine. One of twenty bought new between 1967 and 1973. Unfortunatly I cannot make out reg number
Hi Carl , feel free to take any of my truck photos and post them on the non marsden removal truck photos , x2 and x4 and x5 if you want , x2 and x3 you have put on already .
It’s strange how things come up in conversation from time to time.
Today we were talking about this awful weather, and my mother said that in her memories dad was always worrying about the ice and snow, fog or wind and went on telling me of how she accompanied dad down to Catterick in 1959 to collect her brother, my uncle Bob (Bob Marsden) when he had turned over onto his side.
He was driving our 1956 Thames 4D luton TPT918 down to London and on reaching Catterick it went over. A telegraph pole went through the sides of the body just behind the cab and a few further forward would have impaled him. Apparantly he had sat firm to the drivers seat and gripped the stearing wheel with all his might to keep him in position in the cab as it went over.
As Eddie and possibly Peter will remember my Uncle Bob was a moaner, finding all he could to complain about, and if he wasn’t too shocked to talk I bet the three of them had a very miserable journey back to Spennymoor.
The weather aways did present problems in Road Haulage, as no doubt it still does today
Carl Williams:
It’s strange how things come up in conversation from time to time.Today we were talking about this awful weather, and my mother said that in her memories dad was always worrying about the ice and snow, fog or wind and went on telling me of how she accompanied dad down to Catterick in 1959 to collect her brother, my uncle Bob (Bob Marsden) when he had turned over onto his side.
He was driving our 1956 Thames 4D luton TPT918 down to London and on reaching Catterick it went over. A telegraph pole went through the sides of the body just behind the cab and a few further forward would have impaled him. Apparantly he had sat firm to the drivers seat and gripped the stearing wheel with all his might to keep him in position in the cab as it went over.
As Eddie and possibly Peter will remember my Uncle Bob was a moaner, finding all he could to complain about, and if he wasn’t too shocked to talk I bet the three of them had a very miserable journey back to Spennymoor.
The weather aways did present problems in Road Haulage, as no doubt it still does today
The Ford 4d had been loaded with a load of television cabinets (empty a cabinet for TV’s to be fitted) and as such were very light weight. A load from Cardinal Cabinets from their factory at west Auckland Industrial Estate near Bishop Auckland. In those days the fashion was a TV set within a wooden cabinet. When the van went over they collapsed into firewood.
Ford had designed this model with a very light weight chassis to get the weight below the threshold that avoided the 20mph speed limit and allowed then to travel at 30mpg. This particular one was 5 ton chassis cab and had a very large (1500 cu ft.) van body fitted and with such a light load had nothing to hold it down when the side wind attacked. I was not very old at the time and had no say, but unfortunately the new body was cut back to 1250 cu ft. making it quite useless. Dad and my grandfather had thought it had been dangerous when originally built and by cutting the body size hoped it would not blow over again.
Cardinal Cabinets was an interesting company as a few months later they collapsed into liquidation owing us several thousands. (A lot of money in the sixties and a lot of loads to Edgware).
Dad went to the Creditors Meeting and found himself as one of the largest creditors. They were informed that due to his great generosity the owner of the company was prepared to form a new company and offer all his employees continual employment, and to do this he was prepared to pay the unsecured creditors 1d in the pound. Way back in the fifties dad had not heard anything like this before as before the war people might have taken their time paying their bills but they always did eventually, and here he was being offered 1/240 of what he was due. However when it was explained that it was that or nothing the creditors including dad reluctantly agreed.
Cardinal Cabinets continued for a year or two until they sold out to Reddifusion.
Carl Williams:
A rather poor photo of two of our vans, back to back transhipping
Looking at the photo I can recognise the van as NED566G, as it was the only Bedford Marsden of that model with rear doors and drop frame walk in tailboard we operated. I can clearly see one of the rear doors clipped to the back of the side of the van.
NED566G was originally painted in Courtauld’s two tone green livery, and driven by Dennis Bradley (Farmer) who lived at Chilton. Obviously that photo was taken after it had been re-painted following the closure of Courtaulds.
NED566G was three foot longer than all our similar vans of its vintage, making it handy for transhipping onto. If we had a part load this extra length and space meant that once we transhipped from a sister van there was room to accommodate the extra load enabling it to deliver the part load and increase the profitability of the load.
I went to Newcastle on the bus yesterday. It was X21 but how slow. When it got on the Motorway it was going so slow. How public transport hopes to survive if they don’t move with the times, I don’t know. It was the old OK service now diverted into Durham. It used to take 1 hour for OK to go from Spennymoor to Newcastle and that had been since the nineteen twenties. Here we are nearly 100 years later and 1 hour from Durham to Newcastle. I don’t know if Northern Drivers are on strike, working to rule or Northern have the busses governed to save fuel, but to me it makes them an utter nuisance on the roads as they are holding everyone up going so slow.
I was on my own so got the chance to have a good look round the areas my grandfather used to go when as a very young boy I went with him. He went to Newcastle every Friday, and so if we wanted anything picked up that wasn’t urgent, he got it. First stop was Carioll Square and Thompson & Brown Brothers. Then next door and I cannot remember if it was Gaedor or Excide, or was it Bridges.
He then always parked in the old Eldon square and most of it survives today, but no car parking, and I’m sure throughout the fifties it was free to park as he certainly would not have paid. Then I don’t know if anyone remembers Millburn’s oyster bar, but we always called there for whelks. There is no evidence of where it was now, but I seem to think it was near where the Negate centre is now. I went along Clayton Street which is sadly more run down today and there certainly is no evidence where the old large Furniture shops or Dirty Dicks chemist were. I couldn’t help but have a walk along Low Friar Street which was another regular calling spot for my grandfather at the Northern Traffic area office. How small it must have been and when they moved into the new offices just down from the Odeon (I cannot remember what it was called, but it’s still not been demolished and is a monstrosity) All government and Council offices should be little upstairs offices like they had in Low Friar Street, in my opinion. It would create efficiency as there would be no room for too many and then the few that were there would have to work. It certainly would put this Country’s problems right if they didn’t have the space for 90% of them. I certainly would find a small office above something like a fish and chip shop for Northumbria water instead of the waste in Durham Arniston area.
A lot of Newcastle hasn’t altered over the last fifty odd years. It was sad walking up Gallogate and not seeing Pickford’s vans reversing into their yard to park. Alfred Bell also was right in the centre. When I was chairman of the Northern area of The British Association of Removers, Miss Wilcox a retired member of Alfred Bell’s staff was still serving as secretary and she said that when they moved to their new out of town premises it was a case of out of site out of mind and put the nails in the coffin of their removals business, which was what had built up the company. Pickford’s in Gallogate must have also been a constant reminder to customers and lost free advertising.
Newcastle is still a lovely place with the Grainger Market still surviving nearly untouched but in my opinion, nowhere is the atmosphere of years ago. Or am I remembering with rose coloured glasses?
I have mentioned on here before of the three Guy Otter luton vans we ran, which had been first regstered 1964 and 65.
I am sure Peter Summers, for one will remember them, as will all drivers who had the misfortune to have to drive them from time to time.
Dad described them as Guy Rotter’s in reference to their cabs that suffered badly with rusting. The cab was a cut down version of the Invincible cab and must have been very rare as until now I have never been able to find a photo of this particular model, and as we all thought badly of them I doubt if any photos ever existed, but I stand to be proved wrong.
Yet they were in fact well-built vans with 4 cylinder Gardiner engines. The problem apart from cabs rusting and collapsing was that they were too slow. However had they had Marsden Integral cabs (and bodies) and perhaps higher speed diffs , or better still the 5 cylinder Gardiner engines to give more power coupled with high speed diff they would probably been the best vehicles we had.
I have from time to time tried to describe them but here is how the cabs looked.
tyneside:
Hi Carl You are correct about the livestock job. In the 50/60’s we ran 5/6 vehicles purely on livestock. By the time we packed up in 1988 that was down to 2. Partly due to a lot of farms disappearing under Washington New Town and the general expansion of Durham, Newcastle and Gateshead. Early mornings and late nights were always the case. We used to work for some of the large wholesale butchers but some of their finances were on the knife edge due to fluctuating prices and seasonal demand. Getting paid was always a concern. Some farmers would think nothing of paying three figure sums per head for store cattle at the likes of Hexham Mart and then argue over two or three shillings to get them transported home.
As you say there is always a tale to tell. I have been into back street slaughterhouses where the sheep were hit over the head with a meat hook to stun them before slaughter and one where the sheep simply had their throats cut without being stunned. I arrived at the large S/house at Sunderland one night to find the place in chaos. Somebody had left a gate open and a couple of bullocks had absconded up the road into the Mill Garage yard who at the time were BMW and I think Mercedes agents. The two bullocks were having a good time amongst all the new German cars. I unloaded and went up to try to help round them up. One we managed to get into a corner and onto the wagon. The other one was too agitated to handle and so the police were called and the local Wyatt Earp downed it in one straight between the eyes. Unfortunately by the time we got it back to the S/house to bleed it was too late and the carcass had turned black and had to be condemned. I never heard of any damage caused to the cars.
Hi Tyneside,
Your comments about sheep having their throats cut reminded me of a story told by my dad.
He regularly had to go to a slaughterhouse at Stockton on Tees and he had to be there ready to load at 5-00am in the morning. It was in the early fifties and he had our artic. He says he had to reverse up a long alley, which was tight and difficult in the dark before daybreak. Saying he felt bleary eyed as he was about to get out of the cab, he saw a figure dressed in black walking towards him.
Thinking to himself ‘I know I’ve been no angel but I don’t think I deserve this fate’ he remained in the cab, pleased to see the figure, which at first he had thought was ‘old nick’ carry on along the side of the van and walk into the slaughter house.
It turned out that he was the rabbi and was going to have the choice of what was being killed, bless it and slit the throat.
Another occasion I remember with the cattle truck was when I was very young, but still have brief memories. My mother and father were with dad and he lowered the cattle ramp down after reversing up against a wall at one side. He had a load of sheep on and wanted them in a field, for which he had opened the gate, however at the other side there was a gap so he told mum to stand in this gap and stop any sheep getting through. I stood out of the way and saw dad going into the cattle truck to herd the sheep off, there was a scream as one of them jumped clean over my mother’s head.
I once , two or three years ago was standing in a cue at a post office when I heard a woman in front saying how stressed she was with her job. Asking her what she did she said she was a school teacher. I couldn’t resist it, and said ‘You have no idea what stress is. We all know what teachers do, and you haven’t got a clue what goes on in the real world.
The road haulage industry brings a lot of stress, but from my personal experiences cattle carrying must be at the top level, of even that stressful industry.
Carl
Carl
We used to take fat cattle direct from a local farm to Leeds S/H every week for the Kosher trade. The farmer told me it was a bit of a grisly end but he always got top price for the animals. One day I was fortunate or unfortunate, depending on your views, to see the slaughter. It was grisly but very swift. Not what I was used to seeing in abattoirs.
Tyneside
Another story from the cattle carrying days comes long before I was born.
Dad had been requested by the Milk marketing Board to collect a prize bull and deliver it to their premises at Langley Moor Durham. I think, all those years ago they were experimenting with artificial incrimination.
My mother went with dad for a ride out and it appears the bull went onto the cattle truck without any problems. As they were travelling towards Durham the cattle truck started to roll from side to side with them worried that it might turn over. Then the sound of cracking wood was heard. Dad pulled in and looked round the cattle truck and saw no external damage. He then looked underneath and as he later, often described he could see no legs sticking through the floor and drove off again. More cracking and breaking wood was heard, so he stopped again and again checked.
Eventually he arrived at the Milk Marketing Board between Langley Moor and Stonebridge and backed in to unload the bull. When he opened the rear ramps everyone present was spellbound at what the saw. The entire floor was gone with the exception of four small pieces where the bull’s feet stood. They had to find ramps to push on the floor and then suffer hell as they attempted to lead a wild mad bull off the van.
Back at Spennymoor in those days my grandmother answered the phone and dad, after telling her the story told her that if the Milk Marketing Board rang to pick anything up to take it in for them OK but not under any circumstances to arrange to collect a bull from them.
It was about a week before dad returned and they told him that the bull had gone completely mad and they could not get any control at all over it, so they had to arrange for soldiers to come down from Brancepeth where in those days, just after the war there still was an army camp. The soldiers had shot it dead.
Many years went by, approximately thirty and my mother was listening to BBC radio 4, one afternoon, and there was a speaker who had been the manager of the Milk Marketing Board at Langley Moor Durham. He went on to recall the strangest thing that had happened to him was when a cattle truck turned up with a prize bull that had gone mad and destroyed all the floor apart from four small areas where it was resting its feet. My mother thought ‘I remember that too’.
edworth:
pbsummers:
Hi CarlI wish you a great and wonderful Happy Birthday on Sunday. I hope you have an amazing day and lots of fun! Enjoy this day, you deserve it.
Peter
Same here Carl, how old 95 hoops sorry caught the 9 instead of the 6, Happy Birthday, tell your Mam I am aking after her.
Eddie…Nice you and Paul went to see Geoff he is a good lad.
hi Carl my dad had his 1st cataract done just before xmas he’s having his 2nd one done in may but he has been unwell and been in hospital again he’s doing ok but has now developed a hernis which is very painful for him he is going in for surgery to remove it sometime this month
hope your keeping ok
love barbara ■■
wombat2010:
edworth:
pbsummers:
Hi CarlI wish you a great and wonderful Happy Birthday on Sunday. I hope you have an amazing day and lots of fun! Enjoy this day, you deserve it.
Peter
Same here Carl, how old 95 hoops sorry caught the 9 instead of the 6, Happy Birthday, tell your Mam I am aking after her.
Eddie…Nice you and Paul went to see Geoff he is a good lad.hi Carl my dad had his 1st cataract done just before xmas he’s having his 2nd one done in may but he has been unwell and been in hospital again he’s doing ok but has now developed a hernis which is very painful for him he is going in for surgery to remove it sometime this month
hope your keeping ok
love barbara ■■
Hi barbara
I am pleased to hear from you, please pass geoff and your mum my best wishes.
Everyone were disapointed that Geoff didn’t make it to the reunion, and since then I was requested to see if myself, gordon Ball and Christine Heale from the office coud call and take Geoffout fo a drink like I di last time., but one thing or another has stopped me. I will try to ring you on Monday but if you read this before I ring you, wil you pease ask Geoff if he is well enough the nexxt week or so. I am sure he will enjoy it ike he did last time. Hope you too are eeping well.
Carl
I’ll speak to him tomorrow or Sunday but I’m sure he enjoy it again he dosen’t get out much now like he used to if he’s feeling well enough he’ll be their , he might wait till after he’s had his op for the hernia but I shall ask and then let you know
Look forward to speaking to you soon
Love barbara ■■
A photo of a group of vans at Green Lane take in the early sixties.
On the back row you can clearly see Ford D800s coupled to blue trailers in Thorn livery.
I think it is a Mastiffe coupled to the platform trailer, but looking harder it could have been a Dodge.
Any ideas which?
