Hi Eddie and Peter, not heard from you for quite a while?
Eddie are you back over in the Lakes in your caravan?
Peter, yu must be preparing for this years ralleys. Please tell us what you are up to at the moment?
in any event hope you are both keeping well.
Carl
Hi Carl
My dad gets his hernia op on the 1st of may and his eye op on the 15th of may if its ok could he leave going till after these 2 ops when he’s gonna be feeling a whole lot better than he is at the present time
Love barbara ■■
wombat2010:
Hi CarlMy dad gets his hernia op on the 1st of may and his eye op on the 15th of may if its ok could he leave going till after these 2 ops when he’s gonna be feeling a whole lot better than he is at the present time
Love barbara ■■
Certainly Barbara
Tell him we are all hoping he’s soon well. Speak to you towards end May
Carl
Carl
How could you forget Dennis Gough (Pea & Ham) the Irish lad from N Aycliffe from your list?
Good to hear Geoff Pye is doing OK.
Gordon.
goggietara:
Carl
How could you forget Dennis Gough (Pea & Ham) the Irish lad from N Aycliffe from your list?
Good to hear Geoff Pye is doing OK.
Gordon.
Hi Gordon,
How could I have missed Dennis Gough, I have modified the list t include him.
Many drivers were quiet and faded into the background. Dennis certainly was not one of these, in a nice way. He certainly had kissed the Blarney Stone. My long term memory, is starting to get a bit worse (Not as bad as my short term), but I can remember him like it was yesterday. Thank you, Gordon for pointing out my ommission.
You will see I have wished Geoff a quick recovery after his opperation, on behalf of us all, and I am sure, like me you are looking forward to meeting up with him again, hopefully next month
Carl
Carl
True i also look forward to seeing Geoff Pye a really nice man.
For some who may remember a man who used to load us @ thorn’s Spennymoor called Joe King from Bishop Auckland had died a couple of days ago aged 85years we went to his funeral yesterday a genuine bloke.
Your memory Carl is fantastic only joking about Dennis mate.
Gordon.
goggietara:
Carl
True i also look forward to seeing Geoff Pye a really nice man.
For some who may remember a man who used to load us @ thorn’s Spennymoor called Joe King from Bishop Auckland had died a couple of days ago aged 85years we went to his funeral yesterday a genuine bloke.
Your memory Carl is fantastic only joking about Dennis mate.
Gordon.
Hi Gordon
I didn’t know any of the loaders at Smart & Browns, only that if they had consentated on doing their work concienciously insted of worrying that they must slow down to ensure that they didn’t do too much work in a shift they would have been better off.
It was noticable that when we provided the loaders for the night shift that was introduced as the day loaders could not load the vehicles fast enough there was over a 300% increase in efficiency.
But that goes for all the staff at Spennymoor. Too busy working to rule and going slow to consentrate on making good products efficiently and sadly had they told the unions to go to hell they might have still been employed making cookers and fridges and getting good wages.
Carl
Our Foden tractor unit pulling one of our 40ft traiers in Thorn Domestic appliance livery making its way out of our Green Lane transport complex in Spennymoor Seeing our Bedford breakdown truck waiting to pull out of our steam cleaning area (ramp not visible), which was situated between our two mechanical workshops.
Margaret Thatcher
Although I don’t want to get into political argument I think as we went into liquidation 2/3 through her tenure of Downing street, and her policies certainly were partial responsible for this I think I should give my thoughts. In theory I should hate her as she helped destroy our business but being realistic I know what she did to the country had to be done and we were an innocent casualty.
My mind goes back to Macillan and during this time I grew to hate and fear the Labour opposition as they had policies to nationalise the road haulage industry, which was strange considering what a mess this had created the first time.
When Harold Wilson was elected he was certainly not as left wing and extreme as some had hoped for, certainly his main achievement was keeping peace between the two wings of the party. Like dad said ‘Never criticise labour as we have always made more money when they were in power’. It certainly was the case as they tended to be spendthrifts and we did well.
Heath was useless, and when Callaghan became prime minister I was very concerned as I had never been impressed by his efforts in other areas of government, however I think he genuinely tried to keep the dignity of the office and did his best, but unfortunately during the seventies communism had spread into the trade union leadership and just a few people had gained a powerbase where they could hold the country to ransom culminating in the winter of discontent.
We had spent a lot of money building up a vehicle fleet to fulfil our obligations to Thorn and Courtaulds in particular, but we were hampered by industrial unrest at both these companies Thorn regularly had strikes while we had vehicles and drivers standing with no work. At Courtaulds there was the massive strike lasting 28 weeks, which had its effect, also things like the Dockers strike created an atmosphere where we had vehicles standing and then as things returned too much work where we had to hire in sub-contractors. In those days we never dreamt of laying drivers off. Painting wheels and inside van bodies etc. were the norm to make work for the 40 basic hour week.
The drivers’ strike was the final nail in the coffin that sucked away our cash flow. It never should have happened but because of Thorn having a closed shop our drivers had been blackmailed into joining the Transport and Workers union, that together with the Road haulage Association had made such a mess to create the strike.
Things could not continue as they were. Callaghan had gone begging to The International Monetary Fund. The country was broke and ungovernable on the verge of anarchy. Along came Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. She was surrounded by ministers who were wimps, many just as bad as the Labour Government they had replaced. Yet she was strong and determined.
Time was not on her side ad she could not micro manage the economy. She made the large companies curtail their expenses, and become competitive on a world market. What she did was best described as squeezing a tube of toothpaste with the top on. It breaks and leaks at the weakest part. Road Haulage was one of the weakest and companies squeezed haulage rates to breaking point. If the Transport and General workers union had done their job correctly, companies would not have been able to get away with paying a ridiculous low percentage of vehicle earnings as wages and companies like us paying a genuine hourly rate would have remained competitive.
I have told before on this thread of the damage done to us by British Leyland making and supplying poorly designed and built vehicles such as the Lynx, Laird and Boxer, H ad it not been for the likes of Red Robo causing such dreadful strikes and disruption, Leyland might have had plenty of money for research and development to produce 1st class vehicles, and our profitability not been so badly hit by them. Had we not suffered the strikes and disruption at Thorn and Courtaulds we might have had more strength to fight. It is too easy to blame Mrs Thatcher. Without her strength in pulling the country round the future of this country was incomprehensible.
Wel done Carl for the last post , its a shame we lost you , do you think you would still be running now if that had not happened ?
I dont think you would want to be in the Removals business now ? , do you still get the Bar mag ? , Im not in the bar and some times I wish we were but other days glad im not .
Dad was asked to join many moons ago but there was a price fixing scam going on with a well know firm here who do Swiss runs and with that dad told them hiss off .
We are in the Rha , dont know why as we have not done general haulage for years .
Hi Carl, I’m still here and have been following the posts with much interest as often as I can.
Like you I don’t want to go into politics but agree with everything you said above. Because lorry drivers may not be loaded unless they belonged to a trade union meant that they had to join. When the lorry drivers strike came about your drivers had no option but to follow this route even though they did not want to strike, tragically affecting your business.
Talking of strikes, I recall one instance in 1968 when Eddie and I had to collect and deliver a package of Wayroc panels from New Equipment for export via docks at Newcastle Quayside. The panels were large and very heavy and in a flat packing case which covered the floor of Ford Transit AUP 241F. On arrival at the Quayside for offloading the dockers were on strike and refused to offload the panels so, as we were doing lots of Freemans catalogue deliveries in the Newcastle and surrounding areas, your dad decided to leave them in situ and when we were ever in the area called in to see if they could be offloaded. This went on for about 3 weeks without success and the Wayroc was beginning to look like part of the van floor. It was decided to return them to New Equipment so that they could make alternative arrangements for delivery. If we had taken them off ourselves the dockers would have black listed all of W H Williams vans if any future deliveries were made at the docks. I am pleased today that the trade unions no longer have that militant stance.
Unfortunately, ill health in our families has meant that work on our vehicles has been at a standstill over winter but, hopefully, the Bedford being a Bedford will only need a service and be ok (although still only one side painted). We will be taking the Foden for a test run on Sunday to evaluate any necessary work but suspect it will be just as temperamental as it was. Thank you for your interest and as soon as we make progress we will keep you informed.
Peter
JAKEY:
Wel done Carl for the last post , its a shame we lost you , do you think you would still be running now if that had not happened ?I dont think you would want to be in the Removals business now ? , do you still get the Bar mag ? , Im not in the bar and some times I wish we were but other days glad im not .
Dad was asked to join many moons ago but there was a price fixing scam going on with a well know firm here who do Swiss runs and with that dad told them hiss off .
We are in the Rha , dont know why as we have not done general haulage for years .
Hi Jakey
Thank you for your kind remarks. You ask a very interesting question which I will reply to in a day or two when I have a clear mind to rely. I t is something I have often thought about.
I have never seen a BAR magazine since we finnished. I was chairman of North East BAR for eighteen months many years ago and enjoyed the chat at the meetings. I was on Watchdog (BBC TV) about Pickfords price fixing about 1984, so its gone on a long time. The only good thing about RHA was its legal aid scheme, apart from that I thought it was an utter waste of time, we had been members since the 1920’s till we finnished in 1986.
With regard to BAR in the seventies they emploed as an advisor Marcus Fox a conservasive MP to represent members interests in the House of Commons. Dad met him at a BAR meeting about a week after Margaret Thatcher was voted as leader. Dad said that he thought she was just a stand in until they got someone better. Marcus Fox replied that she must not be underestimated and we would find out soon enough how good she was.
I am looking forward t giving my reply of what we would have been doing today, if we had survived and will get my thoughts going to repy within the next few days
Carl
pbsummers:
Hi Carl, I’m still here and have been following the posts with much interest as often as I can.Like you I don’t want to go into politics but agree with everything you said above. Because lorry drivers may not be loaded unless they belonged to a trade union meant that they had to join. When the lorry drivers strike came about your drivers had no option but to follow this route even though they did not want to strike, tragically affecting your business.
Talking of strikes, I recall one instance in 1968 when Eddie and I had to collect and deliver a package of Wayroc panels from New Equipment for export via docks at Newcastle Quayside. The panels were large and very heavy and in a flat packing case which covered the floor of Ford Transit AUP 241F. On arrival at the Quayside for offloading the dockers were on strike and refused to offload the panels so, as we were doing lots of Freemans catalogue deliveries in the Newcastle and surrounding areas, your dad decided to leave them in situ and when we were ever in the area called in to see if they could be offloaded. This went on for about 3 weeks without success and the Wayroc was beginning to look like part of the van floor. It was decided to return them to New Equipment so that they could make alternative arrangements for delivery. If we had taken them off ourselves the dockers would have black listed all of W H Williams vans if any future deliveries were made at the docks. I am pleased today that the trade unions no longer have that militant stance.
Unfortunately, ill health in our families has meant that work on our vehicles has been at a standstill over winter but, hopefully, the Bedford being a Bedford will only need a service and be ok (although still only one side painted). We will be taking the Foden for a test run on Sunday to evaluate any necessary work but suspect it will be just as temperamental as it was. Thank you for your interest and as soon as we make progress we will keep you informed.
Peter
Hi Peter,
Going back to the miners’ strike. People sympathise with the miners but forget the lorry drivers. This was the time we had opened our Sheffield depot and warehouse and I had to travel down there quite a bit to check on things and saw first-hand how these poor drivers were coping. Scargill had recruited thugs, not miners to attack these drivers as they went about their work delivering fuel to the power stations.
Their lives were put in danger and had resorted to metal being welded across their windscreens and side windows with slits just big enough to let them see where they were going. The miners had voted twice against striking and Scargill had started the strike against their wishes. Had they had the courage of these lorry drivers and ignored him there would have been no strike.
The Wayrok from New Equipment were toilet cubicles and in their wisdom they decided they did not want them delivered with their normal furniture and having us delivering as part loads charging separately to keep the transport costs separate from their normal as this was a different division of the company. Like you say they were very heavy and we took them all over the country and they were a bloody nuisance.
I am sorry you have had health problems in your family. Like you, I have been plagued with visiting hospital most of this year so far and it is very depressing as well as being worrying. Good luck with the Foden
Carl
Bedford KF with Marsden integral body driving out of Green Lane. Painted in Thorn Livery with cream and brown cab.Thorn EMI livery was the blue body with maurve (light purple) cab We painted several like this but evenually it was decided to paint cabs in our livery with our name on front like this photo to match tractor units in our livery pulling trailers we had in Thorn livery
I have just heard the sad news that the annual ‘Hoping’s Fare’, on the Town Moor at Newcastle has been cancelled and will never be held again.
Often known just as ‘The Town Moor’ it is particularly sad for me as my Grandfather and Great Grandfather had taken their chip van seen below with my young grandfather when it was new in 1908,
I am not sure whether it was 1908 or 1909 they made their journey, which was a considerable trip for a horse as the van weighed over 2 ton as it had 2 cooking ranges and by the time it was loaded with potatoes and coke to light the stoves it must have weighed at least 3 ton and I was told it took a full day to make the 20 mile journey.
When I was young in the fifties my grandfather took me to the fare nearly every year. Not to go on any of the rides as he was too greedy, but to meet up with old friends and talk to those he had known so many years before.
Later in my life I met quite a few showmen who came to buy vans we were disposing of to use with their fun fare. I know it will be shattering news to many of these families, as the Town Moor was as much an opportunity to meet old friends as it was to make money.
What was the largest fare in Europe is no more and one by one our traditions go. Feeling sorrow for the showmen is dwarfed by the sorrow I feel for the sick individuals who find themselves in positions of ‘power’ on Newcastle Council who have allowed this to end.
Jakey asks a very interesting question when he asked would we still have been here if we had got through our financial problems of 1985-86 and what we would have been doing today.
Looking back now I think we probably would have managed to get through. We had employed Andrew Scott, a very experienced ex Tiny Rowand (Lonrho) company doctor. He had laid off 60 plus employees the week before Christmas to keep our wages bill down. My worry was that the cash flow coming in during January was not sufficient to pay our Diesel Bill on 26 January 1986.
My dad and me were exhausted and fed up, but in fairness to Andrew Scott we had not sufficiently discussed the situation with him and looking back now I realise how it could have been handled. We closed for an extended Christmas Holiday on Christmas Eve, and although a few vehicles that had been loaded with urgent consignments ran between Christmas and New Year and were on the road, no office staff or warehouse staffs at Spennymoor or any of our depots were working. Also all our customers were closed until January 6 1986, so nothing new was being loaded.
I am sure we were not alone with the problems we faced year in year out at Christmas time. Because of what had become the custom of closing for about a fortnight it was the only time during a year anything like it happened. During that fortnight wages and our overheads still occurred but we had virtually no income at all. It is easy to say that money should have been put away to cover such events but by 1985 because of what I described in my description of the ‘Thatcher years’ we were running on miniscule profit margins. One of our competitors was paying 17.5% vehicle earnings and because of our traditional wage agreements were paying approx. 34% vehicle earnings. Also capital had been drained away by strikes and general industrial unrest.
Looking back now I have no doubt Andrew Scott would have arranged that our diesel tanks were overflowing before we defaulted on paying our fuel bill to Shell. This would buy a little time to re-negotiate. He then in his characteristic way would have met with Shell and showed them how our profit and loss was pulling round and tried to arrange a deal to spread the payments over a period of time if they would continue supply to keep us going. If that was not successful somehow he would have arranged another source of supply. However he would have left me to face the hundred or so sub-contractors we were using. Telling people you cannot pay them and that they will have to wait for their money is the most difficult of tasks whilst at the same time assuring your customers that all is well and maintain excellent delivery records is a monumental task.
As I said Dad and me were particularly sick and Dad had taken it very hard laying off drivers he cared for so near Christmas. Even me who had always in the past had to play the hard nasty ■■■■■■■ who tried to reduce working times for wages hated it. Andrew Scott was a particular individual, who didn’t give a dam, and could go to his home to Darras Hall Ponteland and put all his work behind and relax. He was the right man for the job at that time, but we didn’t get on particularly well and in seeing it through he would have established himself a massive power base that would have totally changed the running of the business.
I would be dishonest if I didn’t confess that from time to time I wished I hadn’t stopped and given it a go. I have no doubt that dad would have retired, as he was almost 65. Transport had changed so much and his ideas were so old fashioned I am sure he wouldn’t have wanted to go on. Scott had envisaged dad becoming Chairman and him taking over as Managing Director and would have demanded a shareholding of about 10% of the company as a reward for saving it. About a year before he had given me the title as Operations Director, so although he would have been Managing Director, managing the financial side of the business I would have looked after the operational side, the transport side that I understood and in fairness he had no knowledge of. However he always took the view that he was not interested in the detail just to ensure that managers saw to that. That is how life changed over the years, were as I had been brought up more that the transport operation was all that was important and everything else followed on from that. I was, of course, and would have remained the largest shareholder in the company.
Could I have lived with that? Not at the time, but in retrospect I probably should have given it a go. In the event Dad and I pulled the plug and put the business into voluntary liquidation. No bank or creditor had made any threats and our inexperience of such situations led us to perhaps make a great mistake. The records showed we had considerable debts, but most of this was made up of redundancy pay, money in lieu of notice and holiday pay reserve. The holiday pay is to cover the amount of holiday pay that employee would be due to at that point in time but actually would not have been paid until they had taken holidays during the current year, and had we carried on redundancy pay and money in lieu of notice would not have occurred. Scott to protect himself and his reputation, as a director of the company had always ensured that the company was solvent.
I have so much more to tell on this theme and my thoughts of what we would have been doing today, so I will be continuing this part of the tal
Since our business was formed in 1919 it went through various stages. My grandfather started carrying groceries on a horse and cart and eventually changed to his first model T in 1920. Grocery carriage was the biggest part of the business, until cattle took over in the mid-twenties. When Broughs cancelled his contract with him about that time, they wrongly thought it would finish him off, but the biggest part of the business was by that time cattle. During the war as rationing took hold he progressed from carrying livestock to meat after the cattle had been slaughtered. After the war as manufacturing developed carrying the finished goods came to the fore as the Ministry of Food cancelled the meat deliveries.
During all this time household removals had remained as a fair share of the business and was when I started taking an interest in about 1960. In fact when we finished the removals and storage part of our business amounted to 15% of our huge turnover.
Good things often cause problems and Thorn’s massive Smart and Brown factory at Spennymoor consumed a larger and larger proportion of our turnover. I knew it was dangerous to be too reliant on any one source of turnover and Thorn should not be allowed to exceed 30% or it could be problematic. But what could we do? We could not refuse to do work for them and as they increased production and went into refrigeration the problem got worse .good but bad, if you understand.
I tried, as soon as I had the ability to compose letters to write and try to obtain work from other customers and as such different work came in that and eventually when Courtaulds opened their massive plant in Spennymoor (Thanks to Michael Heseltine’s efforts as a conservative minister) we were very lucky to obtain all their delivery work, which pushed Thorn below 50% mark and with their expansion and the buying out of the ATM (Originally Advance Throwing Mills re christened Advance Textile Mills when the American Giant Monsanto took over)fleet and their transport from their factories at Crook and West Auckland this pushed our reliance on Thorn below 30%.
As I said earlier good things often cause problems and the best thing of all that we had was an excellent versatile workforce, all based at Spennymoor. They were dad’s type of people; the majority had worked for us for years and dad considered most as friends. In his eyes people he could meet round the stove or later the Salamander heater in the garage at Marmaduke Street and later have a cigarette which he was always keen to give out and a cup of coffee from the machine in the drivers rest room, were his friends and he could trust them, and they very rarely let him down. Offices were wasted space in dad’s eyes. He liked to have a smoke and cup of coffee with his friends who were drivers based in Spennymoor.
As I will explain later he could never feel friends with or trust drivers not from the north east and based anywhere else and as I will explain later that was one of the biggest problems.
I know it has nothing to do with this thread, but Chester le Street is just down the road, but i cannot help but pay my respects to the brave bus driver who died whilst trying to save the life of the passengers on the bus as it had an accident in the Alps.
I know only too well of the caring concienciousness of HGV drivers and bus drivers in the north east, and this is just an example.
I also know first hand the worries facing management of Classic Coaches, as I have had the anxiety following fatal collisions whilst waiting for results of the accident investigators. I am sure Classic have excellent maintenance arrangements as we had in spennymoor, but fitters are human beings and it is said, ‘Only god is perfect’ and humans from time to time make mistakes. Whilst it is possible that the coach was in perfect mechanical conditions, as our vans were found to be in similar circumstances. Only those who have experienced to anxiety of waiting to find out, whilst having to comfort the loved ones and all the workforse who are grieving the loss of a fellow driver or workmate will understand their stress.
New paint shop and bodyshop under construction at our Green Lane Industrial Estate Complex Boxvan in background looks like a Leyland Boxer. The black tank behind is our 12500 gal diesel tank which was piped to the diesel filling island in the centre of the front of the parking area In total we had storage facilities of 18,000 gallons A ford D800 is also poking its nose out pulling a 40ft trailer
Dad’s belief that County Durham drivers were great and the farther you went south the less he trusted. Particularly, in his mind Cockneys were too cunning and could not be trusted. This was illustrated by the fact that even when we opened our depots, although they were managed by people who lived locally to them, he would often send Spennymoor drivers down and paid them subsistence and overtime to work from the depots week long rather than employ local drivers and base vehicles there.
I had since the early sixties pestered him to open a southern depot, ideally London. In the early seventies on a weekday night we usually had more vehicles parked in Leicester for instance than we had in Spennymoor. We were fortunate that we were paid both ways as we collected return faulty items as well as deliver, but we had a hundred vehicle journeys a week at least heading back up north empty. We did secure as many customers as we were able to being based in Spennymoor but had we had Southern bases with commission and bonus driven managers we would have seen a tremendous improvement in our turnover. How many removal companies could estimate on a removal with the knowledge that 80% of your mileage was paid for and the only true costs were the loading and unloading time?
I eventually agreed with dad to allow me to advertise in Commercial Motor and Leicester Mercury newspaper for a Removal Contractor based in Leicester to work in conjunction with us. We made an agreement that was not a success and although we put a diesel tank at their premises for our vans to refuel at wholesale prices instead of using expensive agency cards it came to nothing with us never getting any work from them and us just reloading their occasional van when it came north.
The stupid thing, when I think back now was because of the rapid expansion of Courtaulds work together with increasing production from Thorn’s cooker and fridge plants in Spennymoor, we were always looking to buy second hand vans as although we always had at least one in Marsden’s waiting to be built their lead up time was so long and we could buy a second hand van and bring it into our workshops, have it checked over, had any repairs done and painted well within a week. For not much more we could have bought out removal companies in Leicester, London and Manchester areas, and at that time we had plenty of money to do so. Had I just pushed more and advertised to see if there was any interest, goodness knows where it would have ended.
We had a lot to offer anyone in those days, cash, employment for all staff and management on, in many cases better terms and 99% usage for any vehicles they operated. If we had done so, with the right enthusiastic staff and support each of these depots could have been expanded and encouraged to find and take on new customers of their own cutting our reliance on industries in North East.
Dad wouldn’t hear of the idea as he was a hand on man and wanted to see everything that happened and was done by employees who were his friends in Spennymoor. Had we done so it would have made life so much simpler when we started with the mail order nationwide deliveries that necessitated us eventually opening up depots.
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