I remember Hilton’s moved the old London Bridge in the early seventies. Each piece was numbered, then placed on a lorry and I believe taken to Charlton for loading on to ships.
Tax discs were something HTS didn’t use very often as I recall. One of the reasons they attracted attention from the authorities.
Waddy, I was taking lumps of granite stone, from the base of the old London bridge, up to a stone mason’s in Aberdeen. It was all stored in the old Surrey docks. I was taking between four or five lumps at a time, depending on the weight, each lump weighed about 5 ton. When i went to load the first lot, i was putting chains and toggles over them, the crane driver said, " What are you doing that for ? " he said if they are going to fall off, nothing is going to stop them.
Ironically i took several loads up to this stone mason’s and they never moved once, on the last trip, i had a return load of timber out of Stockton -on - tees, i brought this all the way down to London and lost the load coming down Archway hill, there was a very bad camber on that hill at the time and off it came.
I did all these in a GUY BIG 'J ’ on the second trip i did, got just the other side of Berwick-on-tweed and broke down, lift pump failure, i was towed into a commercial garage in ALNYCK( I think that’s how you spell it ) spent three days in b&b at a pub that overlooked the market square.
zippy155:
WOODY R:
I was wondering what ever happened to Hiltons transport, as before Stobarts came along, i think Hiltons must have been the biggest transport firm in the country.
I loaded out of Hiltons yard in Charlton hundreds of times, i can always remember they had a huge workshop/ hanger where they had one of the Hitons power boats, i seem to remember one of them was the brtish power boat champion, was it Johnny ?They had two powerboats one called “858” as per the telephone code fro charlton 01 858 and the the other 585 (for some reason!) They had leyland engines in them originally and then threw them out in favor of Sabre diesels. if you call sabre’s workshop now (see address on google) there are some guys there that worked on the boats even to this day. The boat won the London to Monte Carlo race and Charlton was never the same after that LOL!!! The cast for the Brothers TV series used to drink at the two pubs at the top of anchor and hope lane !
Went spectacularly bust in 1976 which was a shame but it happens. I guess you cannot make enough money in transport to race powerboats as well something had to give
Z
karl67:
hiltons changed their name to roadships ltd before they finished altogether and being investigated under the companies act.
I believe it was the Reciever that changed the name to Roadships in a futile atempt to sell the firm as a going concern !!
zippy155:
WOODY R:
I was wondering what ever happened to Hiltons transport, as before Stobarts came along, i think Hiltons must have been the biggest transport firm in the country.
I loaded out of Hiltons yard in Charlton hundreds of times, i can always remember they had a huge workshop/ hanger where they had one of the Hitons power boats, i seem to remember one of them was the brtish power boat champion, was it Johnny ?They had two powerboats one called “858” as per the telephone code fro charlton 01 858 and the the other 585 (for some reason!) They had leyland engines in them originally and then threw them out in favor of Sabre diesels. if you call sabre’s workshop now (see address on google) there are some guys there that worked on the boats even to this day. The boat won the London to Monte Carlo race and Charlton was never the same after that LOL!!! The cast for the Brothers TV series used to drink at the two pubs at the top of anchor and hope lane !
Went spectacularly bust in 1976 which was a shame but it happens. I guess you cannot make enough money in transport to race powerboats as well something had to give
Z
Here was I thinking my mobile number was special (858585) and I now find it was both numbers of Ralphs power boats !!! Please submitt all bids to -------