me and my sister used to go with our dad in his Atkinson when we were kids in the late '60’s…i can still hear the old Gardner throbbing away 
after being not very interested in school work i joined a hippie commune,then came back home, had loads of short term jobs then took my Class 1 in late '79.started out with NCL,but didn’t stay long,and Malc at Carryfast North Kilworth took me on,despite my young age and looking like a ‘Yeti’ 
still driving artics,a few years to go yet.i think the young drivers nowadays will just take all this H&S overkill,driver facing cameras and all the other nonsense onboard and just get on with the job…after all,they’ve already missed out on the ‘glory years’,of the '80s and early '90s (IMO) 
Juddian:
I wouldn’t do it again now with the automation and the monitoring and spying involved (which is destroying the industry if they did but know it by the ethos of lowest common denominator), i only wanted to be in full control of a real lorry not attend a steering wheel and now we get the lorry to brake for us, soon it will be taking over the steering
But then that was then and this is now, i suppose the old steam lads wouldn’t have wanted any of the last 40 years either, we’re all in our own time warp i suppose and maybe we all think our time was the best.
The lads starting out now will tell youngters in 40 years time how good it was in 2016 in comparison.
I really think that there was/is an optimum point where it’s still a proper drivers’ wagon.But not so primitive as an old non power steering,vacuum brakes and crash box ( sliding mesh 
) with 4 gears or 6 if you’re lucky and no heater.Let alone a steamer that will take a seperate shift before you start to fire it up.
On that note I’d guess that there are probably just as many drivers now who’d prefer to drive even the latest Oz or NZ type wagon still with the ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ and 18 speed Fuller combination as my old Grandad probably would have preferred to drive same over the old Foden steamer.
On that note the automated heap for steering wheel attendants is arguably probably more a control freak Euro thing.In which it’s then easy to fall into the erroneous perception that it applies everywhere.While the reality is that you can at least still have the ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ 18 speed Fuller combination and just turn the the cruise control and auto braking off assuming it’s fitted.It’s just that you need to be in the rest of the English speaking world to find it. 
my dad owns 4 DAF dealerships so i got my license to help him out with deliverys of new trucks and returning of trailers andthings like tht
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Carryfast and Robert1952 said it for me in the first couple of posts. But sometimes I say I do it because I like to breakfast in a different diner every morning, drive different roads everyday, drink in a different bar every evening and sleep with a different woman every night.
windrush:
I wouldn’t feel guilty about not taking your class 1 Albion, I never needed to as all we ran (at the time of my training and test, Winter '76) were rigids so the company I worked for taught me in an eight wheeler Foden and their training school artic remained parked up for the two weeks of my training. If I could make decent money driving something that didn’t bend in the middle and being home every night then that was good enough for me, I was content just reversing my caravan and trailer and never wanted to get involved with sheeting and roping either so I can’t tie a dolly knot!Pete.
Not so much guilt pete, more unfinished business. Before I got the artics, I could confidently say that I’d not ask my lads to do anything I wouldn’t, now i can’t say that and find it mildly irking!
Curtainsiders do make life much easier, i don’t think many people mourn the demise of roping and sheeting, though when I go past a well sheeted load, the driver gets a silent nod of approval
I was working at sainsburys when a grocery deliver driver didn’t turn up so I said I’d do it the day flew by and I enjoyed it that much I was driving full time then decided to go into truck driving… Never looked back since
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As with many on here I just liked driving. It all started with learing to drive a tractor (David-Brown cropmaster diesel) at the ripe old age of 9 and progressed to other similar agricultural vehicles, probably not be allowed nowadays. Was on the road at 16 having passed my bike test (Francis-barnett 250cc) back in the days when common sence was deemed an advantage before the 70mph limit. At 17 having passed my car test I got part time work driving a pickup (Standard Atlas, no heater) on journeys of up to 100 miles each way, back then a ‘C’ licence restricted you to 30mph even on a van, so that was a days work with loading/unloading.
In the bad winter of January '62 (aged 18) I worked for a coal merchant driving a Ford Thames 4D that weighed 2ton 19.5cwt, so legal to drive on a car licence. At 21 I paid 5 shillings to the county council to have ‘heavy locomotive’ added to my licence in the days before DVLA, and took to the road proper in a ‘J’ type bedford tipper. I must have liked it because it kept me employed for the next 50 years driving just about everything there was going, my last job (so far!!!) was driving one trip a month to Turkey last year. Even though I am now 72 never say never.
ChrisArbon:
Carryfast and Robert1952 said it for me in the first couple of posts. But sometimes I say I do it because I like to breakfast in a different diner every morning, drive different roads everyday, drink in a different bar every evening and sleep with a different woman every night.