THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Tizer]

Bodger, did the engine have to be left running or was it enough to just have the pedal depressed by the brick? If the engine was left running we could blame that bloke for global warming!

[Stanley]

That would do it Bodge. They worked on vibration. I still can't remember the maker's name!
The other joke was log books. In the old days the Traffic Commissioners used to do what they called 'silent checks', noting the numbers of vehicles, the time and where they were. Then in selected cases going to inspect the log book to see if it agreed. In the old days when there was only one route through Stirling town centre there was a room over a newsagents that the TC's used. I used to book off on the log book in Stirling and do the rest of my trip North under the radar.....

[Stanley]

As well as a log book, I was supposed to keep a stock book recording the cattle I was carrying when I worked on the cattle wagon for Richard Drinkall at Marton. I was motoring nicely down Beattock Brow one afternoon on my way home from Lanark and was doing well over the speed limit, I had new tyres on and maintained the vehicle myself so I had every confidence in it. I was passing Coatgate café when I saw a bobby with his hand up. I managed to pull up in time and get in the lay-by but daren't put the handbrake on as I knew the brake drums would be red hot so I popped it in bottom gear and got out. As I got round to the Lockerbie Sergeant (For it was he) I said "You've caught a fish, no logbook up to date and no stock book...." No point in trying to bluff him. He asked me a few questions about the cattle, took my details and let me go. He must have been a sensible bloke because I never heard anything more about it. That was the only time in my career as an HGV driver that anyone asked me about my log book!

[Stanley]

One of the things I notice about vehicles these days is the efficiency of modern headlights. A far cry from the times when I have had to drain the water out of the reflectors! Headlights were dreadful compared to the modern ones. Many a time on the old A34 on a moonlight night I used to turn them off and drive for miles on sidelights only, I found it was easier on my eyes.

[Big Kev]

The only time I had to use a log book was around 18 years ago when I worked for National Grid, they still worked to British driving laws. Anything other than that was a paper tachograph but I believe that is a different process now, last time I drove a wagon was 2004. I never bothered taking the medical to renew my LGV C+E entitlement in 2006...

[Stanley]

Sensible man, It became a young man's job 30 years ago! That was when I gave up and went to Bancroft. Never regretted it even though I enjoyed my days on the road so much.

[Stanley]

Reading that reminded me that I am getting old, it was 40 years ago!
I still remember those early mornings when I set off to the North of Scotland with 60 feet of motor, a clear job to do and secure in the knowledge I was incommunicado all day. I can still remember clearing a farm of dairy cattle up at Kirriemuir, three trips in three days with a full load each time..... Those were the days! I loved the cattle, the people and the roads. How many jobs are there like that these days? (It was 550miles round trip......)

[Stanley]

Mind you, there were some notable prosecutions for excessive hours. I remember the manager of Slater's at Leeds getting six months gaol for encouraging excess hours. There was a cartoon at the time in one of the transport journals in which a young child asks her mother "Is Daddy dead?" Mother replies "No dear, he works for Slater's." The Traffic Commissioner took the licence off Davies Brothers at Charlton saying they weren't fit to have a dog license.

[Tizer]

It sounds like the regulators had more bite in those days.

[Whyperion]

You will still get pulled and prosecuted today, but does need more bodies doing the enforcement, too many of the motorway incidents over recent years have been (non-uk) supposed professional drivers losing attention from in-cab distractions or exceeding hours. I would expect that brexit will cause a few problems for uk drivers in europe and euro ones in UK with probably different regulations. One of the problems has been the cross over impact between driving hours and daily/weekly rest periods and working time regulations - which has probably made UK haulage less efficient than it could be particulary making second manning and time away from home less used, when in fact 'working' non-paid hours can make a safer drive for two guys who are driving effort for less hours (if that makes sense)

[Stanley]

Tiz, when they bit they bit hard but it didn't happen very often. In all my time on the road I never knew a driver who had been nabbed and prosecuted for his hours....

[Stanley]

I love this image, wagons slogging their way up the final stretch on Shap Fell to the South of the summit. I remember it well. No overtaking and you travelled at the speed of the slowest which could be a little as 15mph as all wagons were underpowered in those days. Look carefully at the image and you will see that one wagon at the front is holding back everything behind him on the climb.)
Contrast this with the motorways that replaced the old road, everyone going as fast as they can and in many cases the larger wagons have 400/500hp diesel engines for 40 tons. My last wagon had 150hp for 32 tons, work out the difference and factor in the severity of the gradients on the old roads. Shap summit was only 1010feet but it was a severe test for the motors. Especially in winter conditions like this. We were more patient and it took less out of us, it was a different world!
(I know, I am an old fart but it was a far more interesting job in those days.)

[Tizer]

I guess the ad on the back of the lorry is for Black Boy Coffee - you wouldn't see that nowadays!

[Stanley]

We had the Robinson's Golliwog as well. That was perfectly acceptable in those days. I wonder what happened to all the lapel badges!

[Tizer]

A man got banned from Ebay for trying to sell his golly badge: LINK

[PanBiker]

We have a tin somewhere with a few in. What about the savings bank where you put the coin in the lads hand turned his ear and he ate it. PC brigade would have apoplexy with that one.

[Stanley]

It's a more complicated world these days..... We used to sing a counting song at school called 'Ten Little Niggers'. In 1939 Agatha Christie published her best selling murder story under the same title. I can remember the nursery rhyme being replaced by 'Ten Little Indians' and later by 'Ten Green Bottles'. Funny old world......
On an earlier subject.... I hate forgetting things so I went digging this morning. The original 'Spy in the cab' was the Servis Recorder made in Gloucester.

[Stanley]

This is the Servis recorder I remember. Universally hated and described as 'The spy in the cab'. The forerunner to today's far more complicated tachographs. The recorder discs were wax coated and a stylus connected to a pendulum marked the surface with an irregular line whenever the truck was moving. I never had one.

[Stanley]

One advantage, particularly in Scotland, was that if you were carrying livestock you got preferential treatment from the police. That's perhaps why I didn't get done for my log book at Beattock. Here's a bit from me memoirs that illustrates this.....

I was at Clinchyard sometime in late 1972 with the wagon and trailer to fill up with heifers from Hughie and I had a full load. We were just having a cup of tea and a bun when I noticed that the sky to the North had turned black, not dark but jet black! I asked Hughie if it was what I thought it was, snow, and he said I was right and the sooner I got away the better. It started snowing heavily as I left Clinchyard and by the time I got to Cross-roads and turned south down the A76 it was gathering on the road. As I got to Mauchline, six miles down the road, it was almost a foot deep, I’ve never seen snow fall so heavily. There is a steep hill down through Mauchline and of course the gritting wagons had been taken by surprise. I got to the top of the hill which is in the village itself and, getting into second gear, started creeping down, there was a van in front of me but he was moving as fast as me so I had no problem. Just then I saw an artic coming over the bridge at the bottom of the hill, he was fully loaded and came storming up the hill at about the same speed as I was going down, I watched him come and thought how well he was doing, this is often the case on fresh snow, you can actually get a grip on the snow itself.
Everything was going well until the van pulled into the kerb in order to make a bread delivery! This simple act entirely changed the situation, I knew that if I tried to brake, 60 feet of wagon and trailer was going to slide down the road and jack-knife and there wasn’t room for the steel wagon to avoid either hitting me or being hit. All I could do was gently apply the trailer brake to put some drag on the outfit. The driver of the steel wagon had seen what was going on but by this time he was too close to the van to stop, there wouldn’t have been enough room for me to get through if he had. All he could do was keep his foot down and clear the van as fast as possible. It was the correct decision but at the time I couldn’t see how I was going to miss him. The van driver had got out with his bread basket and I decided that if I was going to hit anything it would be the van. A gap opened just as I got to the van and I took a bit off the back corner of it as I went through. It happened so slowly that both the other driver and myself had time to open the window, reach out and pull our mirrors in to the cab to stop them clashing. He grinned at me when we passed about two inches apart, I suspect my eyes were looking like saucers! Neither of us stopped, we couldn’t and I suppose the van driver wrote his minor damage off to experience!
When I got to New Cumnock the police had closed the road. I pulled up at their road block and pointed out that I had a bit of a problem as I was loaded with cattle, there wasn’t room to turn round and I couldn’t possibly back a wagon and trailer half a mile back up the road in a blizzard! (We’ll get round to the difficulties of reversing a wagon and four wheeled trailer later) Common sense prevailed and the bobby let me through and said he would radio to Sanquar that I was coming and ask them to send the plough up to meet me. This isn’t as surprising as it sounds, remember that all these blokes came from farming stock and understood the problems. It’s about fifteen miles from New Cumnock to Sanquar and I set out to enjoy myself! It might surprise you to hear me say this but I had seen plenty of snow on milk pick up for Harrisons and we could never allow ourselves to be stopped by it. I had ideal conditions actually, the road was closed and there was very little likelihood of local traffic so I had a clear run over fresh snow, the best sort. Away I went.
The first thing to say is that a wagon and trailer is the best combination you can have in snow. The trailer is running in the wheel tracks of the wagon and so it doesn’t know there is any problem and if the combination is set up right with the trailer towbar sloping up to the hitch, the harder you pull the trailer, the more weight is transferred to the driving wheels of the wagon. I’d designed the outfit so the hitch was right! By now the snow was drifting but all that means is that you occasionally hit four feet of snow beyond which there was a clear or lightly covered stretch of road so as long as you have enough momentum to burst through the drift you are OK. It must have been an impressive sight if there had been anybody about to see me. Every time I hit a drift the dry snow burst out like an explosion and blinded me for a fraction of a second. My only worry was that I might come across a car abandoned in the middle of the road. There were a couple but being Scots they had got them well in to the side. In England, especially nowadays, I would never have got through because bad drivers would have blocked the road by carelessly abandoning their vehicles. I came down into Sanquar and met the plough at the fireworks factory so I pulled in and had a word with the driver and he decided not to go out until morning when I told him how bad it was. He told me that the ploughs had gone down towards Dumfries about half an hour before so I should have a clear run. He was right and the funny thing was that my overall time back home was about ten minutes better than usual!

[Stanley]

My mind goes back to the time when General Elections were influenced by principle and the breeding ground was real life. On the whole this served us well. Today it is a different age and media, both newsprint and social hold the key. See Trump and his tweets......

[Wendyf]

We had an excellent history society talk last night on "Liverpool Cowkeepers" by David Joy. His gt gt grandfather left the family farm in the Dales with a few cows and set up a small back street dairy in the centre of Liverpool, later moving to Garston. They would take their best milkers, feed them on spent grain from the brewerys and any bits of grazing they could find. They would then either go to the abattoir or back to the farm to calve again. The muck from the midden was sold for a good price. There was always competition from "Railway Milk" but the Cowkeepers milk was always fresh and sold well. At first the dairy would be a shop...just an end terrace with access to a back yard, but they soon started delivering with a horse and float. The family kept their horse delivery round until 1969, but had started buying milk from one of the big dairies in the 1950s. David told us how his father refused to get an electric float as he would have to pay another person to drive it. The horse would move up a street by himself while 2 men did the deliveries, one on each side of the road. A fascinating tale!

[Stanley]

Milk float horses knew the rounds as well as the milkchap Wendy. They would move on to the next stop at a word. Done well, cow-keeping in towns was good but in the worst cases was dangerous. TB was rife in those cattle and was one of the causes of the disease in the general population. The railways and 17 gallon conical kits killed them in the end. Milnthorpe Dairy was still tanking milk out by rail in the 1960s. When I was tanking milk from Marton, we had to go into the railway yard at Doncaster and tip at the point that used to be used for the rail tankers. One thing that's forgotten now is that the iron rail tanks were lined with glass so they could be easily cleaned. We had one glass-lined tank at Marton and they were very good but superseded eventually by stainless steel.

[chinatyke]

One thing that's forgotten now is that the iron rail tanks were lined with glass so they could be easily cleaned. We had one glass-lined tank at Marton and they were very good but superseded eventually by stainless steel.

Was the glass dark blue, the same as is used in some chemical reactors?

[Stanley]

Spot on China! Yes, and I almost mentioned that. All the glass-lined tanks I have seen were done with the same glass. I wonder why that was?

[Tizer]

The railway wagons proclaimed `GLASS LINED' on the sides of milk tankers primarily to prevent them being knocked about by the railway men who were not allowed, for example, to `hump shunt' them. The lining is vitreous enamel but I don't know why it should all be the same colour. The enamel can be various colours depending on the minerals used and cobalt oxide is listed as the blue version. Here are two good web pages on vitreous enamels: LINK 1 LINK 2