One name in Barlick Road Haulage that always intrigued me though I knew nothing about them was Stockbeck Haulage. I have an idea that later Harry Smith was involved. I used to hear about them in Glasgow funnily enough. They evidently had a contract with Rolls Royce and did a lot of work out of the Rolls factory near where I got a lot of work through Jimmy McCall on Clyde Street. They made refrigeration units which were light, couldn't be stacked more that two high and so a flat full was ten tons capacity rate for about three tons total. I have an idea they favoured Guy Motors wagons.
which reminds me.....
A preserved Silentnight Guy Otter delivery wagon. This was one of the most under-powered motors ever built! It had a Gardner 3 cylinder LW series engine that on a good day could poke out 60hp. Not a big disadvantage when carrying mattresses of course but Silentnight had a supplier of the plastic covering for the head boards somewhere near Bacup and if a wagon had been delivering that way they called in and brought some of the heavy rolls back to Barlick. A young, inexperienced driver did this one day and as he was descending from Deerplay Moor into Burnley he realised his brakes were badly overheated so he stopped, found a telephone and rang in to Barlick. A fitter went out and sure enough the brakes were almost burned out. The driver was very upset about it in case he was blamed but the fitter, who had looked in the back and found an enormous load of the plastic, way beyond the capacity of the van, said "Never mind that! What I want to know is how you got up the hill onto the moor from Bacup!" The lad must have been in crawler gear all the way up and it was a bit of a miracle. History doesn't record what happened to him but I'll bet he didn't make that mistake again.