2
£17 6s 3d
Within a couple of months there was an advert in the Stowmarket Chronicle that caught my eye. 'Driver required for local haulage company'. I phoned that same afternoon, and was asked to attend an interview later in the week. The company was George Thorpe Haulage Ltd, Mendlesham, a proper road haulage company.
On Friday afternoon I turned up in my best bib and tucker, and nervously introduced myself to the transport manager, Keith Hammond.
'Very smart young man, but not the sort of clothing we'd advise you to wear if we offer you the position.'
While he was giving me the third degree about my previous driving experience, an older guy walked into the office, and I was introduced to Arthur Tighe, otherwise known as 'Tishy', the foreman.
'Right,' said Mr Hammond, 'when we are done with the formalities, Arthur here is going to take you out on a test drive to make sure you can handle a lorry, and if he's satisfied, we will offer you the job.'
No pressure then!
Inside, the butterflies had got their hobnailed boots on and were giving my stomach a battering, so tightly strung were my nerves.
Tishy took me out into the yard to the Bedford TK that we were going to drive through the country lanes for the next half an hour or so. That was handy; at least I was used to driving TKs, although the coal lorries were smaller than this one. This was a ten-tonner!
Considering the nerves the drive went well and I was offered the job at the princely sum of £17 6s 3d a week, plus overtime. This was good money, and I would be able to save up now. Of course this never happened, but hey, when you're young, the maths seems simple.
This was my first proper truck driving job. George Thorpe Haulage Ltd was based at the Old Station Yard in Mendlesham. He had a mixed fleet of about twenty-five trucks, loosely based on the agricultural industry's requirements, from cattle floats through to sugar beet lorries.
George was the owner. He was a proper old-fashioned boss, and always arrived at the office in a pristine dark green, Jaguar Mk 2. He was short and plump in a suet dumpling sort of way, a bit Toad of Toad Hall, and usually turned up wearing a tweed jacket, shirt and tie. Though kind hearted, and with a benevolent look about him he certainly knew the wood from the trees in transport matters.
I handed in my week's notice at the coal yard the following Monday. I was sorry to be saying goodbye to the gang. We'd become good mates, but I wanted to pursue my career in transport and drive bigger trucks.
A week later I was set to work at Thorpy's. I had two days training in the yard with Tishy and Jim, a sort of deputy foreman, and was shown how to rope and sheet. Tying a 'dolly', or a 'gate',1 in the local vernacular, was a mystery to me, and it took the full two days to get the hang of it, but once I did, nothing I tied on to the truck ever fell off.
Then, on the third day I was off on my own, thrown into the deep end, loading apples from orchards all across East Anglia, and then delivering them to Aldeby Fruit Factory in Norfolk where the hordes of factory girls and their mothers would tease you mercilessly and worse, if they got their hands on you!
This gave me a tremendous grounding in all the basic aspects of haulage: how to stack boxes properly so that the contents didn't get damaged; how to sheet them up to protect them from the rain and not have bits flapping around, and how to rope down a load securely. Within a few weeks I was a seasoned professional and an expert on everything haulage and women!
At the end of the apple season Keith called me into the office and told me I was being moved up to a six-wheeler, an ancient 16 ton Bedford TK with maybe 90 bhp.2 Strangely enough I remember her registration number to this day, 878 MRT. She must have been the first TK off the production line, and was so old and underpowered it was an embarrassment to drive her fully freighted, tractors would overtake me! I don't think I ever got the old dear into top gear, and she only had five!
I distinctly remember my first 'long job', having to deliver a bulk load of fertiliser from Fisons, Ipswich to Fisons, Immingham. By the time I reached Spilsby on the A16 in Lincolnshire, mid afternoon, the poor old girl was getting tired and in need of a rest and took fright at the infamous long steep hill. A quarter of the way up and in second gear she ran out of puff.
Just before we came to a standstill I tried to slip her into first, but so worn were the gear linkages that it wouldn't drop in. When I finally did find first we were at a standstill and she resolutely refused to move as smoke started to pour out from the clutch housing!
Very circumspectly, I let her roll back down the hill, having to stop every few yards to build up the air. When we eventually reached the bottom I stopped for ten minutes or so to build up the courage for another attempt before putting her in first and with the engine complaining bitterly, very slowly crawled up. It was touch and go for her as well as me, and when I finally reached the top I could have done with a change of clothes.
Within two weeks George retired the old girl from active service and I was given a proper six-wheeler, a 24 ton Bedford KM with a lifting rear axle.
'Now make sure you look after this,' said George, walking me round the newly painted vehicle.
I was overjoyed. No longer was I going to be the 'boy', restricted only to East Anglia. I was going to be let loose on the rest of the country.
There was only one thing: I'd have to take a class two test. The winds of change were starting to blow through the haulage industry's cobwebbed history. New legislation was coming into force and new drivers would have to get specific licences for specific types of trucks.
But within three days I was facing the end of my fledgling driving career!
With a screeching noise, my truck had come to a juddering halt. I'd only left the yard at Mendlesham five minutes earlier and was making my way to the A140.
'Oh no! What was that?' It sounded terminal.
I jumped out and checked the dipstick. It smelled of burnt oil and was as dry as the proverbial bone. I'd got a couple of gallons in the cab, so I quickly poured the lot in until it just showed on the bottom of the stick. Then I walked back to a phone box and called the office, telling Keith that the engine had conked out.
Ten minutes later Alan turned up in the firm's mini-van.
'What's up Paul, you haven't buggered her up already have you?'
'Don't know Alan, she just sort of came to a halt.'
'R-righht! Just sort of came to a halt eh?'
With that he jumped into the cab and turned the key. There was nothing.
'Don't tell me you've seized her up,' he laughed, 'what's the oil like?'
'Fine,' I said, 'up to the mark, I checked it this morning.'
With that Alan pulled out the dipstick.
'I thought you checked it this morning. Looks like you checked it five minutes ago and then topped it up. This is fresh oil,' he said, showing me the dipstick.
'You've bloody well seized her up, you pillock, this'll please the old man.'
So Al had to organise towing it home and I had to see the boss Mr Thorpe.
I was young and naïve and even offered to pay for a new engine: I didn't want to lose my job.
'DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH A NEW ENGINE COSTS?' he bellowed. 'It's £466, have you got £466, young man?'
I stood there dumbstruck, unable to move my lips.
He gave me a real bollocking, but like a true gentleman gave me one more chance.
'Don't let me see you back in here again. Do you hear?'
For the next week I was on jankers and had to skivvy around the yard, painting trailers, washing lorries, anything I was told to do as well as being the continuous butt of the fitters' barbs, until the following Monday when Alan told me my truck was repaired and ready to roll.
Hopefully, I had learned my lesson...
Most of George's six-wheelers were by now busy working on Fison's Fertiliser, either bulk or bagged, and I joined them, driving all over the country to various Fison's depots, delivering the fertiliser that was being shipped into Ipswich docks. I well remember my first trip to Leith in Scotland. I couldn't have been more excited at the prospect of me, Ivan Brown and Fred Thompson on a night out in Morpeth with proper truckers.
Often we had to deliver fertiliser to local farms and on one occasion, loading out of Ipswich, I was given two deliveries, eight tons in bags to one farm, and the same to a second farm. I made sure that the first delivery was loaded on the front of my truck and that the second was loaded on the back. Satisfied, I roped and sheeted the load and drove off into the countryside to find my first drop.
Now of course, silly me, hadn't really thought out the logistics when I was loading, and when I got to the first farm I realised that their bags were at the front when they should have been on the back. One was for ease of unloading, and two, I was soon to find out. Still never mind, learning process and all that...
I untied the front of the sheet, pulled it back, and started to unload the fertiliser. When...
