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Doc

Keeper of the Scrolls

2010 Posts
England

Posted - 18/06/2004 : 21:29

THE MARKETS AND THE DEALERS

Our main Scottish markets were Lanark and Ayr. Lanark was the biggest market in south west Scotland. It attracted the dealers from England and those from Aberdeen and Inverness as well. There was great competition for the cattle and usually a good trade. This attracted good cattle and therefore ensured continued interest by the dealers. I’ve already described how Lanark conformed to the usual system of cattle being the responsibility of the vendor until vetted and approved by the buyer but this wasn’t always the case. At one time Lanark used to operate under what is known as ‘farm sale’ conditions. Under this system ownership is transferred on the fall of the auctioneer’s hammer, there are no comebacks even if the beast is found to be faulty.

John Harrison’s Uncle Ralph had a big farm at Dumfries called Fontainebleau and bought a lot of cattle in Lanark. At one period he found he was getting caught with one or two ‘three wheelers’ a week and had no comeback against the vendors because of the terms of sale. He and other dealers had been complaining to the directors of the market for many months but nothing was done about it. Uncle Ralph decided to take his own remedy. At that time he had a man called John McPhail buying cattle for him in the Dumfries area and he instructed him to buy all the three teated cattle he could get. These were all entered for sale at Lanark and sold. Uncle Ralph then went in the office and told the directors that he had changed his mind about the sale conditions and that Lanark must be the best market in Scotland, he had just sold a load of incorrect cattle and got away with it. He would fetch some more the following week! The rules changed within a fortnight and ‘farm sale’ conditions were a thing of the past.

John Harrison drove his own wagon and he was good. His ERF was smaller than XWU and had a smaller engine but he usually had the edge on me on hills. We used to leave Ayr at about the same time on Tuesday and we have had many a tussle on the way down, particularly on Shap. I’d see John coming up behind me and would pull all the stops out to keep him there but he always got me on the climb. Understand that I never hindered him, we always helped the bloke behind to overtake if he had the speed and expected the same treatment ourselves. Driving wagons with a load is entirely different than driving a car. With the wagon you are always driving flat out, or at least you were in those days of what would seem to a modern driver to be seriously under-powered vehicles. A good example of this was the last pull up the north side of Shap Fell which had been widened to three lanes. At this time there were no double lines in the road. If you were coming downhill you always gave precedence to a wagon overtaking coming towards you. John would have the advantage on me here and might be travelling all of one or two miles an hour faster than me. He would start to overtake and it would be touch and go as to whether he got past me before we either hit the narrower road at the top or met something coming down. Many a time I would ease off a fraction to speed his passage because this was a dangerous moment. The problem wasn’t the wagons coming the other way but cars overtaking them. They interpreted our behaviour in their terms and it was always ‘wagons racing’ and not two blokes doing their job as best they could.

Once at the summit we were on equal terms and I used to follow him down and criticise the number of times he used his brakes! A good driver would come off Shap at a fair speed and hardly ever touch the brakes apart from the first drop from the summit which was a killer, I used to be in third gear down here and so did John. There was one point where you could see over the shoulder of the hill into the dip and if nothing was coming you notched up straight into top gear and hit the dip doing sixty miles an hour, this would get you up the next rise nicely and you could coast round the corner past the Leyland clock and down past the Jungle Café. Then into a sharp right hander and if a quick glance through the trees showed nothing coming, cut the corner on the wrong side of the road, foot down and round the long sweeping left hander at forty five all the way. Shap was such an interesting road, modern drivers on the motorway may get there faster but they didn’t have any where near the fun! The left hander I have just mentioned could be a bugger in winter. There was a gulley going away towards the top of the fell and in winter frost would flow down it like a river, I have seen it shot ice there when all the rest of the road was clear. I have to admit to having some interesting moments at times on Shap. I once came down there on a dry evening when it started to hail, I had to slow down because the hail dancing on the road in the headlights completely obscured the view. You couldn’t even see the kerb or the cats eyes.

John once came across me at Cumnock with a cow down, I think it had a touch of slow fever. Whatever, it was riding badly and giving me grief. John stopped, turned round and reversed up to me and took the cow down the country for me as he had plenty of room and could put it in a compartment on its own. Only a small thing but I shall never forget it, a simple act of concern and a helping hand, we all need them at times. On another occasion he got quite worried about me. He told Richard afterwards that his first thought was that I was getting too much road and had gone over the edge. He came round a bend and found my wagon parked in a lay-by and me dancing on the roof. He stopped and found that what I was actually doing was adjusting the wireless aerial on top of the box, I had been up a farm road and caught it on some overhanging branches and reception had suffered!

John had his share of luck one night when he broke down at Abingdon with a hot wheel bearing. He stopped near a farm and went for help, he was thinking of somewhere for his cattle to spend the night. When he got talking to the man it turned out he was a bit of a mechanic. He rooted around in a drawer in the barn and produced a new wheel bearing! He helped John get the old one off, brought out the oxy-acetylene gear and burned of the old race which had welded on to the axle, fitted the new bearing and charged him £15! Better to be born lucky than rich!

The Aberdeen dealers were serious competition in Lanark, they were interested in the same type of cattle as Richard and if there had been a good corn harvest the big farmers up there would have plenty of money to spend so they drove prices up. Richard was no slouch when the competition got hot and would drive on until he was nearing his limit and then indicate disgust and drop out of the bidding. This took some of the heat out and just as everyone had relaxed and the hammer was about to fall he would often pop a late bid in. This very often got the beast, it was all psychology. Another area where we used psychology was if we wanted two or three cows out of a field where there was a bunch of twenty or thirty. We used to go in and quietly split out the ones we wanted with no fuss, not a word said and no shouting. It was all done by getting the cows to do what they thought they wanted to do. I used to enjoy that and so, I think, did Richard.

There were other dealers, Benson from Huddersfield and Paxton from Cheshire. They weren’t really any competition for us, Benson because he didn’t want the quality we were after and Paxton because usually he was buying Cheshire cows, bigger, heavier and with more bag, not our cup of tea at all. In fact Cheshire and the Midlands were the eventual home of a lot of our beasts when they got some age and bag on them.

I used to take a lot of this type of cow down to dealer called Harry Laight, Great Horton Farm, Hampton Lovett near Droitwich. This was a frequent Friday run all the time I was with Richard. If I was doing this I would call in at Beeston Castle on the way back and pick up David’s calves. Harry’s farm was a bit of old England, buried in the backwoods behind Droitwich. In the early days there was no motorway through Birmingham and I used to have to go through Wolverhampton and all the suburbs to get past Birmingham and down on to the A5. I remember setting off one day and there was a thick fog. David left for Beeston shortly after me but turned back, it was so bad on the M6.

This was the day when there was the big pile-up on the Thelwall Viaduct. It was like a war zone and several people were killed. I drew on to the hard shoulder, got out of the wagon and sat on the banking listening to the mayhem, you couldn’t see anything, just hear the sounds. The main thing I remember about it is one big smashing noise followed by a lot of potatoes and a wagon wheel rolling out of the fog! One young driver was killed when he jumped over a fence to get away from the action. Unfortunately it was a long drop the other side on to a road and he broke his neck. I don’t think they found him until much later. We were held up for about an hour, I was lucky, I was near the front of the smash and the police wanted us out of the way so they piloted us through. I went quietly down and got into Harry’s yard about two hours late and with eyes like chapel hat pegs. He was surprised to see me but very pleased because he needed the cattle. After we had tipped them he gave me a pound note. Every trip I made after that he gave me a pound! This went on for a couple of years and in the end I told him that I was a bit worried, I was expecting the pound every time I went into his yard. He considered this for a moment and then agreed, he could see the problem. He never gave me a tip again! I know it sounds daft but I liked that and I think I went up in his estimation. Even so, that pound was nice……..

I was on my way back to Marton empty one day returning from a trip to Harry Laight’s. Just before I got to the Trentham turn off on the M6 I noticed that the car which had overtaken me was heading straight towards the back of a Triumph Herald in front of me that was tramming on quietly at about 50mph in the slow lane. The driver of the overtaking car must have been asleep but at the last second swerved out into the middle lane. As he did, he caught the off-side back end of the Triumph and it swerved left on to the bank, rolled over and finished up on the hard shoulder upside down. By the time this was happening I was already braking leaving rubber all the way. I was out of the cab before it had stopped and I ran up to the Triumph. The lady was in shock and couldn’t move because her safety belt was holding her. There was a strong smell of petrol so I kicked the windscreen in, cut the seat belt with my knife and dragged her out. I got her up on to the bank and wrapped her in a blanket. She was shaking like a leaf so I sat there cuddling her as I was sure someone else would have called the police.

Very quickly the police arrived followed by the fire brigade. The car hadn’t burned so they hosed the petrol away and started to clear up. The lady clung to me until the ambulance came, we got her on board and away to hospital and I told the police what had happened. The bloke who had caused it all was there and admitted he had been dozing at the wheel so there was an open and shut case. The bobbies took my name and address and I went on my way. Later, Vera got a letter from the lady, Anne MacDougall, she said some nice things about me and I know that Vera kept that letter for years. Anne and I have exchanged Christmas Cards every year since and I saw her once when she came to my fiftieth birthday party. When she walked in the house that day we just looked at each other and burst into tears. Anne is still alive and well although she is waiting to have a heart by-pass operation at the moment, I hope she gets it soon and has many more years, she became a part of my life when that bloke ran into her. Funny what the road drops in your lap isn’t it.

This is probably as good a place as any for another car overturning story. When I first started for Richard my first week was solid Scotland trips and two Seascales. At that time the road to Seascale hadn’t been modernised at all and was terrible as far as carrying cattle was concerned. On my second trip up there John Henry had a day off and came with me for the trip. We were going along a particularly winding and undulating piece of road when we were overtaken by a car with four people in it. They vanished over a blind summit and we heard a crash. When we crested the rise we saw the car on it’s side and a bloke climbing out of a window. I pulled up and we went to see if we could help. There was petrol all over the road and the bloke who had got out first was in the act of lighting a cigarette, to steady his nerves no doubt. I grabbed it off him and pointed out that this wasn’t necessarily the best idea he had ever had. When we looked at the car there was one person still in it in the back seat, she was a fat lady and if she’d been a sheep you’d say she was rigged, she couldn’t move. It was obvious we couldn’t get her out through the door, we would never have lifted her so I did my clog trick and kicked the windscreen in, we dragged her out to the accompaniment of the bloke who had been driving screaming at us and saying he’d have me prosecuted for criminal damage! A police car happened to come by and they rapidly took charge of the situation. I told them what I had done and the bobby said “You did exactly the right thing. Get back in your vehicle and bugger off, we’ll look after this lot!” So John and I went on our way. I couldn’t help reflecting that some people aren’t really fit to push a barrow never mind drive a car.

Mention of sheep being rigged reminds me that one of the great advantages of the driving position in a wagon is that you are high up and have a much better view, not only of the road, but the surrounding countryside as well. I was once going up to Hawick via Eskdalemuir, the birthplace of one of my heroes by the way, Thomas Telford, builder of so many of the roads I travelled. As I was going along I noticed a ewe just over the wall rigged between two stones. When a ewe is heavy in lamb they can become very ungainly and if they should lose their footing and land in an awkward position they are trapped on their back and soon die. This can happen if they get caught in brambles as well. I stopped the wagon, popped over the wall and rolled her over, after a minute or so she got unsteadily to her feet and started grazing straight away. A small act which nobody ever knew about but it did wonders for me.

Another circumstance where the view could help was first thing in the morning if you saw a car off the road. I always used to stop to have a look as many a time this could have happened late at night and the driver could still be in there. I never found one thank God but it was always as well to have a look. There is one story about one of Wild’s drivers who did this, found a stiff and swapped boots with him because his were better. He said he wouldn’t be needing them again!

Time we got back to Lanark. I used to love to watch the auctioneer working in the main cattle sale. He dominated the ring and sold cattle far faster than they would be dealt with down south. If he thought the atmosphere was getting noisy he would say so and all the bidders would stop chattering and get on with the job! They were impressive men and couldn’t do their job properly if they couldn’t dominate the ring.

Tom Bell (TCB) was a big local dealer. He had two sons, Archie and Crawford. He kept racehorses, one was called Clyde Bridge and one called TCB. He had started as a cattle drover and worked his way up to being a seriously wealthy man. I think he was going off the boil a bit when I started for Richard. I got the idea the glory days were over and I wasn’t all that impressed with his sons. I remember one day I was stood at the ringside below Richard watching the sale and TCB offered me a job in full hearing of Richard! I turned round and told him that it wouldn’t be a good idea as no man could serve two masters. This seemed to tickle him and he dropped the subject but I have an idea he was serious. A good bible quotation can come in useful sometimes but I doubt if the Elders of Wycliffe Sunday School ever imagined this was how I would use the knowledge they drummed into me!

The staff at Lanark were good. There was a bloke on the bank who drew the cattle and he was always known as ‘Chow’, I think it was because he used to chew tobacco. He kept me up to speed with all the gossip and surprised me one day when he told me that one of the biggest dealers at the market, a bloke from Seascale who we used to sell cattle to occasionally, wasn’t allowed to take cattle off the bank without written authorisation from one of the directors. He was evidently into the market for so much that he had to pay so much of his debt off each week or he wasn’t allowed to load. It was a shock to realise that some of these big men in the ring were actually sailing very close to the wind. I never had any bother, I could draw my own cattle if I wanted, nobody was worried about Drinkalls not paying, it was a nice feeling. Richard once told me a story about a dealer who went to Annan market for over fifty years. One day the auctioneers stopped the sale and made him a presentation of a gold watch. Shortly afterwards he died owing the auction many thousands of pounds! As my father used to say, the worst thing in the world to weigh up is another man’s finances

Chow gave me another surprise one day. Cattle were very thin on the ground and I hadn’t seen Richard buy a beast. I had been nagging him to let me go home empty, I could see an early night in prospect but he wouldn’t let me go. I was hanging about on the dock when Chow came out and told me to back in and get ready for my load. I thought he was pulling my leg until he opened the door. About forty black Shetland ponies came bounding out, they were a picture, every one was a Thelwell horse! My face must have been a picture but I loaded them and Richard told me to take them to Marton and put them in a field there. I asked him what he was playing at and he said he wanted to see the kids faces when they got up the following day. We had them for about ten days and people were coming from all over to look at them. He sold them on and they went, I have little doubt they paid the expenses for that day!

I used to see a bloke at Lanark who fascinated me, his name was Jack Adams and he drove for a firm from Yatton near Bristol. One of the reasons why I remember him is because it was Yatton which had the terrible tragedy when just about every woman in the village was killed in an air crash whilst on a shopping trip to France. Jack was third generation droving stock and had the biggest cattle wagon on the road at that time, a two decker articulated box. His firm ran Leyland wagons and he usually had a good tractor, a Beaver with the 680 engine and an automatic box. At one point he had one of the new Leyland gas turbine tractors on test but he said it was useless. He spent all his life on the road and had a sleeper cab.

As I say, Jack fascinated me. I noticed one day that he had unbuttoned the cuffs of his jacket sleeves and rolled them up while he vetted his cattle. I mentioned this to him and he said that he always had his jackets made this way! I had never seen anything but dummy buttons. Another thing that intrigued me was the fact that he always had a woman in the cab with him. One day he turned up with this little cracker who couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. I asked Jack what the attraction was with a sixty year old bloke like him. “You’d better ask her” was all he’d say. So I did, she told me she was on the game in Bristol and every now and again she liked to go of for a week or two with Jack. I asked her why and she said she got fed up with tricks who used her and didn’t last more than ten minutes if she was lucky, she reckoned Jack was always good for at least half an hour! Basic I’ll admit but you have to allow she probably had a point!

We had contacts with dealers in other parts of the country as well as Scotland. There was Harry Laight at Droitwich for instance. Occasionally we would have flirtations with others but for one reason or another they didn’t stay the course. I delivered quite a few cattle to Ponteland at one time and there was the occasional foray into the south. I remember having a completely one-off during 1971, I took some stirks to Medmenham between Henley on Thames and Marlow and some Jerseys to Amersham near Rickmansworth. I mean, Richard selling Jerseys? I don’t think they ever did him any good, he said afterwards that he’d never do it again. I remember I was an object of curiosity at both places because of my clogs, you’d have thought I’d just landed from the moon. They brought the kids out to look at them at the second drop!

We had a long term relationship with a Welsh dealer called Trefor Roberts. Occasionally we would go down to one of the Welsh markets if there was a shortage of scotch heifers. The better end of the Welsh heifers weren’t bad at all, a bit lighter build perhaps but good black and white heifers nonetheless. Richard first met Trefor in Mold when he went to buy and just happened to be standing next to him. Trefor was very helpful, especially with the Welsh language as many of the farmers spoke only Welsh and used the fact to gain an advantage over strangers. Once they had met a relationship grew up. I remember us once going to Ruthin Market for cattle and the Welsh dealers had made up their minds that they were going to shut Richard out, he was seen as competition and would push prices up. Richard went in the ring and Trefor was over the other side. Richard never made a bid all day and when I backed the wagon into the dock the Welsh bloke on the bank told me I was wasting my time, I had no cattle to come. You should have seen his face when I loaded 14 nice friesian heifers! Richard had been bidding all right, he had an arrangement with Trefor that as long as he had his fag in his mouth he was bidding and Trefor did the business. I can’t remember us ever going back there! Richard told me some time ago that Trefor was dead, he committed suicide. I was sorry to hear it because even though I have a natural antipathy towards the Welsh as a race I liked Trefor a lot and he always treated me with respect.

Before we leave the dealers we must have a look at the calf trade and the men who traded in them. We dealt in calves ourselves, David and Keith were the calf men. Our calves were mostly good friesian heifer calves which we had bought of our heifer customers and as they were almost all out of cattle which had passed through Richard’s hands we knew their quality. Keith used to buy some rearing calves at Bingley and David did the same at Beeston Castle, these were the ones I often picked up on my way back from Harry Laight’s or further down the country. I know I’m a bugger for diversions but there is a Beeston story you’ve got to hear before we go any further.

In the yard at Beeston there was a wooden café presided over by a lady called Betty who reminded me in many ways of my mother. I was getting a cup of tea and a butty one day and I happened to say to her that I would have liked to have seen her when she was eighteen years old. At this time she must have been pushing seventy but had a lovely complexion and it was obvious to me anyway that she had been a beauty in her youth. She laughed and passed it off but next time I was in she showed me a picture of herself when she was in her twenties. She had a cloche hat on, flat chest and a bum-freezer skirt and she was a stunner. We were stood there looking at it and she told me that they were a wild bunch, “The kids nowadays think they’ve invented sex but by God if they could have seen us then….” She was right of course, every generation has to discover everything anew and they all think they’ve invented it. Ah well, back to the calves.

There were two other classes of young cattle, stirks for rearing and bobby calves. Stirks were young heifers and bulls, often bullocks, they had been castrated as they were unfit to breed from and would go for beef. These were bought in the south and taken north for rearing as a rule. There were of course rearers in the midlands and south but their calves were local or brought up from the West Country. The thing that never happened was stirks moving south from Scotland in quantity. I was in Bingley one day and a large wagon came in and tipped a load of stirks for sale that day. The wagon was a Scottish one and I couldn’t understand what was going on. I asked Richard about it later and he was pleased I had picked up that something was wrong. He said it was hard to be sure but it looked as though this dealer, who had sprung from nowhere, was ‘flying a kite’. Richard reckoned that what he was doing was buying and selling a lot of cattle. He either had a stake to get him going or he had managed to buy on credit somewhere. The trick was to be buying and selling in more than one market at each end of the pipeline. If the buying days and selling days alternated so much the better. He would buy a load of cattle and ship them down the country, make a quick sale, not necessarily in profit and use the proceeds either to buy or to settle his account at the next Scottish market he bought at.

After a month or two at this he would be an established dealer and remember that the markets at both ends were satisfied with the quantity because they got commission on every beast that was passed through the market. If the quantities were large enough it made sense to give the dealer some rope. The sting came when the dealer reached the point where he wasn’t getting enough to keep the kite flying but was up into large quantities. This was the time to renege at all the markets where he owed money, declare bankruptcy and claim no assets. We weren’t sure that this was what was going on but as Richard said, when the cattle start moving against the tide there is something wrong somewhere.

The bobby calf trade was an entirely different kettle of fish. I’ve touched on it before but it’s time we had a closer look at it. If there was one aspect of the cattle trade that disturbed me it was trading in calves only a few days old. Officially, you weren’t allowed to present a calf for sale if it’s navel was still wet, in other words, under a day or two old but we often saw them being sold in this condition. These calves were virtually condemned to death as soon as they were taken from their mother because they hadn’t had enough time on ‘beast milk’, the first milk the cow gives which is loaded with natural anti-bodies and nutrients, to give them a proper start in life. This didn’t matter because their destination was slaughter anyway. In those days they ended up with the big canning firms like Heinz and Crosse and Blackwell where they were slaughtered and rendered down for stock for baby and geriatric foods.

There was a coterie of dealers who specialised in this trade and they could be seen at Ayr and Lanark gathered in the ring in a solid bunch for the ‘killing calf’ sale which was immediately after the rearers had been sold. The calves would be pushed between their legs and they would bid for them. To an unenlightened observer this could be seen as market forces at play but in effect it was anything but a ‘market’, it was a ‘ring’. None of the dealers would pay much because there was no competition, they took turns to bid for the calves. After the sale they would gather and reckon up the average price of the calves and split them up between them, in this way they kept the prices low and gave themselves more profit when they sold them on. Everybody knew about this but it was very hard to prove, even harder to stop and basically nobody was very interested because the animals were throw-away items anyway.

On the way up to Lanark one day, David told me to keep an eye on the killers if I had a chance because there was going to be a bit of an upset. In the course of his Cheshire dealings he had come across a bloke called John Denson who had seen an advertisement in the Farmer’s Weekly for a man to buy calves on commission. He almost ignored the advert because he knew it was a license to print money and was sure that there would be hundreds of applicants. The deal was that someone was wanted to go into the market and buy calves and for every pound he spent he would get a shilling commission. These might not have been the exact figures but you can see the idea. Eventually he decided he might as well apply as he had nothing better to do and to his amazement, got the job, he was the only qualified applicant!

The firm who had put the advert in was one of the major food manufacturers. They had a problem which was that their supply of calves had dried up because other manufacturers had penetrated the ring and persuaded them to sell to them exclusively. The calves were an essential part of the process so they had to be obtained and if it meant investing money to break the ring, so be it.

On this particular Monday, John Denson was starting the campaign in Lanark and as far as we knew, nobody knew he was going to be there. David and I lurked at the back of the ring as the dealers took up their customary places in the ring. David pointed a bloke out to me, he was sitting on the rail of the ring with a fag in his mouth, he wore a ratting hat, a tweed jacket, a tattersall check shirt and I remember he had a tie-pin with a fox on it.

The first calf was pushed into the forest of legs in the middle of the ring and went to say five bob, the auctioneer didn’t waste time and was just going to knock it down when a bid of ten bob came from the back, John had struck the first blow. You could see all the shoulders in the ring hunch and then everyone turned to see where the bid had come from. As it was an unheard of price, the auctioneer dropped the hammer and it was Denson 1, Dealers 0. The next calf came in and the same price and result. After a couple more calves it became clear that the dealers were getting their act together. They drove the price of the calf up to thirty shillings but John still took it. They had another stab with the next one but when it got to three pounds, John let them have it. At this point he had taken every calf bar one and the price that had been paid for this one would have bought eight average calves a week earlier. The sale went on like this, John paid up to five pounds for a calf and dropped the dealers in for some at very nearly this price. As far as the dealers were concerned this was a disaster and they had no idea who the opposition was.

The word had soon got round and farmers were coming down into the calf section to see the miracle that was taking place. Men who had ten calves in the sale and would have been delighted with fifty bob were seeing their animals sold for nearer fifty quid! It was drinks all round time. Remember that the market was doing OK as well. If the price of calves rose 1000% so did their commission! The only people who weren’t happy were the dealers.

Next day at Ayr the same thing happened but this time the calves were better. Farmers soon twigged what was happening and rearing calves were being sold as killers because they would make more money. By the end of the week John’s firm had a good supply of expensive calves but the opposition had nothing. End of round one. This went on for about three weeks and during the course of events John was threatened with violence but in the end the dealers had to sit down with him and come to an agreement. I don’t know if they knew who was behind it but they didn’t need to. All they could see was that they were up against an opposition that was totally ruthless and would put them out of business unless some agreement was reached. The upshot was that John went back to his quiet life in Cheshire, lessons were learned and the division of available bobby calves went back on to a more equable footing. Our entertainment stopped but it had been instructive and interesting while it lasted!

One of the most active calf dealing families was Ross Brothers from Lochmaben between Dumfries and Lockerbie. Andrew Ross was the main man and I liked him. He was a big, plump, rosy cheeked imp of a man, always laughing and a very sharp dealer. He worked with his brothers and they used to start the week in Taunton Market and work their way up the country. Chippenham was another calling point and there would be others as well but I don’t know them all. If you look at the place names round the Dumfries area you will detect a strong Viking influence and I often thought that there was Viking blood in the Ross family somewhere. They certainly behaved that way, their course up the country was almost a trail of rape and pillage and this happened every week.

Andrew once told me a story which though outlandish was entirely typical. They had been out buying calves one day and were on their way home in the van after a session in the auction bar. At some point they hit a telegraph pole and the top broke off and speared through the top of the van killing a calf. They disentangled themselves and proceeded on their way. Passing a church they noticed a wedding was taking place so they stopped. One of the brothers got out carrying the dead calf. He went across to the wedding group having their picture taken on the church steps and put the calf in the grooms arms as a wedding present! I’ve heard that tale from three sources and think it might be true!

At one point they got into a bit of financial trouble and Alistair Ross did a runner, I think it was to Australia. Andrew carried on but found that the market in Taunton wouldn’t accept his bid, even though it was in pound notes, because the Rosses owed them money. It was fairly obvious they couldn’t do this because Andrew could always get a stooge to bid for him and no auction in the world will ignore a bunch of notes being waved in the auctioneer’s face! The following week Andrew turned up with the piper who usually played outside the blacksmith’s shop at Gretna Green. The piper, in full highland dress preceded Andrew into the market and Andrew addressed the crowd. He told them that he was taking the auction market to the race relations board because they were discriminating against Scotsmen. The auctioneer defended the auction and said that the reason they wouldn’t accept Andrew’s cash bid was because he owed them so much money. Andrew then pointed out a few home truths to the farmers. “Every man comes into this world with a mission and mine is to effect a more equable distribution of wealth between the auction and the farmers. Sure, we owe them money, but remember where that money went, into your pockets!” In the end the auction had to let them bid and they resumed the rape and pillage.

The last time I saw Andrew he was telling me that his wife had signed his pass for one more child. He had seven daughters and wanted a son. David told me later that Andrew had got his wish and was the proud father of a brand new son. He deserved it, if ever there was a loveable rogue it was Andrew Ross. I’m glad I met him, the world needs characters to stop it getting boring!

THE MEN AND THE STORIES

The best thing about the job was the men we dealt with. English farmers are good but I reckon Scotsmen have the edge. They were wonderful men and if there was one thing they respected above all, it was ability. You would hear a man describing another man as ‘an able man’, this was the highest praise they gave. Another thing I liked was that a Scottish farmer was known by the name of his farm and that was what he had carved on his crook or market stick. We had some marvellous customers and I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen to stories about some of them.

Where to start, that’s the question because you can’t grade these men in any sensible way, I think the best thing to do is sort them geographically, we shall start in the east and work our way over to the west coast.

We had an occasional calf customer at Eyemouth above Berwick on the east coast. He used to be the first stop on a regular run that I did so we’ll work through that one. My load up was always calves and the first drop after leaving Demense was at Eyemouth, from there I would head up into the Borders, through Chirnside and Coldstream to Kelso where my main drop was at Lurdenlaw. Jim Baird was the owner and what a farm it was!. The thing I liked about it most was that it had a chimney! All the barn machinery used to be driven by a boiler and steam engine. Jim’s son used to take the wagon to tip the calves and I used to have breakfast with Mrs Baird and Mary, their daughter, if she was up! After breakfast Jim used to take me round his horses, he had one mare that used to nip your shoulder as you went past, I got used to it but Jim would never warn you. One day when I was there I gave Mary a hand to mow the lawns and pulled her leg about it being time she settled down. She told me that she had too many worries but I told her I thought the only worry she had was whether she had enough petrol in the car to get home when she had finished wreaking destruction among the men of the district! I have an idea she specialised in young farmers and vets!

Jim had his own wagon, a Leyland Beaver four wheeler, the only one I ever saw. It had the big engine and I think I could have got along with it! He once met me at six in the morning down at Carlisle to pick a bunch of calves up off me as I headed north for some cattle. About a week later I was talking to one of the police patrols and he was commiserating with the poor old white haired bugger who’s boss had sent him out at God knows what hour in the morning in order to get from Kelso to Carlisle at that time. I told him he had hold of the wrong end of the stick, Jim was the gaffer and far from being poor he owned over 2000 acres of good land and all the stock and machinery that went with it! A lot of these men bought their farms just after the war and the price would be ridiculously low. I have heard of good land being sold for £25 an acre in those times. At the time I was visiting Jim’s farm I should say the price would be well over £1,000 an acre so Jim had what you might call a long pocket!

In May 1970 when I was delivering at Lurdenlaw Jim had a mare that was horsing. He knew I was running empty to Lanark along the Peebles road so he asked me if I would take the mare to George Hunter’s at Horsbrugh Castle just east of Peebles where there was a stallion he wanted her putting to. We loaded her up and away I went. I arrived at Horsbrugh with no problems and I led her out and down the lane to the farm. There was nobody about and so I put her into an empty loose box and set off back up the lane. I hadn’t gone far when I heard a terrible noise coming from the buildings, a horse was screaming and it sounded as though a demolition gang had moved in at the same time. I looked into the box next to the mare and there was the stallion going berserk! He had caught wind of the mare and was screaming with frustration and lashing out at the sleeper wall between the boxes with his hind feet. I decided the best thing was to get the mare out of the box and into the paddock and as I was leading her out a bloke came round the corner and asked me what I was doing. I told him and he said to go ahead and then stand out of the way. He let the stallion out and it went straight for the mare and mounted her. I reckon I must have got her there just at the right time. When the stallion slid off the man grabbed a bunch of nettles and rubbed them under her tail. I asked him why and he said it helped make sure she caught. He told me that I had done just the right thing. You learn something new every day.

In common with my days on the tramp, we always tried to run the wagon loaded or at least, making money, you could hardly call 15 calves a load but the profit from them could pay the expenses. Occasionally we needed to get back quickly or there was no obvious load back so we sometimes invented one. A case in point was a winter trip I made to Lurdenlaw with a load of calves and Jim gave us a box full of straw to bring back. Straw was almost an embarrassment to him, it had to be cleared off the fields to allow cultivation and straw-burning had been made illegal so he had to bale it and cart it off whether he wanted it or not. In our home district there was no arable and straw was a valuable commodity especially in winter when the cattle were inside so it made sense to bring some back. It was a nice load for me, it was clean so the wagon wouldn’t need washing out and it would give no trouble on the way down, I could relax, be a tramp driver again and throw the wagon through the bends! Just for once, I’d been dealt a good hand of cards.

Take note here that we are about to pick up another loose end of thread that has been running through my life but hasn’t surfaced for a while. I love these occurrences when something that just seemed curious or of very little note pops its head up again and eventually triggers off an earthquake. I like the idea of Chaos Theory which states that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the globe sets up a disturbance in the cosmos which can, eventually, trigger a hurricane in another location. A tiny disturbance in the dim and distant past had been vibrating away and I had never noticed it.

I had a swift and uneventful journey home and arrived back at Hey Farm at about five o’clock, just in time for tea with the family. As usual it was served at the table with a white cloth, side plates and plenty to eat. As we ate I noticed that Susan was a bit down and when I asked her what was the matter she burst into tears. I sat her on my lap and coaxed an explanation out of her. It transpired that she was worried because Mrs. Thomas’s rabbits were going to die of cold because they hadn’t got any straw! Maureen Thomas was Susan’s teacher at the time and lived down Gisburn Road with her husband who was head of the Local Education Authority. She had mentioned to the class that she was short of straw for the rabbits and Susan, being used to stock, had come to her own conclusion as to what the result would be! There was snow on the ground but I wrapped Susan in a rug and carried her out to the wagon where I opened up the calf door so she could see what was inside. I promised her that as soon as I had finished my tea I would take the wagon down to Mrs Thomas’s house and make sure that the rabbits were properly bedded down for the night.

After tea I went out and drove down to Maureen’s house. I dragged two bales out of the calf door and took them up the drive and rang the bell at the front door. After a moment the door opened and Maureen stood there. It was quite evident that she had just got out of the bath, she wore a caftan and her hair, which was normally pinned in a bun at the back of her head, was down over her back and shoulders. For a fraction of a second I was transported back to the fireside at Hope Memorial and Miss Hogg’s pigtail and was definitely affected! I told Maureen what I was doing there and she said she’d bedded them down with torn newspaper but was obviously pleased at the thought of someone bothering about the fate of her rabbits. I said I’d bed them down and put the rest of the straw in the shed. She asked me whether I would like a cup of coffee and I said I had to get home and out of my overalls. That was it, I fothered the rabbits and went home but I couldn’t help reflecting that Maureen Thomas, framed in that doorway with her hair down her back was one of the most attractive sights I had seen in a long time! I never strayed with any other woman all the time Vera and I lived with each other but I was definitely under pressure that night! Apart from that I had confirmation of the fact that Miss Hogg had left an indelible thumb print on my psyche all those years ago.

Jim Baird had a son-in -law called Tom Hamilton who farmed Crawford Mains on the side of the A74. I always said it was the loneliest farm in Scotland because the turn in, off the dual carriageway was so dangerous that people avoided it. I lifted cattle regularly from here and they were top class. I remember going there with the wagon and trailer one day and filling up with heifers which we loaded in the snow. I’d had a long day up Scotland and was very happy when I arrived back at Gisburn with them. Richard met me there because we were bedding them down at the auction for the night.

As I drove into the yard I saw Richard get out of his car and smelt a rat immediately, he was carrying a flask and a packet of butties! This looked like a sign that I hadn’t finished my day’s work yet and it was dark all ready. I backed the trailer up to the dock, unhooked and backed the wagon into the dock alongside and we tipped the cattle out and contained them while we sorted them out. Richard explained that he thought he had a customer for some of the beasts and what he wanted me to do was to take him and a box full of beasts down to Bury to see if we could get shut of some. I have an idea he had more cattle about than he was comfortable with, hence the rush. I agreed of course because I had been asked nicely. We had a phone at Hey Farm then and I asked Richard to get a message to Vera to let her know where I was, because of recent events this was quite important but we’ll come to that shortly.

Remember what I said about cattle riding well? This load was a case in point. Not only could cattle ride well but they could come out of the box looking better than they went in! The way this works is this; all cattle differ in temperament. Some are dominant, some subservient and there is a middle range. Riding in the wagon under ideal circumstances, and cold weather was just right for them, levelled them out. The dominant ones are quietened by the experience, the quiet ones wake up because of the novelty and the mid range stay as they are. By the way, another factor at night is that I always drove with the light on in the box, I always felt this helped them. The key to selling a bunch of cattle together, assuming overall good quality which we had, is to have them matched so that they complement each other rather than show each other up. The sixteen we picked out matched perfectly. We bedded the others down while our chosen ones rested on the dock then we loaded up and set off.

I enjoyed having Richard with me, we talked as equals and I know he knew how much I respected his ability. In return, I was quite sure he admired my skills, I was good at my job and I knew it. This wasn’t a matter of arrogance but of fact and I enjoyed the status it gave me both with Richard and with our customers. They knew what the relationship between me and Richard was and treated me accordingly. I doubt if he ever said a wrong word about me. We were soon down at Bury and struck off west to a farm I hadn’t been to before. There was a large concrete yard lit with floodlights and we tipped the cattle out into it. They were a picture and Richard immediately swung into selling mode! Inside ten minutes he had sold the lot and we were off back up the road. Richard was a happy bunny and was in a very good mood. I was pleased but also certain of one thing, there would be no back-hander for me simply because we had done a good deal! Richard paid the wage but no more I had no quarrel with this, he didn’t expect me to share the bad luck so why should he share the good? But a bit extra would have been nice every now and again!

Crawford Mains was unusual, perhaps unique in one another respect. It had it’s own cemetery! At some time, the local church had been near the farm, I don’t know why the village it served had been moved but when I knew the farm there was a ruined church and a beautifully kept graveyard. It always struck me that in Scotland the upkeep of cemeteries was a charge on the local rate and the council kept them tidy, this always struck me as a very civilised practise and one that England would do well to copy.

A bit further up the A74, past the Lanark turn off the road entered some wild country. It was a grass moorland that was only good for sheep and forestry, I think a lot of it belonged to Lord Home of the Hirsel who’s seat was just up the road at Douglas. There was a turn off to the west which eventually brought you out at Sanquar on the Ayr road. A couple of miles down this road was Crawfordjohn, a regular port of call for me and David on a Monday morning. There was a local saying which described the place well; “Into Crawfordjohn, out of the world.” The farm was run by the Wilson brothers, one of whom was married. The main brother was called Willy and to put it mildly, he was a bit fond! We always had a cup of tea and there was plenty of bodily contact on the settle and I got the occasional knee fondle in the early days until Willy realised he was flogging a dead horse so to speak! I once took my friend Colin Barritt in there on a trip up the country but didn’t warn him about Willy! He got the treatment and has never forgotten it! There was always a coal fire burning in the cottage range in the kitchen and the baking was superb. The farm was spotless and one thing that struck me was the old fashioned practice of feeding the cattle in the byre on whole oat sheaves just as they had come from the binder. Harvesting oats with a reaper-binder was still common practice in Scotland as the oats dried well in the shook and didn’t need any fancy machinery to cart and store.

While we are on the A74 we might as well mention Walter Jackson at Lockerbie. He was a regular call on Monday morning and had been buying calves off Drinkalls for years. I remember once running low on diesel as I came down the road from a long trip up to the north but had no money. I had a passenger that day, I can’t remember who it was but he was most impressed when I drew off the main road at Lockerbie on to this side road, stopped at a house on the side of the road, knocked on the door and they gave me £50 when I asked for it. As I got back in the bloke in the cab said “Have you got many calling shops like that?” “Scores” I said, and the nice thing was it was perfectly true!

We’re getting over towards the Ayr side now so I’ll start at the market. If you want a happy life it’s a good idea to treat the people you come into contact with respect. This is true of the customers but also when you are dealing with the staff at the markets. At Ayr, one of my mainstays was Andy Stead and his brother John who had both worked there for years. Andy was a boozer and had a wonderful red-veined face. I used to go to the market pub with him for a drink at lunch time and never lost my sense of shock when I saw Scotsmen spoiling good whisky by pouring lemonade in it! The bottles of lemonade stood on the bar and you helped yourself for free. Andy was a great character and would recite Burns at the drop of a hat. Until you’ve heard Andy reciting the “Address to the Haggis” you’ve never lived! I’d love to be able to say that I heard it at a Burns supper or Tarbolton Show but I’d be a liar. I heard it in the rain in the yard at Ayr Market one day and have never forgotten it. Mind you, from what I’ve heard about Tarbolton Show I wasn’t qualified to be there, when men of Andy’s ilk go out for a good drink they don’t stop until they are paralytic!

One feature of the auction yard at Ayr which was still there in those days was the old loading docks for transferring cattle from the auction to cattle wagons on the railway. This used to be the standard method of shifting cattle long distances and Gisburn had a siding as well. John Harrison has told me that his father and Tommy Wrathall from Skipton used to bring cattle down from Scotland to Earby and Skipton. At Earby, they were unloaded in a siding next to the station and walked straight into the yard of the White House Farm the family home. John says that it was a good service and very fast and reliable. Andy could remember these days and told me how fast they could clear the auction at the end of the day.

Another good friend in Ayr Market was John Reid from Maybole. John was an ex railway man, he had been in a signal box all his life. His hobby which passed the time on in the box was stick dressing, making shepherds crooks with ram’s horn handles and hazel or blackthorn shanks. I used to bring him horns up from Lancashire and he kept my man down there going with hazel shanks. He made me a beautiful crook with a thistle on the handle and carved with the name of my the farm, “The Hey”, just as they do in Scotland. Vera has this now but I have a good stick as well. I was always keeping my eye open for good saplings at the side of the road. We used sticks all the time and our standard was an ash ‘sappy’, this was a straight ash stick cut while young and full of sap. If you held it by the thin end and used it gently they would last until someone pinched it off you. I cut some with a bent root and this became the handle. I once found the perfect market stick with a lovely ninety degree bend handle. I dried it, sanded it and varnished it and gave it to Richard. He had it stolen the same day, somebody else recognised a good sappy when they saw one. I usually had two or three in the cab and used to give them to my mates as I was on my travels.

In Scotland the standard shank for a crook was a hazel cut near running water. Vera’s stick is hazel. However, there is an even better shank but much rarer in the North of England because you seldom find a straight one, this is blackthorn, the hedgerow tree that bears sloes. Vera and I had gone up the dale with Cyril Richardson one day and we called in at a friend of his at Aysgarth who was a stick dresser. While we were in his workshop I spotted a blackthorn shank in the corner, it was the best I have ever seen, straight as a shot and slow grown, you could tell by the number of knobbles down it where side shoots had grown. I homed in on this and asked him what he was going to do with it. He said he had been drying it for five years and was going to use it for a shank in a crook he was entering in the Great Yorkshire Show at Harrogate. I told him that I wanted it when it was finished and would he let me know when I could have it. I then forgot all about it until Christmas two years later when Vera gave it to me as a present. I don’t know whether he ever entered it in a show but it stands in the corner in the front room and still gives me pleasure.

We had a couple of good customers in Coylton just before you got into Ayr. Keith and I would call there and I often delivered during my other trips north for cattle. One was Mr Aitken who didn’t buy many calves but was a good man out of the old school. I called in there once and I had a lousy cold, I can still hear the advice he gave me as we drank tea in the kitchen, “Lie close to a bottle of whisky Stanley!” Not bad advice actually but he never did tell me whether I should open the bottle or not!

The other customer was Gavin Young who had the cleanest farm in Scotland bar none. I never saw a thing out of place at his farm and his buildings were spotless. They even scrubbed and disinfected the roof beams and the boarding under the roof! Perhaps this is one of the reasons why he was so successful at calf rearing. He bought about 200 a year off us and they were never the top quality, he preferred middling calves, he said he could put the quality on if they were half decent. I doubt if he lost one calf a year and anyone who has ever dabbled in the game will know just how high a level of stockmanship that is.

There was another man I always remember, he was called Mr Brown and bought the occasional calf off us in the market. I don’t know a lot about him but he always had on the most magnificent, highly polished brown boots. They looked like a couple of conkers straight out of the shell!

A regular customer in Ayr was John McKellar who lived with his sister out near the coast on the Girvan road at a farm which had a Gaelic name that sounded like Muckyduck. I’m sure it isn’t spelt like that but that’s how it is pronounced. Almost every week he bought two best heifer calves from us, they were always specially selected for him and kept in the wagon until he came. He paid top price and got the best.

I always helped him to bag them up and very often he would go for a bit of lunch first and take me with him. One day, he told me an incredible story but, knowing John, I’m prepared to bet that every word was true. One day he got a letter from the Supervisor of the British Rail sidings at Port Alexander, north west of Glasgow, asking him if he would contact the yard and make an appointment to discuss what they were going to do with his train load of steel! John rang the man and asked him what was going on, he pointed out that he was a farmer near Ayr and knew nothing about wagons full of steel, were they sure they had the right man? The BR person said that they were absolutely certain, they had done a lot of research. He reminded John that a relation of his had owned and operated a steel fabrication company in Glasgow during the war and as the last surviving relative, he was responsible for the offending train. John agreed to go to Port Alexander and meet the man.

When he arrived at the yard he was taken over to the far side where there was a very large string of wagons parked. It was obvious they had been there for a long while because there were young trees growing round it, John said they finally agreed it had been sat there for 27 years! He was shown one of the original consignment notes that were clipped to each wagon to direct railway staff as to how to dispose of the consignment at each stage of the journey and it had his relation’s firm’s name on it. He gathered that BR were slightly embarrassed about the train and the length of time it had been there. They were about to develop part of the yard for other purposes and the easiest way out of their predicament was to find the legal owner of the consignment and unload the whole problem on to them. John had become spot ball!

John took a copy of the consignment note and went away to seek advice. His solicitor investigated the matter and eventually came up with what seemed to be an explanation. Closer examination of the consignment note had given some clues. The wagons were carrying strips of perforated metal that were used in the Western Desert during the African campaign for making temporary landing strips in the desert. There was a consignment number on the note which identified the customer as the Ministry of Supply and the reason why the wagons were at Port Alexander was because someone had put this on the notes instead of Port of Alexandria which was, of course, in Egypt! Once the wagons arrived in the siding, as far as the old London, Midland and Scottish Railways was concerned, they were at their destination!

Several legal problems now presented themselves, the LMSR was defunct having been amalgamated into British Railways when rail was nationalised after the war so BR was deeming the owner of the steel to be the owner of the wagons also. The Ministry of Supply was long defunct but a search of the records revealed that the consignment was officially listed as being ‘Lost at Sea due to Enemy Action’, a ploy no doubt used to account for the absence of the consignment, and Her Majesty’s Government had no interest in the matter. The legal advice was that John was perfectly safe in law to accept ownership and scrap the lot! He got quotations for the removal, picked a firm and they came in and scrapped the lot and paid out! John never said what happened to the money but I got the impression that he wasn’t the only family member left so someone somewhere had a windfall.

While we are on the subject of funny bits of paper, we had a customer at Allerton near Bradford, Bob Morphet. I was in his kitchen having a cup of tea one day after delivering some cattle and I noticed a framed document on the wall that looked like a summons. I asked Bob about it and he told me that he once had an interest in a demolition firm which had a contract with British Rail for demolishing several redundant railway stations. They fulfilled the contract and were paid out and Bob forgot all about it. A couple of years later, he got a call from a man at BR who made rather a strange request! If Bob was assured in writing that the result of the court case would be an Absolute Discharge, would he allow BR to prosecute him for stealing a railway station!

What had happened was that the arm of BR which had responsibility for selling surplus property had taken a client to view the redundant station at Heckmondwyke. When they got there they had a bit of a shock, it was missing! Investigation showed that BR had made a mistake when they gave Bob the list of stations to demolish and had mistakenly included Heckmondwyke. They consequently had a hole in their inventory and the legal eagles had decided that the most effective way of accounting for the loss of the asset was to prosecute Bob for stealing it, he would of course have a cast iron defence and could not be held responsible but in legal terms, the absence of the station would be accounted for. So this was why Bob had a framed summons on the wall which declared to the world that he had been charged with ‘Feloniously Stealing and Taking Away Heckmondwyke Railway Station’. Life really is stranger than fiction sometimes!

Back to the Scotsmen! We seem to have skipped across to Ayr and missed some good men out so we have to backtrack now to Strathaven, always pronounced ‘Straven’. We had a good customer in Jim Donald at Braehead above Strathaven. He didn’t come into Lanark much and I used to go out to him regularly to lift heifers. I always liked to go to Braehead and usually arrived there at dinnertime. I can’t ever remember going to Jim’s without being fed! He was also a good man for Richard in that he had a relation who worked in a distillery and he kept Richard supplied with Thin Red Line whisky which was good stuff! I went in one day and was sat down at the table straight away, it was scrubbed white and all that was on it was a bowl of salt, a big lump of home made butter and a knife and fork each. Then a big pan of potatoes boiled in their skins was tipped on the table and I was initiated into ‘Skinny Tatties’! It was the first picking of Jim’s favourite potato, the Golden Wonder and if ever anything was appositely named, it was that potato. You spiked a spud on your fork and then peeled it with your knife and thumb, you just lifted a piece of skin and stripped it back just like peeling a banana. Once you had discarded the skin you dipped the spud in the butter and then touched it in the salt and straight into your mouth. That was all we had, a bellyful of the best potatoes I have ever had in my life and to wash them down everyone had a glass of whisky. I can remember looking round the table and there were all ages sat there and I often think when I hear dieticians pontificating as to what we should eat to stay healthy that those people might not have known much about diet but by God they knew what was good for them! Jim also grew Kerr’s Pink which he liked as well but not as much as the Golden Wonder. I’ve often wondered if Golden Wonder crisps were named after this spud.

A bit further over towards Kilmarnock on the road between Galston and the A76 at Cross-roads was Clinchyard , home of Nancy and Hughie Anderson. Hughie was a fiery, good hearted man and Nancy was lovely, they had a daughter who was an imp and every visit there was a joy. I’ve never seen a farm so heavily stocked, it didn’t seem to matter how many cattle you put in the fields, the grass gained on them! Hughie was, and still is, a brilliant farmer and had his own ideas. He took it into his head once that he wanted a South Devon bull so Richard found him one about 9 months old. I picked it up from Demense and had it on its own in a clean wagon bedded up with straw. It was the most beautiful calf you’ve ever seen, its eyelashes were blond and impossibly long. I remember when I got home I brought the girls out to see it. It stayed in the wagon overnight and I took it up the following morning. As so often happens with young stock, all didn’t go well. It got a viral infection and Hughie said that it was only saved because Nancy nursed it night and day. It survived and I went up many years later, I think it would be about 1988 and it was still going strong. Incidentally, so was Nancy she had at least one more child!

I was at Clinchyard sometime in late 1972 with the wagon and trailer. I was filling up with some heifers from Hughie and 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, 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 as I left Clinchyard and by the time I got to Cross-roads and turned down the A76 it was gathering on the road. By the time 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 though 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 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 wagon. The driver of the steel wagon had seen what was going on but by this time was too close to the van to stop, there wouldn’t have been enough room for me. All he could do was put 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 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 his mirror off 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 mirror off to experience!

When I got to New Cumnock the police had closed the road. I pulled up 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! This might surprise you me saying 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.

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 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 more weight you put into pulling 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 but beyond that there will be 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 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. I pulled in and had a word 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!

I had another fast journey time in March 1970 but for a different reason. The clutch hydraulic slave cylinder on XWU failed just as we were getting ready to come out of Lanark. I took over from David and we set off home with no clutch or rather, a permanently engaged clutch. The only way to start off was put it in bottom gear and press the starter, after that you were OK as long as you kept moving and matched up engine speed to gearbox when changing. We got to Demense in 4hrs. and 5 mins an improvement of almost a quarter of an hour on our usual time. It’s amazing how much power a clutch soaks up when you are changing gear. The improvement was down to having no clutch pedal and I never did a better time. Even after I fitted a new slave cylinder the clutch was not right so in the end I fitted a new plate, pressure cover and withdrawal bearing on my Sunday off at home. This was a complete cure.

In 1970 I was involved in a little incident up at Carlisle while on my way back from Scotland on Monday the 21st of June. I don’t think David had been to Lanark that day but somebody was riding with me, I can’t remember who. At this time the M6 was being constructed round Carlisle and there was a big set of road works at the Golden Fleece, just south of the city. The road was covered in mud and it had just had a light shower of rain. There was an army convoy coming in the other direction and as we came up a steep rise and round a right hand corner in the road works I realised that the Land Rover coming in the opposite direction wasn’t going to make it. I was only creeping along and stopped. As he slid across the road and hit my back wheel I let the brake off so I was rolling backwards, this minimised the impact but even so, the Land Rover was a mess. Nobody was hurt and next thing we knew was another Land Rover hurtled up the wrong side of the road and almost ran into the front of me. A young officer, Second Lieutenant Campbell jumped out and ordered me to drive on!

I’m afraid his man management skills were minimal, this was entirely the wrong way to treat me. I got out of the cab and told him that neither I or his bent Land Rover were going anywhere until I had some witnesses and the name of his insurance company as we would be making a claim for any damage caused by his incompetent driver. The bloke behind me had seen it all and gave me his name and address, he was a commercial traveller from Aberdeen. Lt. Campbell was going a funny purple colour and just then the police arrived. They weighed up the situation, had a word with my witness and ordered the officer to give me full details of who they were and all the names involved. The bobby told me that it was useless asking for the name of the insurance company as there wasn’t one! The government didn’t have insurance, they stood it themselves. I was given full details and we got our claim paid in full for a new rear wing, a tyre and one or two other odds and sods.

It strikes me that one of the things which would surprise a modern driver would be the total absence of any paperwork connected with my job. We had no invoices or receipts and most of the time no log book or stock records either! Everything was done by word of mouth and I think I was the only one who wrote everything down! One of the reasons why I can be so precise about so many names dates and places is that I still have my diaries and every beast I ever carried is booked down. I’m not saying the system was perfect, Richard sent me to Halifax one day to pick up a cow. He gave me the wrong name, the wrong farm and sent me on the wrong day. You should have seen his face when I came back with the right cow! I only once got into any sort of trouble over log books. I was tramming down Beattock drag one evening doing well over 70mph when I saw a uniformed figure in the distance step out into the road and raise his hand! I braked as hard as I dared and managed to pull into the lay-by. There was smoke coming out of the brakes and I daren’t put the handbrake on as it could have split the drums as they cooled, I just shoved it in reverse. It was the police sergeant from Beattock who had stopped me and as I came round the front of the wagon he said “Log Book and stock book please driver” I just grinned at him and told him I wasn’t going to waste his time, he had caught a fish! He said something about the fact that I was honest and took my particulars. I got back in and drove off. I never heard a thing about it! To this day I can’t understand what happened. All I can say is that it reminds me of a story which was told about two drivers from Wild’s transport in Barlick. They were pulled up for speeding and the one who was the passenger got quite physical with the bobby to the extent that in the end he said he was going to report them both, and took their particulars. They got back in the cab and drove off and the man who had been driving played hell with his mate for making matters worse, he was sure they would get done. “I don’t think so.” said the passenger “You won’t hear any more about it!” and with that he produced the bobby’s note book which he had picked out of his top pocket!

All the characters and good men weren’t in Scotland, we had plenty of home grown ones! One of my favourite trips out was up to Halifax, we had a bunch of customers in the Ripponden, Stainland area. Smithie Brothers always fascinated me, they farmed together and were a typical close-knit Yorkshire farming family. If you were in you were in but if you fell out with one you fell out with the lot. I always got on well with them and used to suit them by always backing into the yard for either unloading or lifting cattle. They said I was the only wagon of that size who ever attempted it! I was struck by how clean their cows lay in winter in the byre and asked Jim Smithie once how he managed it. His reply was short and to the point; “Keep their muck stiff Stanley!”

They had a famous neighbour at Stainland Hall, Lord Joseph Kagan of Gannex fame. He was a mate of Harold Wilson the Prime Minister and thought himself no end of a man. The Smithie Brothers had rented some of the Stainland Hall land for years and in the end made Kagan an offer for it. He mucked them about for months and one night Jim and Roy decided they had had enough. They marched down to the hall, went straight in through the front door and into the dining room where a smart dinner party was going on. In no uncertain terms they told Lord Kagan what they thought about him and where he could shove his land! With that they walked out and forgot it until, about a fortnight later, they got a message to say that their offer was accepted and the land was theirs. This method of dealing with matters was entirely typical of them, they went straight to the point. They always had a bad name for Kagan, they said he was a wrong ‘un and of course in the end they were proved right and Kagan was gaoled.

Another favourite was Joe Jagger and his wife at Royd Farm, Ripponden. Joe was a big bluff bull of a man and had a defective volume control, he could only shout! He and his wife used to hold conversations across the yard at the tops of their voices and it was a pantomime. Joe was no mug, he had a gritting contract with the local council and a small milk round as well I think. When the surveyors were laying out the line of the M62 across Rocking Stones they had a big problem. The moor was so rough and boggy that the only way they could get about efficiently was with a helicopter. This was, of course, costing a lot of money. Joe got to hear about this in the pub one night and said he could solve their problem at much less cost. He fitted them out with ponies and sledges, the method that local farmers had been using for transport on the moor and steep slopes for at least a thousand years. It solved most of the problems and I’m sure Joe made a bob or two out of it.

I called in one day to pick up a jersey cow which was Mrs Jagger’s favourite. She kept telling me how beautiful its eyes were and what a lovely milker it was, funny thing is that it died on the next owner! I have this theory that cattle which have been kept by women always pine when they leave them. Not scientific I know but I’ve see it happen too many times.

This particular day it was my last stop and I was feeling a bit peckish. Joe asked me if I wanted a pork butty and a pot of tea and this seemed like a good idea so we went in the house. Now everyone has a different idea of what constitutes an acceptable level of tidiness in a house. On a scale of one to ten, Joe and his wife would be at about three! Everything needed to support human life was on the table, including the milk and butter and a parrot in a cage. There was an enormous rolltop desk which had about three secret compartments in it, I know because Joe showed me all of them! Joe grabbed a balm cake and ripped it in half, then he got hold of the meat and tore a piece off it with his hands, I should mention that they were covered in cow shit! He slapped the meat between the two halves of the balm cake and gave it me. Just at this moment Mrs Jagger came in with my pint of tea and asked Joe if he’d offered me any stuffing. I said I’d like some so Joe opened my butty up, grabbed a jug off the table and poured some liquid stuffing on like sauce! I have to report it was one of the best pork butties I have ever had!

We sat there drinking tea and Joe asked me if I wanted to buy a parrot. As a matter of fact I’d have loved a parrot but Vera couldn’t stand birds, she had a phobia about them. One once got into the bedroom after I had gone to work and she waited until Fred Smith the milkman came and got him to come upstairs and get the bird out of the room before she’d get up. I hasten to add she wasn’t frightened of anything else as far as I know, not even me! She used to say I was like an orange, thick-skinned on the outside and soft in the centre! Be that as it may, Joe wasn’t taking no for an answer and he took the parrot out of the cage and put it on my shoulder. He said I could have it for thirty bob and the cage thrown in. This was suspiciously cheap but I was enjoying the parrot rubbing up against my ear and muttering to me ‘Eh, th’art a grand ‘un.” and then it bit my ear! I shot out of my chair with blood streaming down my neck, the parrot took off and Joe shouted to me to block the fireplace or it would go up the chimney. The parrot was zooming round the kitchen knocking ornaments off the mantelpiece and the top of the desk. At this moment Mrs Jagger returned and gave Joe the biggest tongue lashing I’ve ever seen anyone hand out. It turned out that the parrot belonged to his son and was known to be vicious, Joe got a kick out of seeing it bite people! It took us ten minutes to catch it and get it back in the cage and Mrs Jagger calmed down a bit.

Joe was friendly with the Smithie brothers and they would occasionally declare a holiday, they called it ‘Having a set-off’. They would wash, shave and change and go somewhere for the day. I suppose it was some sort of demonstration of independence. They had the power to decide what they did within the framework of looking after the stock and milking. It pleased them to exercise this power whenever they felt like it.

Further along the road towards Outlane was William Wheelwright’s farm. They were big retailers and quite autocratic but good customers of Drinkalls. They bought the best heifers and I think we took most of their cows.

Over towards Blackburn we had one customer in particular who sticks in my mind, Hargreaves Haworth and his wife Minnie at Fernhurst Farm. Hargy was a wonderful man. He was a small vigorous white haired bloke who had a genius for getting casualty cows on the road again. If we had a beast that was low in condition due to some ailment it had had or accident in calving, I would take them across the Hargy and he would keep them until they were back on form. He didn’t pay for them, Richard used to give him the difference between what it was worth when it went there and its value when we took it away and if it was a milker, Hargy had the advantage of that. Hargy’s secret was lots of TLC, more different kinds of proven than you could poke a stick at and Karswood Poultry Spice. This was a proprietary supplement which was originally intended to stimulate birds into lay but Hargy reckoned that a scoop full of dried beet pulp with spice on it was the best thing there was to tempt a cow back to eating. His theory was very simple, if you can get a cow to eat it will thrive and put on condition. There’s no doubt about it that it worked! I have taken cows there that staggered off the wagon and three months later they have sold in Gisburn for top prices! Hargy was one of our best assets. Minnie wore a black wig, I don’t know why, I think she just thought it made her look younger. She kept it on a polystyrene head in the kitchen and used to put it on like a hat whenever she went out of the house!

Bill Robertshaw farmed at Summerseat near Bury and was one of the most interesting men I’ve ever met. He had a slightly strange appearance, his head was generally cocked on one side a bit and he wore very thick glasses which gave him a slightly owlish look. As I got to know him I found out that he had been a prisoner of war of the Japanese and had been almost beaten to death on several occasions. He was deaf in one ear, blind in one eye and had various other areas of damage that he never went into. The point was that this bloke was still paying the price for our freedom 30 years after the event. He didn’t complain but apart from losing an eye and an ear I’ll bet he was in physical and mental pain every day of his life. I remember losing my temper with him one day when we were trying to load some cattle and he was a bit slow. I apologised immediately afterwards but feel ashamed to this day for my intemperance. His wife was a lovely lady and they had a son Philip who they thought the world of. I remember us having a conversation once and they told me they gave a certain amount to charity every month and the way they decided how much to give was to work out what would hurt but not deprive them. Yes, there are people like this in the world but you don’t often get to meet them.

I called in one day and they told me that their son had vanished. There had been some sort of upset and he had simply packed his bag and left. Bill and his wife were devastated and couldn’t understand where they had gone wrong. I told them I thought they’d been too soft on him. Anyway, there was nothing I could do about it so I went on my way.

Months later, in March 1972 I took 8 beasts to a new customer, Bob Peate at Thornton Hall, Thornton le Moors near Chester. We unloaded the cattle and then went in the kitchen for a cup of tea and a bun. He was a nice bloke and when I got into the kitchen I was astonished, there was room to ride a motor bike round the table! It was an enormous room, it must have been thirty feet square. Dominating the space at each end of the kitchen were two loudspeaker units as big as fridge freezers! I asked him about them and he played me some music on them, they were fantastic, I’ve never heard bass like that apart from in a church. Anyway, after a bit more music I decided it was time I left and as we went outside I saw a bloke over the other side of the yard who seemed to duck round the corner when he saw me. I told Bob I’d forgotten something and went back into the house. He followed me in and asked me what I’d left. I asked him how long he had employed the young fellow I saw in the yard. I told him that I recognised him and he was causing his parents a lot of grief by not contacting them, it was Philip Robertshaw! Mr Peate promised he’d have a quiet word with him when the time was right, I gave him the Robertshaw’s address and got in the wagon and drove away. I didn’t think I was the right person to approach him but Mr Peate must have done his job well because shortly afterwards I heard that Philip was back home.

This happened much later and in the meantime, back at the farm, there was to be a momentous event. Starting June 4th. 1971 the Graham Family took a holiday and went away to the seaside for the whole fortnight! For a week before we went the weather forecasters were predicting the hottest June in living memory. Vera liked the sound of Ayr so we booked into a nice B&B I knew near the auction, hired a car from Seeds at Colne and set off for the north!

It was the wettest, coldest most miserable fortnight anybody has ever seen! I swear there were icebergs floating down the Clyde! We did our best and I think the kids had a good time but I have a picture of the three of them stood shivering in the water in their swimming costumes. I repeated the picture twenty years later with them stood in the Indian Ocean at Perth, Western Australia but we didn’t even dream this would be possible in those days. It really was bad weather and I still feel cheated, we had saved so long for it.

Shortly after we arrived back there was another notable, but no where near as happy, incident. It was Sunday and the sun was shining, I was lay on the lawn being pestered by the kids and Fly who was acting daft and trying to lick me to death. I reached out and flicked his hindquarters with the back of my hand and broke his leg just below the hip joint! Within seconds we were all in tears. It was a freak incident, I must have just caught him in the wrong place while there was stress on the bone, at least that’s what Mr Clarke said when he arrived after Vera had rung him up. He said it was a bad break and the best thing to do was put him down. I told him no way, he could amputate the leg if he wanted but I wanted Fly around if only to remind me that I didn’t know my own strength. Before this I’d been known to flick one of the girls legs if they were acting up but I never touched them again, I was frightened of hurting them.

Mr Clarke took Fly away and I think he sent him to Edinburgh, whatever, he came back ten days later with a pin in his leg and slowly recovered. He went back later and had the pin taken out and the only way you could see that anything was wrong was when he got up if he’d been lying down, there was a sort of hesitation as he rose. We eventually got the bill, it was for £10-0-0! I have an idea Mr Clark was perhaps letting me claim some green shield stamps back. He treated us well and I for one will never forget him.

The girls of course were growing up now, Margaret was 10, Susan 8 and Janet 6 years old. You couldn’t have asked for happier or more rewarding children. I’m sure Vera would agree with me if I say these were tremendously rewarding times. I was still working far too hard and Vera was working part time as well but we had good reason for living and I don’t think the kids went short of anything. Except perhaps a sunny fortnight at Ayr!

As for the house, we had carpets all the way up the stairs, along the landing and actually round the toilet! Vera and I had always agreed that we’d know we were affluent when we got fitted carpet right through. Mind you, we hadn’t got the kitchen carpeted yet, we were still working on that. We had a black and white TV set and, until Vera got fed up with it and sold it one day while I was out, a ‘cottage’ three piece suit. The ‘cottage’ bit meant it was overgrown beechwood chairs with fitted cushions and was about the cheapest thing you could get!

In 1972 we had some more excitement, the County Council compulsorily purchased the barn and part of the front croft so they could widen the road and alter the gradient. I had to decide whether to ask for a new barn or take the money. Vera and I decided to take the money as we were only playing at farming and the farm wasn’t really big enough for a barn. I arranged for us to retain the stone slates and between June and July the barn was demolished, the road widened and various improvements made like re-grading the top end of the field and new fencing. For reasons which will be apparent shortly, I was at home on August 18th and arranged with the contractor to let me use the big tracked Caterpillar shovel they had on site.

Talk about big boys toys! I was annoyed with the Council because at the top end of the road widening they had left a blank end where the old hedge and bank started and it was ten feet higher than the road. I thought it was an eyesore and very dangerous. On Friday I went up there with the shovel, stripped the top soil, took the bank out and spread it in the field to level it and replaced the topsoil. I spent all day Saturday tracking the field down and harrowing it and on the Sunday I re-seeded it. I often look at that part of the field as I drive past and wonder if anybody ever realises what it could have been. I made a lovely job of the field and probably averted several accidents over the years.

My idea with the slates was to re-roof the whole of Hey Farm. I measured it up and bought all the timber for it and consulted with Billy Entwistle about how I should go about it. He examined the roof and told me I’d be fool to bother with it. All it needed was a few slates replacing and it was good for another fifty years. I took notice of what he said, we replaced the slates and some ridge stones and it stands today as good as Billy said it would. The timber was taking no fault stacked at the back of the house and sheeted up.

As it turned out, August 1972 was to be one of those months where, with hindsight, I would have done well to go and find myself a big hole and crawl into it! It wasn’t going to be all that good for Richard either!

Looking back, the rot set in on August 10 when the starter on HYG jammed in gear, demolished the starter ring and ripped various bits off the bell housing. I can’t remember where it was at the time but I towed it into Gilbraiths at Accrington and left them to deal with it.

We had been having a bit of bother with XWU for a while. It was suffering from a common Leyland disorder at the time. The block of the 401 engine was basically the old 350 block bored out and upgraded and they had reached the limiting factor, they couldn’t get rid of the heat fast enough. XWU had done over 250,000 hard miles and the cylinder head was cracking round the injector holes. We had had one serious rebuild but it still wasn’t right and I told Richard he should bite the bullet and put a service engine in and have a fresh start. The M6 had opened from the top side of Carlisle and we had more motorway running and this wasn’t helping either. We got to the stage where we were having to stop around Carlisle and let her cool down a bit.

On Friday the 11th of August David took it to Beeston and it boiled on him at Cuddington and he had to be towed into Gilbraiths. On Saturday I brought HYG out of Gilbraiths and we used that for Scotland the following week. On Wednesday the 23rd I brought XWU out of Gilbraiths and wanted to take it straight back in it was so noisy, it was obvious it wasn’t right, the following day it dropped two valves into no. 6 cylinder but luckily this happened just as it started and I stopped quickly enough to be lucky and avoid too much damage. Back to Gilbraiths again, this time I raised my voice I’m afraid, the engine was giving us a very clear message but once again, it was decided to repair it. I think Gilbraiths must have been advocating repair because they made more money that way, whatever, they had another crack at it. On Monday, August the 28th. Keith brought XWU out of Accrington ready for Ayr on the Tuesday.

We set off to Ayr and I said straight away that all wasn’t well. I doubted if we’d even get to Ayr. The temperature was OK but there was a nasty knock in the top end. We got to Ayr and eventually I set off back on my own with a load of cattle and a couple of calves on the luton. As I dropped down the slight slope to the Golden Fleece I had the revs. well up to give me a run at the hill beyond and was hammering up at full chat, I dropped half a gear on the axle and at this point everything went pear shaped.

With hindsight I know exactly what the problem was, Gilbraiths had fitted a reconditioned cylinder head which, in common with all reconditioned heads, had been skimmed on a grinder to make sure it was absolutely flat. When you have skimmed a head you should re-cut the valves so they don’t stand proud of the face of the head. Somebody hadn’t done this or hadn’t cut them back enough so every time the piston came up the cylinder it was hitting the valves but only a minute blow. This is never a dead flat blow because the piston has a slight hollow in the top and each time the valve was struck it slightly distorted the valve stem. Eventually one of the valves, usually the exhaust because it is hotter, fails due to fatigue and the head drops in the cylinder. There is no room in the cylinder when the piston is at top dead centre so the piston is instantaneously stopped.

A lot of things happen very quickly now. The piston has stopped but the crankshaft keeps going and something has to give. In my case, the connecting rod broke and smashed through the cast iron block into the camshaft which bent, seized and broke. This brought all the valves to a stop wherever they were and the impact of the pistons on the valves destroyed the valve gear and broke the crankshaft. All I knew was that there was a big bang and all power stopped. I threw the motor into neutral and coated across on to the hard shoulder and into a slip road which was an emergency entrance to the gritting depot on the other side of the road. There I was, neatly parked and well out of the way but with certain pressing problems.

The first and most important was the cattle. They were OK and were standing quietly cudding so no immediate worries. I could have gone for the emergency phone but decided not to. I went and sat on the hard shoulder and waited until something interesting showed up. The first bit of luck was a cattle wagon from Penrith. I waved him down and asked him where he was going. He said he had a load of sheep on for Penrith market and I asked him to come back for me when he had tipped and pick up my cattle and take them and me down to Marton. He said he’d do this and away he went. Shortly afterwards I saw Richard’s new BMW 2500 and waved him down as well. He had just taken delivery of the BMW after a series of Rovers and was pleased as punch with it. I told him where we were at, asked him to inform the police we were all sorted out, the wagon was off the carriageway and we’d get it lifted the following morning. I said I’d come to Marton first and could he wait up for me. All this was agreed, he went off down the country and a couple of hours later the cattle wagon came back for me and my ladies.

In the meantime the police had been to see me. They’d arranged for the staff at the gritting depot to open the locked gate on the slip road so that the other wagon could turn to back on to me. By the time he arrived we were all set up. We transferred the cattle and the calves and I chucked all my belongings into his cab and had a drink out of the flask he had brought back for me and off we went bemoaning the fact that gaffers never listen to drivers when they really ought to. What’s the point in having a dog and when it barks, ignoring it!

We arrived at Marton at about half past midnight and tipped the cows. Richard told me to take his car and go home. At this point I must have lost my presence of mind! The two calves on the luton were accredited and Demense was our accredited premises. If we dropped the calves at Marton we would be breaking the law. I remember saying to Richard that we’d done everything right up to that point, why spoil it. The wagon had to go back past Demense, and I could follow him down, bed the calves up in a loose box and then go home. It only made half an hour difference and everything would be done properly. He agreed, I set off after the wagon, we dropped the calves, he set off back to his bed in Penrith and I set off to mine in Barlick.

Afterwards, I was asked what speed I was doing as I went home. I reckoned it was about 45mph and I’m sure I was right. The radio was playing and I was enjoying driving Richard’s new car which was impressive, dead quiet and smooth as a piece of silk. I was climbing up the hill into Gisburn over the railway bridge when a car hurtled round the right hand bend at the top of the hill completely on the wrong side of the road! I didn’t even think but reacted instinctively. Remember I wasn’t used to driving cars, I hadn’t even got one at the time. I reacted just as I would have done in the wagon which was to avoid hitting the other bloke because if I did I would kill him. I went for the near side verge but must have hit a soft spot which pulled me in and I hit the breast wall. As I said earlier, the police wanted to know how fast I was travelling and when I said 45mph they said it was impossible because I couldn’t have stopped as quickly as I did. I reckon they were wrong, what happened was that the car went over completely in a somersault, slid on its off side down the road and then hit the bank again and finished upright but across the road. I never saw the car afterwards but they tell me every panel was damaged including the boot!

Be that as it may, I finished up sat in the seat of the car, headlights shining on the wall and the radio still playing. I opened the door and climbed out and the first thing I saw was the other car stopped down the road. I could see the driver in silhouette against his headlights. He had got out and was looking back up the road. When he saw me get out, he jumped in his vehicle and drove away. I have a message for him, you didn’t know whether there was anyone else in with me and you didn’t care, you were as pissed as a newt and all you were thinking about was your licence. I hope you have dreamed about it ever since.

I remember thinking that the next thing was to get to the telephone at the top of the hill in Gisburn and at this point I noticed one of the suspension coil springs stood on top of a cats eye in the road. “Hello Zebedee, what are you doing here?” If you don’t understand that you’ve never watched Magic Roundabout! At this point the road came up and hit me. I worked it out that I’d fallen over so I got up to see whether it would happen again, it did. I was becoming aware that my right arm and shoulder weren’t as they ought to be so I decided to stay as close to the floor as I could and started to crawl up the road. I don’t remember a lot about the next period of time, I don’t even know how long it was. I came to at the telephone box and managed to dial 999. I had an interesting conversation with a lady and I was told later that I kept passing out so it was a while before they got me located, I don’t think they had automatic call identification then. Once I was certain the cavalry was on its way I attended to the next pressing matter which was the fact that I wanted to move my bowels, shock had hit me. I apologise to the residents but I managed very nicely in the patch of Michelmas Daisies behind the box. What intrigues me is how I managed to get my trousers undone and back up again afterwards. I didn’t manage it for six weeks afterwards.

I got down in the gutter and made myself comfortable, I lit my pipe and surveyed Gisburn from low level for about twenty minutes. Then there was movement on the station as George Horton and his mate rolled up in the ambulance followed by two bobbies in a car. George’s mate examined me and said “It’s his legs!” I told him there was nowt wrong with my legs, I just had them doubled up because it was comfortable, it was my shoulder and collar bone that was broken. George’s mate would have none of it and he lifted me by my shoulders while George straightened my legs out. I think I passed out then and came to in time to hear George saying “He’s right, it’s his right shoulder!” That sorted out they got me in the ambulance and the bobbies had a word with me. I told them what had happened, where the car was and asked them to contact Richard. We set off for Burnley Victoria Hospital. I swear that George’s mate ran over every manhole and kerb between Gisburn and Burnley! All ambulances should have air suspension not cart springs.

When we got to Burnley a sister had a look at me and strapped my shoulder up. She said that was all they could do and asked me one or two questions. By this time I was coming to and was hurting but all I wanted to do was get home. A doctor came in and had a look at me and decided I was all right. Funny thing was they never X-Rayed me. Then the bobbies came in and wanted to breathalyse me. I had no objection, as I told them I hadn’t had a drink for a month but the sister was incensed, “What if he’s got broken ribs or a punctured lung?” The bobbies weren’t interested and I told the sister I had no pain in my chest so why didn’t we just do it then we could all go home. I blew down the tube, result zero, honour satisfied all round and George and his mate took me home. I remember when they got me in and I saw Vera I just burst into tears and that’s the last I can recall about that evening.

So, there I was, best driver in the world and the averages had got me. You never think it can happen but if it doesn’t, all you can say is you’ve been lucky. A good driver cuts the odds down as far as he or she can but if someone drives straight at you there is no chance. There were a couple of immediate sequels, the police told me they were considering charging me with ‘Driving Without Due Care’, I don’t think they believed there was another car, this was later dropped but I was so angry! The other thing is that the bobby told me I must have a good gaffer because when they told him the car was a write off he said never mind the car, I can get another, how’s Stanley? Thanks Richard.

I got plenty of time at home for once. It was to be two months before I got back behind the wheel and my main task now was to get healed up and mobile again. I went to hospital and I had a broken collar bone, a chipped shoulder socket and a cracked shoulder blade, they said I’d be lucky if I ever got my arm above the shoulder again. I told Fred Smith our milkman this and he said that what I ought to do was put a rope through one of the ham hooks on the beam in the kitchen and use it to pull my arm up over my head! Sounded sensible so I did it, and I have to report it was painful! The consultant at the fracture clinic was delighted with my progress. He asked me how I had done it and when I told him he said if he made patients do that he’d be struck off.

Vera was a good nurse but hard. I couldn’t manage the buttons on my trousers and she used to make me wait for her to button me up when I’d had a pee! The kids thought it was great, they had daddy at home all the time. I did a lot of reading and really only one thing stands out in my mind about the time. I was sat in the kitchen one day and Susan came in crying. This was nothing fresh, Susan used crying as a safety valve and used to have weep many a time. I cuddled her too me and in the end persuaded her to tell me what was wrong. “I’ve set fire to the curtains in your bedroom.” Deathly hush while this sank in and then a rush up the stairs to see what could be saved. One of the curtains was half burnt, the plastic curtain rail was drooping and there was a black mark on the ceiling. But no fire! Years after I found that Janet had put it out with a jug of water but at the time it was a mystery.

As I said, at this time I did a lot of reading and thinking and I came to one or two conclusions. For years I had been convinced that I would die when I was 42. Don’t ask me where that one came from but I had the idea in my head. I knew I wouldn’t want to be driving much longer and made up my mind that I would be off the road by my 40th. birthday. Four years to go!

There had been big changes in the cattle industry as well. We had managed well enough through the foot and mouth epidemic of 1968 but we now had to contend with the scheme to eradicate brucellosis in cattle. This disease is contagious abortion in cattle but in humans it used to be called undulating fever. It’s almost like flu and is very debilitating. At one time it was recognised as the occupational disease of vets and I caught it off raw milk while working for the dairy. Once you get it it stays with you for life. All cattle were to be tested for the disease and any that were free and kept on designated farms with proper precautions against infection like double fencing were called accredited cattle and had to be kept separate from non-accredited ones.

For years I had been a fan of the four wheeled trailer. It went out of fashion in this country largely due to the archaic regulations which stated that there had to be a mechanical connection to the trailer brake and a trailer brake man as well as a driver. I think this regulation was changed in the 1968 Transport Act, modern air brake systems made it unnecessary. It struck me that a wagon and trailer would be ideal for our job, accredited cattle in one box and non-accredited in the other. I’d talked about this to Richard and he came round to the idea. I have an idea he mentioned it to John Harrison as well because he was actually the first to do it to my knowledge. John bought a Scania wagon in late 1971 and by late 1972 or early 1973 had a single wheeled Dyson trailer on which he mounted the Jennings box off his old ERF. It did the job but always looked like a pup dragging along behind. The roof line was wrong and it looked as though it was cocked up at the front. Sorry John!

Richard asked me to do some research into it while I was ill and I roped John Harrison in as well. I recommended two wagons, an ERF with Gardner engine, David Brown box and an Eaton back axle or a Volvo F88 four wheeler. John found a demonstration drawbar F88 for sale at Ailsa Motors in Glasgow but Richard thought the cab was too big. I told Richard that if he bought the wagon to look after me it would be the Volvo, if he bought it to look after himself, it would be the ERF. He went for the ERF and made a mistake, if he’d got the Volvo I would have done more years with him. On the whole, he did well!

Richard and David came for me one day and we went to Reliance Motors at Brighouse to look at the ERF chassis. As we walked into the showroom the salesman said he didn’t know the firm but he liked the uniform. We were all wearing identical jackets in green thornproof twill from Eric Spencer who had a stall at Gisburn auction. We went out to have a look at what was to turn out to be my new motor. It had the Gardner 6LX engine, old-fashioned but very reliable. Problem was it was only 150bhp and this for 32 tons gross! It was specially built for drawbar use and had a heavier propshaft and back cross member in the chassis and was fitted with full three line air brakes, the safest system on the road, now superseded I understand, under EEC regulations by the simpler, two line system. I had my arm in a sling but they helped me up into the cab and the salesman asked me what I thought about it. “I’ve seen better hen huts.” And I had too. The cab was fibre glass and very old fashioned, apart from the outside shape it was exactly the same as the cab on the old Albino at Marton Dairy! However, Richard must have liked the cab and the fuel figures because he bought it and eventually it went to Houghtons at Milnthorpe for a varnished box exactly the same as the one on XWU. The really nice thing to me was the number when it was registered. My first wagon was TWY 972 and this one, which was to prove to be my last, was TWY 136L. Margaret noticed this straight away when she saw it, she never forgets a vehicle number. By the way, driving must be in the genes, Margaret has her Class I licence and drives a 38 ton artic occasionally for her husband Mick who has his own wagon.

This reminds me of another small thing, when I first started driving all you needed to drive a wagon was a car driving licence. Theoretically it was possible to take a driving test on a small car and go straight out on to an eight wheeler! The 1968 Transport Act brought in the Heavy Goods Licence and the firm you worked for had to certify you were experienced and you got your HGV under ‘grandad’ rights. We all lobbied at Marton for them to put us in for Class 1 artic licences which they could have done, but Bill Mills wouldn’t bend the rules and we all finished up with four wheeler licences. Many other things changed as well. For years wagon drivers had been routinely referred to as ‘Knights of the Road’ but with more competition for space on the roads and an ever increasing awareness of pollution HGV’s were becoming the bad guys. I remember my surprise one morning while negotiating the main street of the village of Oulton in Cheshire one morning when a reverend gentleman in a Morris Minor wound down his window, shouted “Polluter” at me and drove away! It was a sign of the times and was one of the small nails in the coffin of my wagon driving.

By October I was getting better and occasionally went into the Dog for a Guinness at dinnertime. I was in their one day when I got talking to an old bloke and he told me he was engineer at Bancroft where they still ran a steam engine. He said if I had nothing better to do I could walk over and have a look at it. I went that afternoon and got the shock of my life! I had never actually seen a stationary engine working and as soon as I walked in I was blown away. If you like machinery you’ve got to love steam engines. It was, to my eye, massive. Two great cylinders, a large flywheel and a rope drive winging off into the roof. It was wonderful and I sat there watching it run for a couple of hours. In the end I thanked George Bleasdale, the engine tenter and went home for my tea. Little did I know what had just happened!

On October 31 Richard, Ursula and John came for me and we went up to Milnthorpe to pick up TWY. We went into the office and Richard signed the papers and a cheque, I admired the carpet and asked what it was. They told me it was bitumen backed squares and was made of pig bristle. They had to be watered once a month to keep the pile and were called Heuga. I stored this information away and we went out for the wagon.

I still didn’t like the cab but the rest was wonderful. Blue and white cab, aluminium chassis and dark blue metal and varnished wood on the box. It was exactly the same box as XWU, same size and no surprises. We all got in the wagon except Ursula who drove the car back and we set off down the road. The first thing that struck me was the noise but we could always rug it up to get that down. The second thing was the massive torque of the Gardner engine compared with the Leyland. It pulled like a steam engine and would get better as it got some miles on it. As a four wheeler it was just about right except for the cab. It remained to be seen what would happen when we hung another 16 ton on the back of it!

We still had to get the trailer and Richard let me have my head. I told him we needed a Dyson from Liverpool and after looking at the prices he asked me why a Dyson was £200 more than a York trailer. I told him to come back and ask me the same question in twenty years time! They were built like battleships, all the piping was solid copper and they used the best of everything. They didn’t have a standard trailer, you told them what you wanted so I drew up my own specification. It was to be the same length as our box on the wagon and was to have a short drawbar angled up to the wagon hitch so that weight was put on the rear wheels of the wagon when it was pulling. Richard wanted to set Houghtons on building the box but I persuaded him to wait until they had the trailer chassis so that they could get the box roofs exactly in line. I went down to Dysons with the wagon and we measured everything up and ordered the trailer.

Meanwhile, young Harrison was making his move, I was asking him the other night when he put his trailer on the road and he said it was late in 1973 but I am sure this is wrong because he had his on the road before us and I remember that my first load with the trailer was a lying off sale at Paisley so that would be in April 1973, I can’t be exact because I haven’t got my diary for this year. John had his trailer on the road before us and so the trip we made to the Commercial Motor Show at Kelvin Hall Glasgow must have been in August/September 1972. John was going to see the show but also to see what sort of a deal he could get on a trailer. He had a spare set of wheels which fitted his new Scania and wanted to use them on his trailer so he needed only one spare. I still cherish the look on the York Trailer’s salesman’s face when he realised that John was asking him for a price for a trailer with no wheels! John had a Lancia car at that time and I remember looking at the speedo as we were going up the A74 and we were doing a ridiculous speed! It was the fastest journey I had ever made to Glasgow by road.

John eventually settled for a Dyson trailer for the same reasons as we did, they were the best. Incidentally, he told me the other day that he sold it to Craig’s at Ayr and they mounted a meat box on it. I’ll bet it’s still on the road somewhere! He cut the luton of his old Jenning’s box off and mounted it on the trailer and was in business. He tells me that he had to change the gearbox in the Scania to get a lower gearing to cope with the trailer. We didn’t have any problems like that, we were low geared enough! TWY wasn’t in the same class as XWU for speed or comfort but if lightly loaded was almost as fast over a trip because it pulled so much better up the hills.

I soon realised that we had a problem with the new wagon. There was a vibration in the transmission which I didn’t like but nobody else noticed it and when I said we should get it sorted I was discouraged. We hadn’t gone on for long when it did an oil seal in the axle, it went back to Reliance under warranty of course and a new seal was fitted. Shortly after this it did another seal and I began to look more closely into the problem. My suspicions grew when it did a pinion bearing in the back axle and I told Richard there was a basic flaw in the design of the wagon which, if we didn’t get it sorted would lead to many more problems. He agreed to let me take the wagon to ERF at Sandbach and tell them what was wrong.

Now I know what you must be thinking, here we go with another tall tale about how Stanley was the best mechanic in the world etc. I forgive you, but unfortunately, I was right and ERF were wrong! When I got down there I saw a bloke called Johnson I think, he was their service manager at the time. I told him his wagon was designed wrong and we wanted it altering! He asked me what the problem was.

Briefly, the propeller shaft in a wagon has to have flexibility built into it because the back axle can move relative to the drive train because of the fact it is mounted on springs. This is allowed for by inserting two universal joints in the shaft and a sliding cardan shaft to allow the length to vary. These universal joints are actually a Hooke joint named after Robert Hooke who invented the principle in the 17th. century. The crucial factor in the installation of a Hooke joint is that the input and output shafts must be exactly parallel. The ERF had an angle on the joint behind the gearbox but none on the one in front of the back axle so the shaft into the back axle was speeding up and slowing down twice in every revolution and this was the source of the vibration. Vibration causes ‘fretting corrosion’ which is a specialised form of attrition of metal which can happen even if the metal in question is submerged in oil. It was this that was destroying bearings and it would eventually exfoliate the hardened surface off the gear and pinion in the back axle. The bloke was impressed I know but he wasn’t going to let on to me that I was getting to him. He sent up to the works for one of their designers and got me to go through the theory again.

The designer didn’t handle the interview well, his brief was obviously to get rid of me. He ignored the engineering logic and demanded an explanation as to why they hadn’t had this problem before. I told him that it wasn’t my job to design his wagons but the most likely explanation I could give was that the normal ERF propeller shaft was flexible enough to soak up the vibration but because this wagon had been built for a trailer and seeing as it was a four wheel wagon needed a longer shaft, they had fitted a far heavier shaft which, being rigid, was transmitting the vibration to the axle. I told him the gearbox would be the next item to suffer. I also told him the cure was simple, put a wedge under each back spring to tilt the axle forwards and restore parallelism to the input and output shafts.

It didn’t do any good, they fitted new bearings in the tail shaft of the gearbox and the pinion housing on the back axle and sent me away. A couple of months later I was back with a noisy rear axle, the hardening was flaking off the crown wheel and pinion. There was no argument. They fitted all new bearings in the shaft, a completely new back axle and a modification to the mounting of the axle. Guess what the modification was! That’s right, two wedges under the springs! I had a coffee with the service manager and he said if ever I wanted a job he would be pleased to hear from me. I asked him when I got my consultancy payment but he just smiled………. It was a complete cure, the vibration had gone and we had no more trouble with the transmission after that. It was a far better wagon to drive, it ran smoothly at maximum speed, 52mph. and I suppose that was fast enough! Mind you, I missed that high gear!

In March 1973 we got word that the trailer was ready and I went down to Liverpool to collect it. Dysons was an incredibly old fashioned factory. Basically it was a blacksmith’s shop! Their method of building a trailer was to chalk out a space on the floor, put two fitters in it and a pile of steel and give them the drawings! It was slow but they were good men and did a near perfect job. Their main business was building special high capacity trailers for the oil industry. Some of them would carry 300 tons in the desert!

When I got there my trailer was in the yard resplendent in three coats of red oxide primer. I backed down and we hooked on and did check measurements to make sure it was legal. It was a quarter of an inch inside the maximum length allowed under Construction and Use regulations. This was a shade short of 60 feet long. It was enormous! I realised that this wasn’t a delivery of a trailer but a launching ceremony. The foreman brought a bottle of beer out for each of the fitters and I was given a ten bob note and a pack of Dyson playing cards! There was also a message to go and see a lady in the office. I went up expecting to get paper work off a secretary and found I was dealing with the owner of the firm! She asked if the trailer was going to have a coach-built box the same as the wagon and I said yes. She asked me to let them know when it was done as they’d like a photograph of it in front of the works. Later on I did this, I went down with a clean wagon, they did the picture and I was told later that an eight feet long enlargement of it was on the wall in their main reception.

I took the trailer up to Milnthorpe and was very impressed every time I looked in the mirror. They say size doesn’t matter but you can forget this as far as wagons are concerned, the bigger the machine the bigger the ego of the driver! I was now in the big league! Early in April 1973 we had another family outing to Milnthorpe and picked the finished trailer up. It was magnificent! The roof line matched exactly and we had a very handsome and practical outfit. Richard was delighted and he and the kids, John and Richard piled in for the ride home. It had been impressive before but now the box was on it the only word is awesome! What tickled me was the way it followed, as I turned out of the yard at Houghtons I looked in the near side mirror and watched the trailer come out behind us looking as though it was going straight across the road! It didn’t of course but it was a strange feeling watching what seemed to be another wagon following you all the time.

All this was very well but I now had a major problem. I’m not going to go into the technicalities too much but reversing a long wheelbase wagon and a four wheeled trailer with a short drawbar is like playing three dimensional chess. The problem is that if you are backing in a straight line, the rules you are playing under reverse themselves every time the vehicle moves to one side or the other away from dead straight. Of course you couldn’t steer dead straight so you had trouble. The secret was to reverse in a gentle curve so you were on the same lock every time, all you had to do to steer was vary the lock. Another problem arose here, the nearer you got to your target the straighter your steering became and any pot hole or rut could steer the front axle of the trailer and throw you off course. That’s enough about that but take it from me it was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do as a driver.

Richard had a load for me out of Paisley the following day, 32 lying off cattle so I went to Gisburn Auction yard where there was plenty of room and started practising. The first thing I did was drive in a circle on full lock to see how much the back wheel track of the trailer cut in on the wagon. It was amazing, less than two feet! Then I had a crack at reversing, I spent about an hour and a half and whilst I had improved, I was by no means expert. What was worrying me was the fact that Paisley Market was in a back street lined with parked cars and it was sometimes a problem to get in with a wagon, never mind with a trailer. I suspect I had a disturbed sleep that night!

The following day dawned cold and clear and away I went to Paisley. The trailer wasn’t slowing me down much and I was making good time. As I climbed Tebay on the M6 I was pulled in by the police on to the junction. Mystified I climbed out and asked them what the problem was. It turned out that all they wanted to do was have a look at the outfit! I told them it was the first day out and they congratulated me on the turn-out. I don’t think this would happen now but a lot of the police drivers had done some time on wagons in those days and appreciated a nice outfit.

As I was going up the A74 past Lesmahagow I heard a song on the radio, I couldn’t believe it! I had never heard this song before, the words were “Give me Forty Acres and I’ll turn this Rig around!” I should say it would have been impossible to find a more appropriate song to describe how I felt as I neared Paisley that morning. It took me 15 years to find a recording of that song but I still have it and every time I play it I am taken back to that morning. Wonderful.

I arrived at Paisley and turned left down the back street to the auction entrance. My heart fell into my boots, there were cars parked on both sides of the road and barely room between to drive the wagon, never mind turn. I stopped at the gate and went into the yard to see what room I had. Luckily there were two docks empty next to the wall on the left, this was the easiest target I could have asked for but I would be backing alongside the wall on my blind side. What made things worse was that the other drivers had heard on the grapevine that I had the trailer and I had an audience! I lit my pipe, tried to look professional and climbed in the wagon. I drove forward, got the outfit on a nice curve and reversed straight in to the far dock in one move! I got out, unhitched the trailer and backed the wagon in alongside. When I went on to the dock expecting congratulations all round I got a shock. The only bloke there was the banksman who drew the cattle. He gave me thirty shillings, I looked at it and asked what it was for. He said the drivers were taking bets as to whether I would get in and he had backed me and won a packet! I told him it was a fluke and he must never bet on me again!

We loaded the cattle and they were big, fat buggers. One thing was sure and certain, I was going to find out now how the Gardner would perform with a proper load behind it. I coupled up and sailed out into the Paisley traffic. It was a fair pull up the back street back on to the main road and the exhaust pointed out sideways under the front end of the cab. My God did it bark when it was pulling! It was a lovely exhaust note and I’ll bet the windows were rattling as I passed. I had to wend my way out on to the dual carriageway and there was no chance to open her up properly but I was surprised by how well it pulled at very low revs. The Gardner was famous for this, it was a long stroke design, hopelessly old-fashioned even then but it was a wonderful machine for getting away. It was obvious that the clutch was going to last a long time.

Eventually I got out on to the dual carriageway and wound her up until I was doing my 52 mph. I soon found that once you got going, it was a very comfortable ride and a slight incline didn’t call for any changes of gear. Another advantage that the Gardner had was that the timing was variable. We need to get technical again just for a minute or two. The accelerator pedal on a Gardner isn’t connected directly to the pump rod which is the mechanism in the pump which controls the fuel delivery to the injectors. Normally, it would be and a separate governor on the pump controlled the maximum speed. The pedal did two things, it controlled the governor setting and also varied the injector pump timing, the further down you pushed the pedal the more it advanced the pump. All right so far?

Consider then, you are driving down the road with your foot hard down for maximum speed and full advance on the pump, just what you want for flat going. You hit an incline and the wagon slows down, if you keep your foot to the boards all you are doing is saying to the governor, “You can go faster if you want to.” This is of no interest to the governor because the engine hasn’t got enough power to give that speed so it continues to labour, perhaps slowing down even more as the load comes on. If you think about it, you can let your foot off the pedal and allow it to come back up until it reaches the point where the pedal position matches the speed the engine, and governor, are actually running at. You can feel the contact as it comes back and you haven’t lost any power because the governor is still running as fast as it can and the fuel rod is fully open. But, and this is the magic part, as you lifted your foot off the pedal you retarded the pump timing and the power goes up! It isn’t a violent rise but seems a lot more than it actually is because it comes in as you lift your foot and this is against nature! It soon became second nature to ease back on the pedal and get that bit more out of the engine. You’d be amazed if you knew the number of men who drove Gardners all their lives and didn’t know how this worked.

Another handy thing was the fact that it had a clutch brake on it. When you pushed the clutch pedal down two thirds of the way it disengaged it as normal. If you pushed it the rest of the way it slowed the engine down by a brake on the flywheel, this meant that you could get a far faster change both up and down the box.

The bottom line was that it was underpowered but against this had to be set the fact that it took less driving because you could leave the gearlever alone. Changes on the Eaton 2 speed axle were made by pre-selecting and then dipping the clutch for a change down or just lifting the power off a fraction for a change up. A lot of the gradients on the good roads could be accommodated by the axle alone. I knew my times on the road and I was only fractionally behind my normal schedule and this fell into line when you realised that I had twice as many beasts on board and was doing almost the same miles to the gallon as the Leyland. Richard was making money!

I soon settled down into the wagon and trailer and it worked well in the markets. We could separate the accredited from the non-accredited and the Ministry men were quite happy with it. The Scottish hauliers were very interested in what we had done. They could see the sense in having a vehicle that was a flexible size, it could be used as an ordinary four wheel wagon for picking up cattle from farms but had double the capacity for long distance transport of cattle. There was another advantage for us. I used to leave the trailer at Demense on Sunday and David loaded the calves into the trailer the night before we set off. On Monday evening Keith brought his Ayr calves down and put them straight into the trailer so this gave us less to do on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

In Lanark and Ayr I used to leave the trailer on the docks and the cattle could be brought down and left in the pen behind the wagon and, because the ramp was down, wandered in and out of the box. When they were loaded they were totally at home. The outfit rode much steadier because of the weight and the trailer was brilliant for cattle. It had double wheels all round and was even more stable than the wagon. The cattle rode better than ever.

I had a funny experience one afternoon as I came down from Scotland with a load of beasts. I was just coming along the road into Long Preston and it was thundering but not raining. I saw something in the field to the right of the road in the river bottom which was so extraordinary that I pulled up at the side of the road and got out to watch. Another wagon stopped behind me, he had seen the same thing. What we were looking at was bolts of lightning striking the ground and where they hit they left a big blue ball of fire which rolled round for a second or two and then vanished with a sharp crack. There were dozens of these and I was fascinated, I had read about them but never seen them before. They were working their way over towards the road so I decided discretion was the better part of valour and drove on.

Years later I described this to a bloke who knows about these things and he told me that what I had seen was ball lightning which is a mysterious and very rare phenomenon. He told me he would have given his bottom dollar to have witnessed the sight, he had been studying it for years and never seen it! I had a similar experience years before when driving the tanker. I was passing Ferrybridge Power Station when I saw one of the cooling towers rotate gently and subside into the ground! I stopped and watched and saw another one do it. Years later I became friendly with the man who is production manager at Ferrybridge and he told me that it was a vortex effect that had done it and even though the towers were rebuilt in different positions and made stronger they still have a ban on traffic on the road between the towers when the wind rises above a certain speed.

Back home at Hey Farm, by mid 1973 we were getting sorted out a bit. The drive had been tidied up after the road widening, the walls rebuilt and everything painted up. Inside the house we had carpeted the kitchen with the Heuga tiles I had seen at Houghtons and they were just the thing. You could move them around so that wear was evened out and Vera used to water them once a week, usually on a Saturday night when we went to bed. In the morning there was a slight smell of wet goats but the pile was erect again and we had a new carpet! Vera had put a lot of work in on the garden and we had flagged the area in front of the house. The porch got damaged during a gale so I rebuilt it and got Billy Ent to put a stone slate roof on it. All told, Hey Farm was developing into a desirable residence!

It would be about this time when Old Arthur Entwistle came into our lives. He was Billy Entwistle’s brother and had moved out of Barlick during the war to go and work in the tool room at the Rover Car Company in Coventry. The Rover Company were the original owners of the factories in the Barlick district which later became Rolls Royce. He was called Old Arthur to distinguish him from his son, Young Arthur of whom more later. We all got on well from the day we first met. Old Arthur was retired and had a workshop at home and used to get workshop deprivation syndrome while they were staying in Barlick so he used mine for essential therapy. Vera got the remains of an old oak settle from Cyril Richardson and Arthur and I restored it in our spare time. He carved the new rear panel for it and I rebuilt the rest. I got some oak from Harold Duxbury that had been in the workshop down the Butts since before I was born so we knew it was dry! We got a refectory table at the same time and bought a good 17th century oak kist off Maureen Thomas who by now was living on Park Avenue. What with the carpeted floor, the oak beams and the 17th century furniture our kitchen was beginning to look the part. Arthur was a caravan and Land Rover man and I was very impressed by the latter which had been sound proofed and was a very comfortable and utilitarian vehicle. Arthur and his wife Amy who was also a Barlicker were to be a feature of our lives for years to come.

There isn’t really a lot to report about the job at Drinkalls. I had my routine and got a lot of miles in and shifted a lot of cattle. With hindsight we were seeing the last years of cattle dealing on that sort of scale, there were signs that it was beginning to taper off but none of us recognised it at the time. One or two incidents do however come to mind so let’s have a few more stories.

Richard was a master at buying cattle but occasionally slipped up on some of the peripheral matters. He set off one day cattle buying and ranged right up the country as far as Jim Bairds. I was there when he came home that night, I had called in at Yew Tree to leave a message for him when he walked in. Ursula made us both a cup of tea and a slice of one of her famous sponge cakes and we settled down to plan out the next day or two. After a while Ursula asked Richard where John was. He said he didn’t know and Ursula said he should because he’d taken John with him when he went! Richard had a quick recap and realised he had left John at Lurdenlaw! A quick phone call confirmed this and if I remember right I brought him back later that week when I took a load of calves up to Jim Baird’s.

Another time Richard sent me to a farm somewhere where I hadn’t been before. I forget where it was but have an idea it was at the back of Bolton. I had to pick up a full load of cattle and took the trailer. I asked him whether there was room to turn round and he said there was so when I got to the lane down to the farm I turned in and went right into the yard. The lane was about three quarters of a mile long and very narrow but this was no matter, I was used to having a couple of inches either side. When I got into the yard I realised that Richard’s idea of plenty of room and mine were at variance. There wasn’t room to swing a cat, in fact, I couldn’t immediately see how I was going to turn the wagon round, never mind the trailer.

The farmer was most impressed that I had got in with the wagon, “We’ve never had anything that size in the yard before.” I told him he never would again if I couldn’t get out! I weighed the job up and decided we might be able to manage. I asked him if he had a good tractor and chain, he said he had. I got the wagon partly turned round and then we hooked the tractor on to the front end of the wagon, threw buckets of water on the setts and dragged the front of the wagon round until I could get it turned round. This left the question of the trailer. I told him we should load the cattle first and then I hooked on to the trailer with the towing eye on the front bumper and pushed the trailer out of the lane by ‘nosing’ it. This sounds easy but isn’t, I had to be guided all the way out and it took about an hour to get out on to the main road. Needless to say, when I got back to Marton I had some valuable words of advice for Richard on the subject of yard sizes! The secret of success in circumstances like these is to tell yourself you have all the time in the world, keep your cool and get on with it.

I was up Scotland one day and had to pick some cattle up out of a field on my own. Fly was never a good cattle dog, I hadn’t the time to train him and it’s not a good thing to have a dog around cattle that aren’t used to it and are heavy in calf. However, there were times when he came in handy and this was one of them. I already had the trailer full and dropped it off while I backed the wagon into the gateway to load. We got them in OK, I hooked up and set off down the road but something was nagging at the back of my mind. I had gone about five miles when it dawned on me what was the matter. I’d left Fly! I had to go another couple of miles before I found a spot where I could drop the trailer off. I went back and it had started snowing gently. I arrived at the field and there was poor old Fly sat under the wall with snow stuck to his coat and a very mournful expression on his face.

I got him into the cab. He normally rode with his head facing me so he could keep an eye on what I was doing but this time he turned his back on me! Not only that but he farted continuously all the way home! When I eventually arrived home he jumped out of the cab, shot in the house under the settle and wouldn’t come out. Vera was certain I’d hit him until I explained. Funny thing was he wouldn’t come with me for about a week. Instead of being ready at the door when I left he just stayed under the settle. In the end he decided he had made his point and normal service was resumed.

I was one my way back from Ayr one Tuesday and was running late, it had been a big day. I had enough room in the wagon to pick up six beasts at Tom Hamilton’s at Cairn near Cumnock. It was a dark November night and a nasty cold rain was falling. I dropped off the trailer at the bottom of the hill on the main road and went up with the wagon. It was a bad lane and a very awkward yard on a slope. We got the cattle in and Tom persuaded me to have a cup of tea. I wasn’t looking forward to the trip home so I went in. What a sight! TV hadn’t started to erode the society up there at this time and the big kitchen was full of dogs, kids, women, men a piper and a fiddler. They were just starting an impromptu celeagh. The piper was playing a tune as I went in and I sat there with a cup of tea and a ‘sensation’ of whisky and wondered what the bloody hell I was doing setting off down the road after being out of bed for sixteen hours and another five to do! I pulled myself together and said goodnight and they all thought I was a big man, they knew what sort of a day I had done and they admired the fact that I was going to drive all the way to England with the biggest wagon that went into Ayr. Big deal, I got down the lane, Tom came with me and helped me hook up in the freezing rain and he asked me whether I would be all right. I told him yes, got in, started up and drove off reflecting on the fact that there must be a different way to skin a cat.

We got into the winter of 1973/74 and there was one moment of glory. David and I were going up to Lanark on the M6 just coming up to Tebay. It had snowed and there was about six inches on the road and no salt. We were light loaded, only a few calves and I was running flat out and no problems with the fresh padded snow in the near side lane. The outside lanes were virgin snow, nobody had marked them. As we climbed the hill we came on the back end of a slow moving line of vehicles that stretched as far as the eye could see. There were many artics in the line and they were only just managing to keep going so the speed of the queue was that of the slowest vehicle. I made a quick decision and swung out into the centre lane before I got to the line of traffic. I wanted to know how the wagon would cope. There was a slight resistance from the virgin snow but nothing serious so I decided to have a go. I heard David say something about me being a bit ambitious but I was committed, still flat out, doing about 50mph and trailing a big plume of fresh snow behind me. I passed everything in sight! David was counting wagons and so was I but I gave up at 150! I reckon it must have been one of the best overtaking moves ever and was very pleased. As we passed I could see wagons pulling out into our wheelmarks but they had no momentum and simply formed a new line of slow moving traffic. There was even a police car but I didn’t see what happened to him. I think we proved that day that if you’re in snow and you’ve the choice of a wagon and trailer or an artic, go for the former. As I said to David, this was why they were so popular on the continent.

During the back half of 1973 there were big changes afoot, some of which I had no inkling of. They really belong to the pattern of the next five years so I’ll end this segment and start the next with the changes. At this point there was no cloud on the horizon beyond the fact that I knew I couldn’t carry on doing these hours and this amount of work for ever. With hindsight, I was getting tired, I was 37 years old and the old nagging thought was there at the back of my mind, I expected death at 42.

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Stanley

Local Historian & Old Fart

36804 Posts

Posted - 30/04/2009 : 06:34

R C COLLEDGE

In the Drinkall Years chapter of my memoirs I talked about R C Colledge, a man who was a big farmer at Drummore on the Galloway Peninsula. He was a good customer for calves and I often delivered scores at a time for him. I had mail on the 28^th of April 2009 from a lady called Liz Pratten who is his daughter and stumbled across the chapter on Oneguy.

We had a long chat on the phone and it was great to know that in her words I had ‘captured her father so well’. She has made sure all the family know about the reference and in the course of our conversation she confirmed the accuracy of my memory about certain things. She remembered the cartridges on the press, knew about Fly ripping her father’s arm open and also remembered the cottage called ‘Nae View’ on the side of the main road on the left as you entered the village. It’s nice to have some reassurance that your memory hasn’t played tricks!

She told me that she was at boarding school in Ayr at the time I was going there and that’s why she missed my visits. She said that her dad used to call and see her at school if he was at the market in Ayr. He used to turn up in a beaten up old green pickup truck with a couple of calves bagged up in the back, their heads poking out of the necks of the sacks that were restraining them. Her friends pulled her leg about it because all the other parents were in smart cars but she knew that her dad probably had more money than the others.

When you write something and make it public it’s always so nice to get feedback like this. Proof that you have got it right and given pleasure to people. That’s all the reward I need…

30 April 2009

Stanley Challenger Graham

Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk

wendyf

Senior Member

1439 Posts
England

Posted - 30/04/2009 : 08:50

Where did the last hour go?? What an enjoyable read Stanley.

Wendy

Stanley

Local Historian & Old Fart

36804 Posts

Posted - 30/04/2009 : 10:09

You're right Wendy! I got to reading it myself and what a good story! Wonder who wrote it.....

Stanley Challenger Graham

Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk

Stanley

Local Historian & Old Fart

36804 Posts

Posted - 01/07/2009 : 12:51

Earlier in Drinkall years I talked about curing the cow with Felon by cutting a hole in its brisket and putting a twitch of felon grass in it to promote a focus of infection. I was walking down Valley Gardens this morning and saw this sturdy example of a clump of Felon Grass. I don't know the correct botanical name for it but if you feel the leaves they are spiky and can cut you if the leaves slip through your hand.

Stanley Challenger Graham

Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk

Tizer

VIP Member

5150 Posts

Posted - 02/07/2009 : 11:44

I would guess from the description and photo that your grass might be Deschampsia caespitosa, known in the UK by names like Tussock Grass and Tufted Hair Grass. The leaves are very rough, and as you noted, can cut your skin. It grows in big tufts in upland areas on moors and is no good as a food for stock. I've never heard it called `felon grass'.

A way to confirm if it is this grass is to cut transversely across a blade of the grass then look at the cut end with a hand lens, i.e. look at the leaf `end-on'. If it is Deschampsia caespitosa then the upper surface of the leaf in section has a castellated appearance due to the longitudinal ribs running along the leaves. Amateur botanists know it as `Toblerone Grass' because of this feature.

Stanley

Local Historian & Old Fart

36804 Posts

Posted - 02/07/2009 : 13:10

Peter, felon grass is a local name and only the old farmers would remember it (and curiosities like me!). It works. I shall cut a leaf later and have a look, I'll let you know what I find.

Stanley Challenger Graham

Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk

Tizer

VIP Member

5150 Posts

Posted - 02/07/2009 : 17:04

You can easily feel the ribs running along the upper surface of the leaves like strengthening girders. The flowering head (panicle) is pretty when open and used to be collected for flower decorations. It likes wet places which fits with the location of the tuft in your photo. Farmers have usually done their best to get rid of it but there are ornamental varieties sold in garden centres.

Stanley

Local Historian & Old Fart

36804 Posts

Posted - 03/07/2009 : 07:39

I agree that the felon grass I collected all those years ago to treat the cow had the ribs, I don't thing this one has but will check in about half an hour. Perhaps any grass with characteristics aggressive enough to cause irritation was called by this name...

Stanley Challenger Graham

Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk

Tizer

VIP Member

5150 Posts

Posted - 03/07/2009 : 11:07

Looking at the photo again the grass doesn't seem to have the very pronounced `tussocky' habit of Deschampsia (which earlier had the Latin name Aira) although the wet location is right. Another grass that would look like your photo and grow with its feet in water is `Glyceria', commonly known as Sweet Grass. Cows love it, so you could try them out with a taste test on some of your sample! But it has soft leaves.

Stanley

Local Historian & Old Fart

36804 Posts

Posted - 03/07/2009 : 16:42

I tried the cut leaf test and it's definitely ribbed but perhaps not as strongly as you describe. The stalks of this grass are definitely sweet, we used to chew them when I was a lad. Top side of the leaf is smooth but the bottom is like fine Velcro if rubbed towards the stem and the edges are finely serrated.

Stanley Challenger Graham

Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk

wendyf

Senior Member

1439 Posts
England

Posted - 24/07/2009 : 11:17

Stanley, a while ago I copied and sent the Drinkall Years articles to a farming friend in West Lothian knowing she would enjoy the read. She was telling me recently that the articles are getting passed on between local farmers (mostly the Rennie family) in the area. They remember buying Drinkall cattle and what good quality beasts they were.

Wendy

Stanley

Local Historian & Old Fart

36804 Posts

Posted - 24/07/2009 : 17:18

Wonderful!!! Thanks so much. I'll let Dick know, he will be pleased. This is part of Vol 2 so it will get expanded I think.

Stanley Challenger Graham

Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk

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R C COLLEDGE