Me & My Vans 50 Years
Doesn't time fly when you are having fun, and this week I'm celebrating April 1972 when I started off in business on my own and continued till I retired in 1990. At one time I had two drivers and three trucks but it was hard to make money as I did a lot of fluctuating seasonal work and continued to pay my staff. My biggest customer was NVT Motorcycles at Shenstone where I delivered mostly Easy Rider Mopeds but did some Norton Commando 850's as well. I also delivered for GEC Measurements and then when they moved to Stone GEC Meters. Also did agri-chemicals for RHM at Fradley to the farms, but what started me off was a contract delivering polythene and polypropylene bags for GSP Packaging in Fancy Walk which was mostly for Marks and Spencer and which took me around all those on the corner victorian red-brick hosiery mills especially in the East Midlands. We did a lot to Scotland too and you can see from the job slip I filled in that one day it was a whopping 676 miles in one day but I bettered that with a 720. No log-book of course and it was hard work and very long days as the Diesel Yorke engined Ford Transit only did 52 mph. Maybe had I been more business-minded I could have made a decent success of it but instead of buying a second van straightaway I treated myself to something I had always dreamed of owning and that was an E-Type Jaguar 3.8 which was quite something at 24 and I'm not kidding you it did a lot more than 52 mph.
The slip on the right to Widnes, Liverpool and Nelson was my first as a contractor and it was a nice easy day.
Me & My Vans 50 Years
Doesn't time fly when you are having fun, and this week I'm celebrating April 1972 when I started off in business on my own and continued till I retired in 1990. At one time I had two drivers and three trucks but it was hard to make money as I did a lot of fluctuating seasonal work and continued to pay my staff. My biggest customer was NVT Motorcycles at Shenstone where I delivered mostly Easy Rider Mopeds but did some Norton Commando 850's as well. I also delivered for GEC Measurements and then when they moved to Stone GEC Meters. Also did agri-chemicals for RHM at Fradley to the farms, but what started me off was a contract delivering polythene and polypropylene bags for GSP Packaging in Fancy Walk which was mostly for Marks and Spencer and which took me around all those on the corner victorian red-brick hosiery mills especially in the East Midlands. We did a lot to Scotland too and you can see from the job slip I filled in that one day it was a whopping 676 miles in one day but I bettered that with a 720. No log-book of course and it was hard work and very long days as the Diesel Yorke engined Ford Transit only did 52 mph. Maybe had I been more business-minded I could have made a decent success of it but instead of buying a second van straightaway I treated myself to something I had always dreamed of owning and that was an E-Type Jaguar 3.8 which was quite something at 24 and I'm not kidding you it did a lot more than 52 mph.
The slip on the right to Widnes, Liverpool and Nelson was my first as a contractor and it was a nice easy day.