The long, hot summer of ’76, girls and a new moped destroyed any chance of me passing an O’ Level, so I left school in 1977 with no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I continued to work on a local farm.

I enjoyed manoeuvring the tractors and trailers. Some of my farming friends were getting their HGV licences.

I passed mine at 23 (1982) but only drove when I was 25. 

I started working for a local haulier, Colin Ashby. I didn’t realise at the time that it was a lucky start, as he had a well-run fleet and a good bunch of experienced drivers who were very loyal to him.

My first truck was a Layland Clydesdale 16 Tonne 4-wheeler that I set off around the country armed with maps of every town I had visited. I hadn’t a clue for the first month. I had to sleep across the seats with no night heater and a gear lever sticking up through the middle. It was freezing! (at one time, my mother phoned the Transport Manager asking if I was ok). Afterwards, you can imagine the ridicule I went through when I went back to the yard on Friday. These were the days of no mobile phones; communicating with the yard was done using a phone box, pen, and paper.

Soon after, I started driving a MAN 240 with a tricky gearbox and then into a MAN 321 with an even trickier twin splitter box (if you know, you know).

At the time, Margaret Thatcher was battling the miners. I often saw convoys of trucks escorted by the police and their windows caged up to protect against the picket missiles. This was my first-hand experience of the unrest in the country. Previously, it had been in the newspapers, but it was not for real.

Now I was experiencing docker strikes and miners’ revolts. However, at this time Margaret Thatcher was encouraging people to start their businesses and there was a move throughout the Haulage industry to turn drivers into owner-drivers. Colin Ashby took this opportunity and started offering trucks to the drivers.

I did take this chance and bought a Scania from another owner-driver.  

This truck was a significant learning curve for me as I had only driven a fairly new MAN truck, and the Scania rattled and shook. I spent a lot of time queuing up in the Scania parts department for bits I probably didn’t need, but paranoia had taken over by now.

As time passed, I learned to wait for it to break and fix it. I started to become a mechanic, but not by choice. Lesson (If ain’t broken, don’t fix it).

The country was heading into a recession. I was working for other hauliers in Kent. Some of this meant collecting unaccompanied trailers from Dover and Ramsgate docks at stupid o’clock in the morning. I was lucky in that I had done all these with Colin Ashby as an employee, and I was still quite young, so I could cope with long hours day and night (different times then).

On the weekend, if I wasn’t lying underneath the truck, I would be doing VAT calculations and record-keeping.

This is an example of a small business running everything: maintenance, bookkeeping, and steering.

In 1996, I was introduced to Cyrill Knowles, who was based in Purfleet, Essex. He ran refrigerated trucks all over Europe, but I was assigned to the UK and became the Newcastle Clipper. This involved collecting dairy products from East London driving to Newcastle and beyond as fast as you could up the A1 unloading, reloading, and driving as fast as you could back to London.

Whilst I enjoyed Newcastle this was a job for an insomniac. I also ended up doing one trip to Brittany via Cherbourg, but it was not my cup of tea.

However, it led me to work with Cyrill Knowles’s powder tanker division, which was perfect for me.

I learned some valuable lessons at this point. It was a little bit of culture shock going from mid-Kent to Sout Essex – East London. Most of his drivers did not want to make the deliveries in London for various reasons. This meant I pleased the transport shipper and the drivers at the same time.

My costs went down, and my earnings went up, as well as pleasing everybody. It was predominantly short runs into London, which was a bit daunting, and a lot of A-to-Z studies.

I also soon learned to shut up and do whatever was put in front of me. There was no tolerance for arguments.

This worked in my favour because I was using very little diesel and driving slowly around London, and the working hours were far less than Tyneside and back. However, in the winter months, I had to leave and go back to general haulage and trailers from Dover, as the construction industry is quiet at this time of the year. This went on for about 15 years, at which time I had two lorries working and a small 7.5 tonner delivering plastic bags all around London. 

This was a good time for me, and I moved on from old trucks that broke down daily to a brand-new DAF 85. This worked perfectly with the London traffic. It also had a twin splitter gearbox that made light work of the stop-start journeys. It was probably my best truck until it was stolen one night. 

I replaced it with another DAF, but it was never quite the same.

The powder tanker era came to an end as the country took another downturn in 2010. 

I thought the Olympics in London would save us, but it was not enough. Then, I took up bulk tipping work, mainly cereals and aggregates, which I had experienced in the past with Colin Ashby.

Queuing for hours on end in the docks and mills was never my ideal work then rushing to try and catch up with the day. 

Harvest time was probably my favourite as we were constantly busy and visiting small remote farms. 

I also was developing a fear of the trailer tipping over when it was up at its full height, it was something I never got used to.

In 2019, I found an opportunity to go back to tanker work with a company in Rochester. The contract for the haulage was owned by Eddie Stobart but they were having problems at the time, so I applied for it when it was up for renewal. This meant I had to change gear dramatically and find four more trucks and trailers in one year. Luckily, a respected man called Marc Dowse from South Yorkshire helped with the work and sold me four trucks and trailers to manage the deal.

The learning curve here was managing and training drivers alongside the FORS compliance that is now necessary with London deliveries. This has been made a lot easier by taking on a Manager, Donna Sherlock, who has steered me through.

As an owner-driver, I tended to know stuff as I needed to.

Now, I must know things for my business.

This is a very short outline of a very long time in transport.

I am a very small player in a very large industry.

I have a lot of experience in a large range of transport.

The most important thing in business is to Stay in business.