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On 10/31/2018 at 6:38 PM, benjamin1945 said:

Ey up Beekay, your mention of SPD jogged my memory of my days at Marsdens/Farrands in the 60s .  SPD meant to me Soap powder deliverys, delivering directly to retailers, Marsdens and Farrands being the ones i worked for,  did you deliver to these stores?

Ow do! Ben, your probably right, I could have delivered to your stores as part of multi- deliveries. SPD was the transport branch of Unilever. Used to carry loads of stuff. We always used to say that SPD also meant ' sex provided daily'  though never had to prove it. Regards, Beekay ( or Barrie if you prefer ).

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HI CATZ / Nice of you to answer, I am now living in Swinton , Manchester, but still miss Nottingham, I will be 75 in March and I look back on my life , and were iv,e been , but I

They were still doing a little bit of that in 1987 when I started working there. There were no depots at the resorts by then but we still took a few cases; growing car ownership and package holidays k

My godfather, Derek Foster worked for Harris for many years; he ended up driving a road sweeper for Gedling council, said it was the best job you could wish for. He always told me to avoid road haulag

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SPD I remember them well, white trucks with the black 3 letter logo, based at the bottom of Glaisdale drive.

i used to work further up for Geo Dominic in the early 70s, next door to schwepp’s. Latter on I moved on to RHM foods at daybrook along with Reg Dawson & Nobby Smith, all within a few months of each other.

if memory serves me right there used to be 2 brothers who worked for SPD and you used to have to get out of bed before you had got in if you wanted to be the 1st in the queue and get there before they did!

Happy days, now retired and often reminisce about the winters we had back then trying to get the old Albion chieftain to spring into life surrounded by clouds of thick blue smoke.

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Volly, weren't  they originally maroon with white lettering. Mid 60's if I remember rightly.

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I can only remember them from the early 70s with there distinctive white cabs and body with black S P D lettering.

you could spot them a mile away in the dark at the front of the queue and you would instantly think what time did they get out of bed! Lol.

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On 10/18/2018 at 8:21 AM, Commo said:

Rainbows used to offer a holiday luggage service to east coast destinations at least in the 50`s. We used to take our cases to their depot a day or so before our journey, but can't remember where that was, perhaps somewhere around Huntingdon St bus station, and the cases were then collected by us at their depot in Skeggy or Mablethorpe offices when we arrived the next day off the train.

 

They were still doing a little bit of that in 1987 when I started working there. There were no depots at the resorts by then but we still took a few cases; growing car ownership and package holidays killed that job off.

 

Rainbows of Southwell were one of the biggest carriers in the area; even in my day, after they became part of the Nightfreight group, there were daily runs to Norwich, Kings Lynn and Hull, and up t'other end we went as far as Glossop, and down to Hinckley. The fleet was predominantly Bedfords (they had a franchise for some years) though I was told by some of the older drivers (many of whom had gone there straight from school) that in earlier days they had Vulcans and other exotica. Their breakdown truck was a real beast; Bedford TM 6-wheeler with a Detroit diesel two-stroke in it. The original V6 blew up and turned into a V3; David Rainbow, who ran the garage, couldn't source a replacement so instead fitted a V8 which necessitated the bonnet being adapted to make it fit. The fitter who collected it from the local engineering firm reported that if you booted it in third it would pull a wheelie!

 

As with many long-established family firms of that era, there were inevitably a few real characters.  They still employed drivers' mates for some of the runs, especially in Lincoln where there was a lot of barrowing to be done with all the small shops. The regular mate for this run, Dennis Johnson, was a notorious boozer and was once found by the transport manager (who lived on the same street) fast asleep sprawled across his front hedge on a bitterly cold morning, having stumbled back from the Reindeer blind drunk after closing time and failed to negotiate the front gate. If you went out with Dennis, you could guarantee he'd have you park up by Lincoln racecourse for dinner break, and he'd go off gathering mushrooms. Drunk or sober, though, he knew every shop and street in most of the towns and cities, and he was a real grafter too, though slightly lacking in the finer points of diplomacy!.

 

The company still exists, managed by Andrew Rainbow today who was at the same school as me (Minster Grammar) though a couple of years senior. The yard, though, is now in Newark and the historic Burgage Green site in Southwell is now housing.

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In reply to Volly,  I worked at SPD until 1977. When I first started there the vehicles were Bedford TKs and were orange. They started to phase out in favour of White Fords (10 pallets), these had white canvas sliding sides with ply inner lining. My van was 8 pallet size, fleet number 2445. Depending on where I was going, I used to start very early, for example, if doing St.Neots and Cambs then I would start about 5.30 or 6.00. If i was off to South Shields depot I would start at 4.30, ( depending what time I finished the previous day). We took over a lot of Peterborough' depots area and I could be anywhere from Grantham and south as far as Kings Lynn. Friday was nearly always Oundle, Corby, Kettering, Market Yarborough and parts of Northampton. Also my brother worked at SPD but he was on permanent nights in the cold store, assembling and loading Birds-Eye deliveries. He worked there for a number of years until a fork lift truck ran over his foot and he had to retire on medical grounds. I believe SPD shut down in the eighties/nineties, not quite sure as I moved to east Sussex in early 1987. Beekay.

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Thanks for the reply Beekay. I remember the D series 10 pallet very well badged as the 1615 if memory serves me right, my 1st wagon when I joined RHM back in 1977 with the chrome strip across the front of the cab, you never know our paths might have crossed at some point down the log.

i used to know a driver back in the 70s who worked for Marshall’s in Bulwell called Tony, he used to do the Leicester area and apparently had a bit of a mishap one day and returned to base with the drivers door in the back of the wagon after opening it on to oncoming traffic after a visit to a pub after he had completed his delivery’s for the day. Needles to say he got the sack and I was latter told he went on to work for Birds eye, nice guy, just wondered if you might have known him.

Regards, Allan.

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Its me again Volly,  I vaguely remember a fella from Marshall's who worked in the Birds-Eye cold store, name of Tony. I seem to think he worked with my older brother on regular nights, assembling frozen food loads for the day time drivers who did multi drop deliveries. Can't remember his second name though. When I was a warehouseman, before driving, I would occasionally be called upon to go on nights if they were a man down due to illness. Wasn't impressed working in minus 25. I used to have a beard and moustache and they used to freeze over with my breath ! Prior to going to SPD, I worked F.H.Whittle in Bulwell. It was a fleet of only four 26 ton tipper trucks, carrying normally bulk coal although we did sometimes carry stone etc. My dad was another of the drivers and my uncle (his brother) was the foreman. When Fred Whittle tried to sell out to K + M they refused the vehicles because there was only 8 studs on the wheels and all their fleet had 10. My uncle joined forces with Frank Fisher of Gilead St. and they bought out Fred. After I left they changed the colour scheme from green to maroon and changed the name to Kingfisher transport. Don't know how long it lasted though, I had moved on to SPD.  Cheers, Barrie:tanning:

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Seen their wagons parked up on Glaisdale, but I thought Scotland. Dundee maybe.

Edited Thinking back. It was George Allinsons of Darlington I saw on Glaisedale. Mid 60's.

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26 minutes ago, IAN123. said:

Thinking of all the ones i loaded back in the day.

Clearways, Dominics, Jewitts, Stirlands, Wests, Bfi, Smiths of Eccles, Roadline, Marshalls, Railfreight, Hensons, many small van crowds as well..white arrow..they gone?

West's are still going, they do a lot for boots.

There is not really a big haulier left in Nottingham, this is probably due to the lack of work from, all of the old big companies.

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BRS  Parcels , or K & M Hauliers ?

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Yep, too dark a green for BRS I reckon.

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On 2/3/2019 at 10:18 PM, IAN123. said:

Didn't keep them spanking though like Stirlands..the boss must have been in the Army..gaffer came on the ashes when i was yard man at Island st.

Starts tossing fag packets and wrappers out the shunters ERF!

Jack Stirland was alleged to be fanatical about his lorries going out of the yard spotless.

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I dont know where Andrews were running out of I only saw one trailer with Andrews on the side that was when I joined Clearways at the old BRS depot on Triumph road Frank also bought some Leyland road trains for the Boots contract He was in competition with Wests for it a penny cheaper in those days and you got the contract They say old man Andrews was a good boss to work for I started on an old P reg leyland with air operated clutch if you left it in gear at the traffic lights it would lose the air and take off wether you wanted to or not I remember a chap from norfolk on the dock he used to talk like the singing postman Heh yer gorra loit boy meeowed

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