HOW IT ALL BEGAN, ---

I started life in a village called Knayton, in North Yorkshire, England. From there we moved to Borrowby, my father was a fitter for Places Timber Yard at Northallerton, and as a youngster I was always interested in trucks and all sorts of transport. When I was older I looked forward to weekends and school holidays. That was when I could go with my dad out into the woods to service the tractors and crawlers. My job was to grease the tractor, and then take it for a run in the woods to warm the oil up, so it would run out better. The trees were then pulled to the road side for loading onto the trucks and then hauling them off to the saw mills.

 
When I was at school I had to get up early every working day, check my dad's car for oil and water, and then start the car, to get it warmed up and ready for him to go to work. In the winter time I had to put the starting handle in and turn the engine over a few times, pull the choke out, switch the ignition on and manually crank the engine with the starting handle, not
with the self starter.

When I left school, I started in farming as a tractor driver for Ronny Dicks' farm at Great Fencote. I had to cycle to work summer and winter. I finished work there and moved on to a farm at Scruton, for Jack Ward. I worked for him until I was 17 years old, and then got my driving licence. With that, I started for the fat stock marketing at Askew near Bedale as a van driver delivering oven ready chickens. From there, I got the job on a Thames trader going around to the farms and collecting the chickens for slaughter. I got a few trips out to Smithfield market in London with meat. I had to stay on the Thames trader because I was still under 21, and did not have the correct licence to drive the larger Bedford BMC or the Atkinsons.

I left the FMC and started for a civil engineering company. I was a driver but we did almost any thing, from driving dump trucks and bulldozers, loading shovels, and any thing else that was needed doing. In the winter time when other work was quiet, we did lime spreading on farms.

I remember one winter, I think it was 1964 we had a lot of snow, and I went off with a Chaseside loading shovel to work for the North Riding County Council, snow shovelling.

I was sent up the A 66 Scotch Corner to the Cumberland border, which was on the Saturday. I left the machine at the Council yard at Bowes over night, and went home. I set out Sunday morning, there was so much more snow that I could not get back with the car. Leaving the car at Scotch Corner I got a lift with a snow plough to Bowes, and when I arrived, was told to go to Barnard castle and start clearing a road up to Middleton Teasdale.

Apparently, one of the Council 6x6 Macks had become stuck in a snow drift, and would I try to dig it out. I got it out, and was told to keep clearing the road to Middleton.

After working all day I found that I could not return home as the snow was so bad it had blocked the A 66. Not going home, and just being newly married with no telephone in the flat, I could not let my wife know what was happening. I rang her parents so as they could go and tell her my problem, and for her to be at her parent's house the next night so I could ring her.

I stayed at the Red Lion pub in Cotherstone. I had no clean clothes, so I made a phone call to my boss asking him to go to my house and collect me some. They arrived by helicopter, and were lowered down to me on the winch.

The next morning the weather was worse than ever, roads blocked every where. I got a message to keep heading towards Middleton and when I arrived, I was told that there was a woman at a pub in a village who had been there since Saturday night, and she was ill. They needed to get her to hospital. The helicopter was busy on other work, and could I make a road through for the ambulance? After much hard work I managed to get through, and tow the ambulance up to the pub. The snow was still blowing in and blocking the roadway. The snow plough that was following me cleared the way back for the ambulance.

After working all day and night, and then through the next day, I finally arrived back at the pub in Cotherstone. I was trying to relax with a well earned pint, only to have the local policeman come in and tell me that some people on a bus were trapped in a snow drift, and would I go and dig them out?

I managed to get to them around midnight. The snow was so deep I had the machine bucket up as far as it would go. With a Council worker in the bucket standing up, and with a shovel upright in his hand, he still could not reach the top of the drift.

When that job was finished, I managed to get about three hours sleep, then back to work. I was busy clearing one snow drift when I noticed a flash of chrome as I tipped the snow over the hedge. On a closer look, I found that a car had been left on the road, and I had picked it up in the bucket, tipping it over the hedge with the snow.

Well the snow finally let up by the end of the week. They kept me on clearing the back roads, and during that time, was when the torque converter prop shaft broke. I managed to get back home that Friday night, and returned Saturday with a new shaft. I even took my wife with me so as she could drive the car back.

It was one hell of a job putting the new shaft on, as the machine was on the road side in the snow. I had to lie on my back to take the old shaft off, and then replace it with the new one. Having to lie in the water and snow all that time, that when I finished the job, I was like a block of ice. It took over an hour sitting in the car trying to get warm again. During this time was when my wife told me she was expecting our first child. (That helps to warm one up pretty quick.)

When the company folded, I went to work for a plant hire company called Curtis, at Tholthorpe. I was hired as a low loader driver, but ended up driving cranes, draglines, dozers, and loading shovels when the other drivers were on holiday. If short of an operator, I would go out on site and operate a machine, this job did not last to long before he went bust.

My next job was at a garage in Green Hammerton near York. I was classed as a semi skilled fitter, in other words a dog's body. I was the one to go out with the heavy recovery truck, (a Scammal ex army) with no power steering, just muscle power. It was hard work to shunt about when out at an accident. If you had to get in a position to winch a truck out of a field or a gutter, it was a struggle at times, but once there, it could do its job and that was the main thing.

I also went to Leyland, Albion, and Scammal, collecting new trucks and delivering them. They also gave me all the heavy jobs like changing springs. My problem was, although I was at home every night the money was rubbish, so I decided to go back driving full time.

I applied at Sunter Bros for a job and was accepted. I started in July 1969. At first I was a second man at my request, as I had never loaded wagons, and steering bogies before. I was spare driver for a while and then I was given a Scammal Highwayman with a Leyland 680 power plus engine. The Scammal was an artic but it also had a ballast box. I did mainly low loader work as it only did 40 mph but was good at pulling. Next I was put up onto a six wheeler unit, an Atkinson with a Cummins engine. In summer it was very hot in the cab and in the winter it was freezing cold. I did a lot of work with this truck with out much trouble;

I was then put onto a new Scania 110 with sleeper cab. I first started going abroad for Sunters, and had never been out of the country before. My first load was a little bit too high for the motorways in France, so I had to follow the route on the back roads and, to add insult; I had to go to Paris to clear customs. The route in Paris had me going the wrong way down one way streets with police escort. It was after nine o clock at night and not knowing a word of French it became a real headache. I managed to get by successfully that trip, and did many more throughout Europe after that.

Upgrading from the Scania, I got a new Volvo F89, and the first job was to go solo to Memingen, in Germany to collect a new six axle trailer. I did many trips abroad with this trailer and the F89. They were a great pair.

While I had this truck, I made a trip to the former Yugoslavia with a load that made head lines in the papers, and truck magazines. Reading from the articles, ---

QUOTE, ---Bob's hair raising haul in mountains, negotiating a 56 ton load down a 5,000 ft mountain pass to a remote mountain village in Yugoslavia, is uncommon even for an expert such as Bob Fletcher. Bob who lives in Ripon is one of the most experienced drivers employed by Sunter Bros, the Northallerton based international heavy haulage contractors.

Even he was beginning to have second thoughts as he edged his 76 ft long trailer down the hairpins towards the Monte Blanc tunnel. "It's a good job it is dark; as I might not have gone down he grinned." Sunters had been entrusted with the transportation of a 58ft long

continuous phenolic foam laminating machine from Stockport to Srpske Moravice, and Bob freely admitted it was the most difficult job he had undertaken in his ten years with the company. But despite all his problems he made it safely and on time. --- END QUOTE.

The next truck was a new F12 six wheeler, plated at 150 ton. I also kept on with trips all over the continent, and then I was taken off that truck. Upgraded again and given a new Scania 142 six wheeler plated at 150 ton, with torque converter. What a machine, it could pull a house down with ease.

On one of my trips to Europe, I was waiting on the docks to go onto the ferry. It was very windy, and as an abnormal load, it goes on the ferry last, I started to reverse onto the ship and was told to stop, as they had room for one more trailer. I was waiting at the side of the truck, the Dockers shouted ok, but as I turned, the wind blew, and the open cab door swung back and hit me In the face. I was knocked down onto my knees and after picking myself up, I backed the truck on board but I could feel some thing running down my face, it was blood. I went up to the accommodation and lay down on the bunk, only to wake up late at sea feeling ill. My trailer man went for the captain, he looked at me and I was shivering and started to be sick. It was only blood coming up, and the captain being on a German freighter they don't carry a doctor. They made a call to shore for help, and by this time I had lost a lot of blood and fainted. When I came to, this guy was looking down at me and feeling my pulse. He said, we will have to take you ashore in the life boat.

This is going to be a real problem getting from a big ship in a force 7 Gail, into a small boat. Eventually they were successful at getting me there. I was then taken back to Grimsby hospital. It was around eleven o'clock at night and my nose was still bleeding. I had to laugh when I was taken from the lifeboat onto shore, and the first person to see me was a custom officer, asking if I had any thing to declare. I was in the hospital for three day as I had badly damaged a blood vessel.

I traveled all over Europe with this Scania. One day I was in Germany and rang the office, only to be told that I was being made redundant again. Sunters had merged with Econofreight and they were closing the depot at Northallerton, and were moving every thing to Middlesbrough. It was the end of 18 years work, but I was lucky and was kept on by the new company

Econofreight. I kept the same Scania 142 losing only the Sunters grey and red colours. We were repainted the blue and white colours of Econofreight. I carried on with my same job of running to Europe with loads. The new routine took a bit of getting used to. After 18 years with Sunters, the habits were slow in changing.

I remember one trip in particular, to Regensburg in Germany with a 10 axle trailer. We got to with in five km of the factory, and we had to have a police escort for the last bit of the journey. When the police arrived they checked everything, and could not find a maker's plate. They said that the load was heavier than what the permit stated. They then took me to a police station and put me in a cell, while they did some checks. When they let me out they said I must park up for the night and they would see me next morning.

When they arrived they told me they would take me to the site and let me offload, but I must not reload the trailer in Germany. I was to take it back to England and never return with it, unless it had maker's plates on. They had to let me off with the weight, as there was no Weigh Bridge (scale) nearby that could weigh me. How ever at the factory when we striped the sheets off, and were ready to offload, the crane could not even lift the load. Taking the top off, they found a load of pipe inside. The people in England had loaded the pipe without telling my company, to save paying for two more trucks. Instead of having 68 ton on, we had 108 ton on the trailer. We were very lucky that there was no weigh bridge on route. When we arrived back at the depot, the fitter had to remove a long vehicle sign on the back of the trailer and there was the maker’s plate we had been looking for.

On another trip, I was going down France to Rive de Gier with an ingot mould, and was stopped by police at Metz. They checked my paper work and found part of it missing, and then took me to a police station. I was put in a cell where I phoned the company and told them I was locked up. Their reply was; how do you know that you are locked up? My answer to that was; it’s a little room with a bed, and there is no handle on the inside to open the door. I was there for two hours while the problem was sorted out. It was the fault of the office that makes up the permits.

I have had a few goes with the French police and found that they can be very strict. Sometimes they will just stand at the road side and then step out and stop you. They check every thing. Years ago you could bribe them with a packet of cigarettes, but not so much now a days.

When you have a wide or a heavy load, you have to have a special permit. It usually takes you on the old and minor out of the way roads. One time I was following the pilot car and there was a railway bridge ahead. I saw a sign directing all conveyance exceptional (oversize loads) to the right, but the right turn took us through a farm yard. We stopped and went to look for the farmer's permission to enter his property. He said yes, and I will move my tractor. You come though my yard and turn left, go over the railway, and then back on your route.

When you have a very wide load, you have to have two pilot cars, and the police for escort. The police that come to escort you are with you all the way to your destination. We have to pay for there petrol, hotel, and all their meals. On top of that, we have to have the local police in some places. They escort us through their town, and again we must pay cash plus a tip. We are only allowed to travel between 08:00 o clock to 12 noon, and then again, 14:00 until normally 16:00, but they have become a little more liberal over the year

The time came again, and Econofreight was taken over by an Australian company, Brambles. Work continued on relatively the same. I was issued a new truck, a 420 hp M.A.N. This one day I was loading an 85 ton piece in Wakefield when the cell phone rang; I was told that when all the loads were finished from Wakefield, I would be made redundant.

I had many offers of jobs from firms in Holland and Germany. The draw back with working in Holland was that they retire their drivers at 58 years of age. I am 57 now and it is not worth the bother.

I was not out of work for more than two days, when I had a phone call from GCS Johnson. This guy started as an owner driver, and has worked his way up to become one of Britons heavy haulage contractors, and might I add, with a lot of hard work from both him and his wife.

GCS Johnson is a family firm where they are on first name terms. I started at the bottom as the spare driver, covering for holiday relief and anyone off sick. When a driver left, a more senior driver was put onto a four axle Scania 500. I ended up with a three axle Scania 500 that was plated at 150 ton. It was a nice little truck, although it was limited to 80 km per hour

(50 mph) I could put a ballast box on, and tow loads. I some times got the easy job of pushing another tractor with a heavy load, or double heading up steep hills.

Then in October, I set of for France with a 58 ton ingot mould. Arriving off the ferry at Zeebrugge, I became ill and was rushed to hospital. I lay in that bed while they did allsorts of things to me, and all the time I was thinking I might not ever drive again. I was sent home from Blankenburge hospital to my own hospital where more tests were done. While I was in hospital here in England, my boss and his wife came to see me and told me that the new Scania top line 580 was in the warehouse, and would not be going on the road until he knew whether or not I would be coming back. There are not many bosses that would let a new truck stand from October until January, taxed, and ready for the road. They really looked after me,

I still am still going over to Europe with all sorts of loads. Just a month or so back I had spent 33 days in Europe moving dump trucks from Holland to Spain. As the saying goes, I am off to sunny Spain. Not for me it wasn't, I had rain then snow, in fact I think I had about 2 days of fine weather, and it was one of those days when the police had the weigh bridge open. I never made it onto the weigh bridge as they found fault with my wide load permit. I then had my papers for the truck taken off me until I got a new permit with my truck number on it.

I will have to try and think harder for some more adventures that I have had, so I will keep on searching. As you get older one forgets a lot of what happened in the past. I will definitely add more to this Biography. Just like my friend on the net, Old Bill. We have never met in person, but with what we have done during our driving careers, I think that we are nearly alike.
 

To see more of Bob's career in the float business, and more HEAVY DUTY load photos, go to his own web site, and view his history in the business.

NOTE; --- The unsolicited reference to a mans work life, has to be of the highest compliment. Bob recently received another glowing report. It clearly shows the professionalism that Bob works and lives by, --- [ QUOTE ]

Darrell;

Click here, and go direct, ---     BOB FLETCHERS PERSONAL WEB SITE     ---

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