Coast Hill – plan for painting. One of the “Old Sheds”.

Good job I'm not out of cog - well I wouldn't be as my darling Wife Colleen is with me on her very first trip in a Lorry - but some Hero pulls out in front of us from a side road at the foot of the hill. "Hold on tight Coll !" Deep chuffing of brakes. The air turns blue, slightly. Somehow we manage not to write him off, and he zooms away up the hill, leaving us in crawler gear.

Our vehicle is an Atkinson Mk. 1, Reg. No. 932 FYR. Fleet No. 63. Bullet proof Lorry. Bomb proof Gardner 6LX engine. Top speed 47m.p.h. 10-12 m.p.g. average. Double drive back axles with 6 speed overdrive David Brown Crash box. On the hills at least you can start going up the box as they level out, unlike some other gearboxes where you're stuck in low until you reach the hill-top. But you lose a bit of power with the slow change-up on the flat, except going into overdrive. So, a slow steady Lorry, but I'm no speed merchant. We've plenty of time on our hands. We aren't going too, too far. Two drops and then to find a load back. Maybe a couple of nights out. It's late July and we are taking a load of Gyproc plasterboards to a building site in Winchester, our first delivery.

At Arnold's Transport we do a lot of work to the South and West of England. I'm one of the 20 or so eight-wheeler drivers. All of them are older than me, all crack Drivers, fit and trim for the handball loads. One or two, like Dad Skinner, Lenny Horton, and Joe Judd in Romsey on the Southampton Night Trunk, are nearing retirement. Lenny always wears his Green Arnold's overalls and a flat cap. He keeps his Lorry, No. 62, 931 FYR, immaculate.

A Westerly wind - painting of Lennie Horton’s Atkinson, no. 62, 931 FYR.

This is now the last one in its original livery of Yellow and Green, not British Gypsum White, driven by Lenny.

Alan (Dad) Skinner is about 60, with a short sleeve orange shirt, flannel trousers with turn ups, Arnold issue boots and the flat cap. Sun burnt complexion, always tidy. A handsome bloke in every way. He drives No. 73, AYO 367B. Joe is a tall, silver haired, friendly, quiet spoken, country-man from Romsey.

Then there's a handful of star four- wheeler drivers, and another dozen or more artic. men, including the great Les Purdon, of "Truckers North, Truckers South" fame. And my best pal, "Noddy" Durling.

Noddy Durling – 2017, last time we met up. Still my best mate from the road and still looking on the bright side!

I'm only 27 but been driving for a living for 10 years, nearly an old hand! Some men my age drive Scanias or Volvo F88s, usually in the opposite direction - Middle East for example! But give me the Old Roads, old fashioned Lorries, old ways of doing things, any day. No chasing about - Arnold suits me fine.

We reach the leafy lanes of Guildford and pick up the by-pass, A3 Portsmouth Road. We go past Dennis Bros. works. Up Stag Hill, turn right onto the Hog's Back towards Farnham, along an early Arterial Road at a guess. We are following the A31 towards Winchester and Bournemouth, and from Surrey into Hampshire.

We just went by Cuckoo's Corner, three and a quarter hours from Rochester.

New Road - plan for painting of new A31. Near Cuckoo’s Corner. And a new Sedd Ak. 8-wheeler. I wish Arnolds had bought us some of them. I’d be still driving it now!

Soon we can stop at the Penguin Cafe at Four Marks. Coll needs a cuppa, so do I. No. 63 needs a break too. A good old Lorry, safe as houses on the road and very comfortable to drive. Like a Rolls Royce compared with some other makes I’ve had. A real old long distance haulage motor. We are good friends. I spent a whole weekend repainting the inside of the cab Cream, renovating the woodwork, and making new Manganese Blue Rexine door panels to replace the torn ones. She's over 10 years old but like new inside.

Arnolds is an old-style firm to work for. Yes, it's mainly hard graft handball loads - Gyproc plasterboard down and Frank Tucker's Westbricks back, Blue Circle or Rugby Cement, and so on. A load of paper reels out of the Empire/Imperial mills, or some Horton Kirby butter wrappers for Chard Junction is a bit of a luxury. Or a palletised load of paper, back from Wiggins Teape at Ivybridge. The Lorries are hard work to drive as well. But slow pace. The company allows you seventeen and a half miles an hour running time. And however long it takes to get tipped. Four drops for Devon and Cornwall, with a load back of two or three drops to the London area, is a week’s work. If you are away, you are to have digs- with a proper breakfast. If you work longer than 10 hours then you must have an extra hour's break. It's a Union firm, but we are all sorts working there. I'm in the T&G Union, not a fanatic, but a Leftist you'd say, always have been and won't ever change. Some of my comrades are the same - like Lenny Horton. Some are the opposite, most don't care. But as they say -"there's politics and then there's us!" We all get on good, Drivers, Mechanics, Transport Managers and Office Staff alike. The Boss, Mr Eric Chase, or "Chasey", is a real gentleman who treats you like a human being. You'd never go against him. The money is fair, Union rate, no Merchant King's, but I don't follow the money god.

We go through Four Marks and stop at the Penguin Cafe on the left. There's a Metal Box Driver inside with his Seddon Articulator outside. We sit with him and chat over a cuppa. He is from Poole and loaded for Rochester. Half an hour's rest and we are off again. No. 63 is cooling down, waiting patiently outside. You can hear the clicks of the manifold as it settles down, and the gurgling of the water cooling down in the waterways, still going on after half an hour. We climb into the cabin, push in the engine stop, flip down the ignition switch, press the starter button, into 1st gear, clonk off the ratchet handbrake, and Winchester - here we come!

We are looking for a building site. No print-outs or Sat Navs. Just rely on memory for a regular drop, or even ask an actual Human Being if we don't know. We eventually find it. A shunt to get in, backing up a dusty roadway.

Two slight problems with building sites - 1. When the Site Manager comes out of his Hut to say - "We had this lot last week." So you have to ring up the Gyproc and wait an hour or so for a diversion, sometimes 50 miles or more away. Once I had to go from Dorchester back to Crawley, for example. Wherever we go we take our night-out case.

2. Punctures. I had two in one day with a Mickey Mouse Foden eight-wheeler, on for another firm. And one time on Arnold's I had a nail not through my tyre but through my boot, which I didn’t notice until blood started oozing out, and I ended up at the hospital in Truro.

No such problems today. They are having about 4 ton of plasterboard and some coving used for ceiling edges, which is stowed along the top of the load, from front to back. We need to undo all the ropes and sheet cords and roll back the sheet to the loading board. Usually there are a couple of blokes to help unload, but today we have only one young lad. It means me climbing up onto the deck every time, pulling down a pair of plasterboards taped together at the edges, jumping down and helping him stack them, then up again, and so on.

After that I need to recover! Coll and I have the sarnies she has made - interstitial cheese and pickle. And tea out of our flask. Then re-sheet and re-rope the remaining plasterboards. Finishing up with a phone call, courtesy of the Site Hut. To try and get a load back from somewhere tomorrow. Meanwhile we have to do our second delivery. Still 11 tons on board, and less weight on the back end means more on the steerers. No power steering, of course, so it's hard work for the 70 odd miles to our next drop. And its sweltering hot. Arnold Drivers don't need gymnasiums to keep fit!

A wrestle with the Maroon steering wheel to shunt round a tight corner, and we leave the site in a cloud of dust and small stones, following a Christopher Hill "Dorset Seeds, Dorset Feeds" Lorry up towards Winchester Railway Station. Then out along the Stockbridge road.

All is well, a beautiful day, just your usual holiday traffic.

At Stockbridge we join the A30, England's longest country lane, just short of 300 miles from London to Land's End. We stop at a shop to buy a jar of Easterton Village Marmalade. Just past this is the Caravan Cafe, an all-nighter, at the back of another shop.

Caravan Café, Stockbridge - All-nighter in the summer.

We don't go in but head onwards and upwards. The A 30 is slower than the A 303, which since the 1960s is being upgraded. (No more going round the houses for the Andover By-Pass!) Most traffic is going the 303 now, via Stonehenge. But as our other drop is at West Coker, just past Yeovil, we can stick with the A30. It's an undulating road, so a bit of gearbox work, but a really lovely road. Some open stretches with beautiful views, and then shady bits through the trees.

Lay By, somewhere along the A30 with a return load from Ivybridge, Plymouth

Along the way are old towns and villages where the street lights go out at midnight. Busy road in summer, but quiet for the rest of the year. Out of Stockbridge (maybe at the top of Houghton Hill), is a garage with wrecked cars parked facing the very edge of the road, as if to warn you. One is a Mk VII Jag. in a very sorry old state.

Lopcombe Corner near Haynes's garage, and we are into Wiltshire. The original A30 from Whitchurch and Andover joins us, an even slower road. It was re-routed about 1930 when Basingstoke was by-passed. Just before Winterslow on the right is an old Stage Coach Inn, The Pheasant. Here one night in 1816 a Travelling Zoo Lioness escaped and attacked the offside leader (Horse) of the Exeter to London Royal Mail Coach.

Pheasant Inn and the Lion attack - painting by James Pollard. c 1830.

I'm interested in these Old Roads, and their stories. Like Goods Waggon drivers being turfed out of their beds in the middle of the night to make room for the Stage-Coach passengers who have just arrived! And there is a painting done by Charles Cooper Henderson (the original Roadscapes Painter!) of an Exeter Waggoner, William Downes with 8 Horses pulling, having to get out of the way of the Exeter to London up Mails. The guard angrily blowing his horn at him.

Exeter Waggoner - painting by Charles Cooper Henderson, c 1830. (The original Roadscapes painter!)

Sounds about right; goods drivers are always in the way, or in the wrong place at the wrong time. Definitely 3rd class citizens. But you do feel part of the history. Anyone on the road will tell you that. And I’d love to know what became of William Downes. Maybe he got taken over by Frank Tucker!

At the far end of Winterslow is the old Hilltop Cafe, where Arnold's Exeter Night Trunk would change over. By now it is a Little Chef, and the changeover is at Gill's, Penton Corner, on the 303.

Gills café at Andover - set more or less on the old Roman Portway, London to Exeter Road.

Charlie Carpenter from Kennford, Devon, is the Exeter Driver. A good bloke with the Wheelers - the best Eight-Wheeler Driver ever, I was told when I started here. A bit of a legend of the A30, I'd add to that.

We plod on and reach Salisbury. The Roman Road here, the Port Way, from London and Silchester to Exeter, crossed our road near the Skew Bridge, heading for Blandford Forum and Dorchester. You can still see its embankment running alongside the road further on. It's known as the Ackling Dyke. But our A30 heads for Wilton and Barford St. Martin. At Barford some Arnold's drivers still follow the old night trunk route through Hindon to pick up the 303 at Willoughby Hedge. The Royal Blue Coach Drivers run Dead Cars (empty Buses) that way to save time. Some old hands and regulars use this way through, and at Hindon are two signposts on opposite sides of the road by the Lamb Inn. One says A 303 Exeter, the other says A30 Salisbury.

Charlie Carpenter - 1971 pre-Roadscapes painting of Hindon, with Charlie on the Exeter Trunk.

This way through is supposed to take half an hour less than sticking to the A303 from Micheldever, as it avoids Chilmark Down. Pre A303 days Hindon was on the way through. Early Motorists would carry on from Andover, Stonehenge, Hindon to Ilchester, then pick up the Fosse as far as South Petherton, and on to Devon.

Co. Gate, A39 - painting of old Morris car, London Reg., c 1930 at Cosgate, the County Gate, between Porlock and Lynmouth, Somerset/Devon border. Never was there a toll here. The cottage was lived in from time to time as far as I know. Lately it is part of the Exmoor Visitor Centre.

So, anything to avoid the way we are going.

Anyway!

We go left at Barford, along the main drag, for Thomas Hardy's Shaston, the local name for Shaftesbury. Down through Ludwell and we are in Dorset. Very old- fashioned County. We stop briefly in the town of Shaftesbury for a look at Gold Hill. Coll is amazed.

Gold Hill - photo of Shaftesbury.

Next we go right at The Mitre, past the Grosvenor, out on New Road and down-along the flat, for East Stour.

We’ve been going now for a good while and it's nearly 5 o'clock. Time for tea. Coming into view on our right is another all-night cafe, the Blackmore Vale.

Blackmore Vale Café, East Stour, A30 – more recent photo of the café.

A couple of tilt cab AEC eight-wheelers are outside. We pull in and park up, glad to get out of the cab. It is awful hot in there. Both windows are screwed down, the roof flap open. The draught comes in through the windows and straight out through the roof again, managing to miss the both of us!

We cool down in the cafe, a friendly nod to the Drivers and we pass the time of day discussing the rights and wrongs of AECs and Atkis. Both brilliant motors in their different ways.

Coll and me have a cold drink, with a slice of Blackcurrant tart & squirty cream.

Says she -I've nearly had enough of this noisy old Lorry!- I was wondering how long it’d take for her to come out with that one. About 150 miles is the answer. Very long suffering my Missus! That's despite an engine cover across the bonnet in the cab, a heavy bit of rug for more soundproofing, and a beautiful Aztec design Orange, Yellow, White and Blue coloured blanket over the top of them for the finisher. Good job it's not one of our 6LW "Old Sheds".

Bow Front – One of Arnold’s 6LW Gardner powered 8 wheelers, top speed 28 – 32mph. Good Looker but a real Guvnor’s motor. Not too much thought for the poor old driver!

That is serious noise! F88 Drivers wouldn't know the half of it!

We unwind for half an hour on our second break today, then off again. Into Somerset by Sharland's Fir Tree Cafe, back into Dorset, then Milborne Port, Somerset. Back into Dorset and Sherborne, and finally down Babylon Hill into Yeovil, Somerset. Confused? We are running along the border of the two counties.

Time's up. We turn into the Lorry park, get our gear, find some digs, and... "We walk out at the end of the day" - which is all you have to do really.

Tomorrow is another day. After Breakfast we'll do the West Coker drop, a building site. Then we have booked a return load of quarry tiles from Cutlers at Poole - one hit for Stanmore, Middx. So, Tuesday night we may just make it up to somewhere like the Lupin for teatime.

Lupin Café, A30, Bagshot – photo, early 1970s. It closed about this time. The old hands at Arnolds said that the new Atki Mk. 1 was like a Rolls Royce to drive when they changed to them.

Then stay at my Ma's in London, but it'll be late. Bit of jiggery pokery with the Logbook maybe. But no carving the job up. Get tipped Wednesday, back to Gravesend to DERV up. Then down to Rochester and load for away again. Hopefully. All depends on West Coker. Got it all worked out you see.

Coll and Alan/ Roadscapes

Coll and me in those days - In Jersey, Channel Islands, where she was born. Her Dad, Don Bisson, from St. John, was a Jersey-French Potato Farmer who used to talk about the old Lorries he had – like Chevrolet and Reo Speedwagons. He was a Great Man.