This is a wonderful film of working men back in the day. It reminds me of being a young lad and going with my dad to the rail sidings and handballing bags of all sorts of things, then roping and sheeting. I was in awe of them men, a generation no longer with us, but definitely not forgotten. Thanks for sharing, I have got so much pleasure watching and remembering.
A generation no longer with us? You could be right. The generation back then were an honest, hardworking lot. Now, you have fraudsters and criminals driving trucks. No kidding. I know one. This particular truck-driving fraudster even tried to become a *MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT* in 2010. Oh my God! But he ended up in prison for about a year, after defrauding multiple students and their parents. And today, 11 years after getting banged up in prison, he's still trying to con his employers (trucking company bosses). A criminal never sheds his skin. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-P3fYmBT9-uk.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-A93f-RsbhDw.html
I worked for BRS bodybuilding in the 1950’s. Working on all the 8 leggers of the time. AEC, Maudsley, ERF, Scammell etc etc. this brought back many memories.
Well done lads, in a time when people cared for each other, and the world was a happier place, I wish I could have lived in those days, you have set an example of what it is to be human, god 🙏 bless to you and yours, thank you.
i started driving trucks 19 64 first truck aec mammoth major 8 legger twin steer i was a skinny wee weakling but after 2 years on it i had muscles like charles atlas i hated that ratchet handbrake allways caught my skin in the clip when releasing it and iwas working from the stirling area at the time this film brings back so many memories for me i retired from the trucks at 73 years old so nearly a life time on the same job
Guy, AEC, Leyland, ERF and Albion. Names we don't see anymore. Engines by Gardner, Leyland and Perkins and not one with more than about 150 bhp. A great look back. Thank you for posting.
everything about this film is really top quality, and the music is so tranquil and beautiful,it is impossible to criticize this production nor would i want to.Of course we must accept the commercial aspect of it.But i presume there was no actors in it ( theres a small possibility i might have spotted one or two) but it doesent matter . So top marks to everyone involved and many thanks to Brar Films for bringing it to us,so please can we have more and if possible even more. Looking forward to many and much of the same Regards J.T.at 73 !!
It`s quaint, a story from a bygone era but I will stick to my 230BHP DAF, air suspension seat, automatic gearbox, all the toys including digital radio. These guys were real men, the type we will never see again.
Fantastic look back to the quality and happiness of a great period in our history - this was when Harold Macmillan told us "You've never had it so good"; he meant peace as well as prosperity and - as always - he was bang on the nail. This is such a beautiful film - many thanks.
Evokes memories of a much simpler time. The music in particular makes me wish for a return to those times but I know that I am wishing in vain. Where did this world go wrong?
@Wil Jones German brothers? Hitler (I know he was Austrian but he is very much identified with Germany), Himmler, Goering, Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belsen and many other atrocities.....they were no brothers of mine. In any case, this film was shot well after WW2 so what is your point?
Being a class one driver today with all the creature comforts, i couldnt imagine being interviewed to work on this job with those rigids in that climate....we are spoiled.
Some quick maths, Bert, Bob, Geordie and Dave between them loaded some 1,200 bags of cement a day come sunshine, hail, rain, biting subzero cold, fog and snow and drove them 88 miles per day over often wild and steep terrain, without power steering and servo-assisted braking. No wonder they needed all that "power" food, bet they slept like babies every night.
Aye @gilburton You and me both but I reckon we would both be aching, especially if it was sleeting. Friend Jim went back to running part time continental at 70.. because it was like driving a car.
I am lucky, I have lived and worked in those areas for the last forty odd years. The road over to Glen Lochy is sadly being allowed to fall into disrepair. I have cycled over it many times.
Excellent... in a Scottish truck driver and this is so fascinating, hearing all the town names and seeing how things have changed... not by much actually... principals are all still the same. Just a slightly different way of doing it.
I'm sure it wasnt anywhere near as rosy and wonderful as this films makes out but things like "Pride in the job" and hard work are a thing of the past - something we seem to have lost and have no way of regaining. Pity.
My father drove for BRS (British Road Services) and was based in Tuffnel Park Depot in North London. I remember those trucks well. I went all over the country with him in some of them.
@Biker Boiy In the 50's and to an extent towards the mid 60's forklifts were a relatively new thing in terms of general cargo handling. They had been around since the late 20's but only used for very specific jobs. The concept of the 'unit load' and 'palletisation' was still very much in its infancy and not fully adopted. Unions didn't like them either in those times, forklifts put a lot of men out of work.
@gilburton jeeeezus we were backward, I remember seeing my first Swedish Scania truck, pull into the yard, from Sweden in the late 60's. It was a monster, half as high again as any British 'tractor'. cab. and inside?? like something from another world, The luxury was amazing, a fixed bed in the back of the cab, power steering, a stereo system that was REAL hi-Fi, a fantastic heating system, and on and on. We were like kids, queueing to have a turn in the driver's seat , as he sat amused on a wall, watching us. No wonder our truck industry died, no bloody investment see, a common reason for decline, and other factors of course.
life was tough back then. my great grandfather was a coal handler for a power station. died at 55. my grandfather died from handing carcinogenic chemicals at work.
Add nationalisation to union culture and management woes, plus lack of investment, culture of exporting any old rubbish to the colonies, lack of uptake of engineering modernisation and little surprise Mercedes and MAN prospered in the long run by an opposite approach, while not much endured in Britain. Sad.
Nationalisation happened and the less communist western Europeans blitzed past us with superior vehicles so when they did arrive they made our lorries look ancient
Oh I just love these old films about average day live. People look more happy and relaxed than nowwadays. Sure it was hard work but is it better now ? Burnout and depression were just vage words then
They were using a forklift to unload the cement at the dam site. I wonder why they couldn't have done the same at the railhead? Maybe labor was cheaper than a forklift and driver in 1959. They were tough guys, no doubt about that. I'd be in bed paralyzed for three days from one day's worth of unloading!
Watching this wonderful presentation and can't help wondering what happened to the four lads, Dave, Bert, Geordie and Bob who lived on the "line" for 2 years at Killin trucking the cement each day? Presume they all will have passed on by now, though I suppose the youngest Bob, could still be around? Any of their family watch this and able to provide any details? That would be nice.
@@michaelparkin6974 Hello and greetings to you. Actually he'd be 121 this year, IF the figures supplied are correct and also IF Canny Geordie Joiner gave his correct age all those years ago, he was called "Canny" after all 😉. That's why I wrote, "Presume they all will have passed on by now, though I suppose the youngest Bob, could still be around?" Note I didn't single out Canny Geordie Joiner as the one possibly still living I singled Bob - any enlightening thoughts there Mick?
Brilliant video of a very different world of road haulage. Only a couple of years after this film the BTC, then a bit later on the statutory monopoly, were broken up. In the late 1970s/ mid 1980s my father worked for National Freight Corporation, which by that time was parent company of NCL, BRS and Pickfords. BRS became Roadline. There was also some sort of 49/51% split control of Freightliner jointly with British Rail, whereby [IIRC] NFC and BR alternated majority 'shareholding' every five years.
I bought a used 1969 GMC 9500, 8V71 engine, 13 speed Road Ranger transmission pulling 4.33 gears on 10.00x22 inch rubber. Never used the clutch except to start the load. Longest haul was from Tampa, Florida to Las Vegas, Nevada, about 2500 miles. Flatbed trailer, 50,000 pound load. Over the Rocky Mountains, highest point where I crossed was 11,000 feet. It sang such a sweet song.
So the cement dust "Rots your clothes and boots". What did it do to these guy's lungs? I bet none of them lived to make old bones.I am no 'elf and safety fanatic, far from it, but in some few ways, things can be better now! It's just a pity everything else in this wonderful old film has gone forever.
Those were the days! No power steering, 4 speed crash box (no synchromesh, double declutching all the way up and down the box) , sheeting (properly) and roping your own load and folding your sheets up afterwards Ask a modern day lorry driver to try that,or even tie a dolly, see how far you get! On the plus side, all the roadside pull-ups where you could get a REAL breakfast at any hour of the day and night, no tachos, just a log book (easy to fiddle - NO! - joking, honestly!) I'm just bemg nostalgic really, before anyone takes issue (I'm a 70year old ex trucker, so I'm allowed!)! Certainly, todays truck driving is safer and better in all respects (except the roadside pull ups - and probably the wages!) ( Is that all night truck stop on the A5 at Cannock still going? - and anyone remember the Black Cat Cafe on the A27 - mega brekkie!)
The first time I saw and sat in a modern Volvo Lorry Cab, was in 1968; the driver was Norwegian, and had driven all the way from Stavanger. It was huge compared to British Lorries, high off the ground, and with all the now familiar comfortable attributes we now take for granted. Power brakes and Steering, auto gear change, A bed in the Cab, Air con, and a heating system that blew onto all the glass areas. electric adjustable seating, Stereo Sound system, radio phone too. We were like visitors to the future. It was the beginning of the big change.
I worked in the cutting- room on this British Transport Films production (1960.) Glad to see it getting an outing. Why does it have a "Brar" films label and not a BTF logo? Please?
That's why no woman drove lorries back then to hard for them no automatics and hand loading bag by bag this made my dad a old man before his time but. I loved my holidays out in his truck 🚚. Wish I could go back to those days just me and my dad and his truck
They were obviously proud of the then hi-tech office full of women tending loads of clunking telex(?) machines and punched tape readers. These days it would all be done by an app!
Nice old lorries , takes me back but LOL @ 3:33 "The policeman is your friend...." That's comedy!!!!! Thought it was a Monty Python flick for a second!!!!
They didn’t show them in winter when ropes and sheets were frozen solid and you couldn’t undo a knot . Or half frozen in those draughty cabs with little or no heating. Demisting meant keeping inside temperature the same as outside so it didn’t steam up . No thanks I’ll keep modern stuff
30 tons a day Today you'll get that lot up that hill In one go. Granted it' would be on a flatbed 44 ton artic 'shame it would not be a British motor these days.
They actually did 60 tons as it was 2 trips per day, not sure if a modern 44 ton could access that place. Take your point about how it wouldn't be a British Truck these days though, either way.
All workers out. They blew it. They who under paid, They who would not invest in modernisation, think Morris Marina. The British motor industry was replaced by Hino, Datsun,Toyota. Not the workers fault.
Strikes may of been some of it. For trucks our products were totally outclassed by what the Europeans especially the swedes were offering in the late 60s and from then on we was playing catch up.
@@brianmccabe2430 unfortunately no different to the soviet Unions lorry manufacturers compared to their non worker owned western and Japanese competitors they are like comparing a model t to a tesla
So was I - I was lucky enough to spend my childhood in the passenger seat of my old mans Foden. I wasn't 21 until '91, so my first truck was a '92 Volvo - just not the same!
