My Blog

The holiday started at 04:30 on Monday morning. It had been a restless night, probably caused by the desire not to sleep through. The routine had been mapped out the day before and for once everything went to plan, which meant that at 05:00 we were in the car heading for East Midlands Airport. By 06:30 I had dropped Dragon and Dragonette, and the luggage off, parked

......... at Shitehole Distribution.

 I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the job at Shepherds. It was just a shame that the transport manager was a dickhead and the MD was a complete twat.

The way the job worked there was that the motors were loaded overnight by 'Muscles' and his crew. By and large they did a pretty good job under difficult circumstances. The loads were made up of anything

Shepherd Distribution.

And so in the summer of 2000 my driving career began in earnest. I suppose it would be fair to say that I was a late starter being as I was 40 years old by this time. You see it really is never too late to start something.

My first motor with Shepherds was an old Iveco 7.5 tonner that was dog rough inside, when I did night out I had to pin the bloody curtains up !, but it

Hillfoot.

The next five years of my working life were to be spent at Hillfoot Steels in Sheffield. Hillfoot are a major independent stockholder of engineering steels and producer of forged products. Established way back with one forging hammer, they have consistently grown until they were recently bought out/taken over by Murrays from Scotland.

I was taken on to drive a sideloader.

 The steel was in

Back to the steel.

A short period of unemployment followed. The turning point came on a day when I went for two interviews. One was a driving job, driving a Transit pick-up for a plating (chrome plating etc) firm. The other was  for a stainless steel stockholders, working in the warehouse.

I was offered the driving job and having been rung and told I hadn't got the other one I naturally accepted

Marriage and Morrisons.

Like I said, I met my first wife whilst working voluntarily for a Citizens Advice Bureau. We used to go for a drink at lunchrtimes and evenings and sometimes she'd stop over at my poxy bedsit. The inevitable happened and she fell pregnant which meant that me being me, a wedding was arranged. I moved in with her and her parents and three weeks before AJ was born I started

My next proper job didn't come along for more than a year, but what prompted me to apply was an experience, for that is the only way I can describe it, at Lincoln Theatre Royal.

I got chatting to a fella in a pub, his name was Art Walker, he smoked Capstan Full Strength and lots of them so he's probably no longer with us. Through him I found out that the Theatre Royal was looking for a couple of

The working life of Timbo commenced in 1976 when I left Castle Hills Secondary Modern in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire.

 Hired and fired.

My very first job was at a packing factory near Lincoln. They picked us up by coach from Gainsborough, and shipped us over there en masse. There were several other school-leavers like me, and we all thought it was great because we were earning money. Comparable