AYLESFORD

Below is Ian Spellar outside the Aylesford Warehouse of GB Haulage, with our Dennis, who had just passed his HGV 1.

We were contacted by Graham Butteris (below that), who had this small unit at Aylesford's Quarrywood Estate, and as well as small warehousing contracts for G Costa and Waitrose, had a company called Road Air as tenants, who were the English end of a European operation. He called us in to do some of Road Air's UK deliveries, and also Costa and Waitrose deliveries to Waitrose at Bracknell.

It became obvious each payday that Graham was getting deeper into trouble, so we took over his lease, work and staff, and paid him enough cash to clear most of his debts. It gave us an entry into warehousing, and some valuable big customers. We also inherited his little 7.5tonne Bedford.

 Above are Ray and Graham, who ran the RoadAir operation at Aylesford. Ray introduced me to the Manager of EW Taylor shipping office in Sheerness, Andy Lambeth, who was just setting up an unaccompanied operation in cahoots with Nilsson BV in Vlissingen. I put him in touch with Rush Green Motors, who eventually sold us twelve refurbished flat 40' trailers with twistlocks, which we began operating for EWT.

Above are two RoadAir trucks awaiting top-ups on a Friday evening, ready to catch the ferry at Sheerness. We would also have been delivering and collecting groupage for these vehicles. 

This was the warehouse after we took over. The reason for the motley warehouse doors is that they had been blown out during the '87 hurricane.

Another one of our many F88s. This one was bought from Keith Noakes. He warned me that the gearbox mountings had failed, and I spent a week on the  road in it with a pair of chains and dogs holding the gearbox up. We eventually fitted it with new mounts and brought it here as the shunter. We eventually cut it up to use the engine for one of the F10s.

Another Friday night runner.