Heritage Commercials Magazine - capturing the spirit of vintage days

A journey back in time

The last time I had seen Vic Harvey’s old Bedford TK, it was in far from roadworthy condition, having been long retired and occupying the corner of a field where it had been left to enjoy ‘commanding views over the Sussex countryside’.

To the uninitiated, the lorry looked to have been ‘dumped’, but in truth it was only ‘resting’. What a difference a couple of years and a lot of hard work have made, and the superbly restored vehicle was finished just in time to take part in the HCVS London to Brighton Run.

A few days after the run, I took the opportunity to visit Vic to learn the story of the Bedford and the part it has played in the family business “In January 1957, having completed my National Service, I returned home to join my father as a partner in the family farming and agricultural contracting business at Hurstpierpoint, which was in East Sussex. This was before we were peremptorily transferred to West Sussex in the county boundary changes in 1974.

“We had two dairy herds and an arable operation growing cereals and sugar beet on about 350 acres. On the contracting side, we had two Massey Harris combines and a baler and with the usual complement of tractors and machinery, we could undertake pretty much anything that was asked of us.

“A couple of ex-army Canadian Ford V8 lorries had been purchased after the war; but because of their phenomenal thirst for petrol, we had decided to get something more economical, and ended up with a 1950 Ford Thames ET6 three-tonner which had been converted to diesel with a 4D engine.

“This was used primarily to haul sugar beet to the local railway goods yard at Hassocks station where we off-loaded by hand throwing the beet over the side of the wagon with a fork. I reckoned to do a 16-ton railway truck in a day which was four 4-ton loads with the Ford."

Thames Trader

Heritage Commercials“Overloading was rife in those days but this was still much safer than using the unbraked four-wheel farm trailers which we had at the time.

“The Ford was followed by a 1960 Thames Trader 7-tonner, which we bought in 1964. This was an ex Hall & Co concrete mixer which we bought as a chassis cab unit for £250. I paid another £45 for a wooden dropside tipping body and hydraulic ram which had come off a Trader and which I found in a dealer’s yard, and the whole lot fitted perfectly.

“The only trouble was the body had been used for salt deliveries and the timber was saturated and would not take paint until we had gone over it with a blowlamp. I knocked up some extension sides for the bulk grain and this was another revenue earning job we could do.

“With its medium wheelbase, the Trader was a bit too short to carry a decent load of bags or bales and with a top speed of around 40mph it was also on the slow side, so after a couple of years we started to look for something more suitable for our needs as well as being affordable.

“An advert in the ‘For Sale’ column of Commercial Motor magazine in December 1966 caught my eye. GTC Commercials at Bow Road in East London were advertising a couple of 1962 Bedford TK long wheelbase dropsides with a carrying capacity of 7½ tons. The price was a reasonable £375 and I arranged to see them.

“One of them had the optional factory-fitted Leyland 0.350 diesel engine and two-speed axle and the body was also in good condition. It had had one owner from new, John Parradine Ltd, a haulage contractor from Great Easton, near Dunmow in Essex, and had been used mainly in market deliveries of agricultural produce. It looked to be a sound buy and if a part exchange deal on the Trader could be arranged, I was definitely interested.

“Mr Chandler, the proprietor, agreed to come down to the farm to view the Trader and offered £200 for it. I offered £350 for the Bedford and the deal was done, we shook hands on it and I parted with a cheque for £150, which I thought was quite a fair deal.

“A couple of days later I took the Trader to London and picked up the TK. As it was Friday mid-afternoon, I decided to avoid the heavy traffic and opted for the scenic route via the Dartford Tunnel.

“I thought that there would be just enough fuel for the journey home; but as I climbed the steep hill on the A25 into Westerham, the Bedford started to falter and I discovered, much to my consternation, that my view of the fuel level had been somewhat optimistic. Luckily, I was able to coast into the parking area in the centre of the town and came to a halt opposite the King's Arms hotel. By now it was dark so I booked into the hotel for the night, had a meal and contemplated my stupidity over a pint.

Getting home

“The next morning, refreshed by a full English breakfast, I was feeling rather more cheerful; and after checking out, I walked the few yards down the road to the local garage, returning with a can of diesel and a fitter. Once we had cleaned the accumulated dirt out of the fuel lines and filter, it bled through and started and I was soon on my way.

“Having got it home, the plan was to check it over mechanically, paint the cab, body and wheels – the chassis wasn’t too bad – and get the signwriting done as and when convenient and put the lorry to work as soon as possible.

“The TK was taxed and insured on 1 January 1967 and its first job was for two six-ton loads of dried sugar beet pulp in one and a quarter hundredweight hessian ‘pokes’ out of a railway goods van – not the best job, as anyone who has ever done it will confirm.

“The first difficulty is usually sliding the door open on the van, as the pokes, especially if they have been loaded from the opposite side, will be heaped up against the inside of the door. When you do get inside, because the pokes have been loaded hot, they will invariably be solid and misshapen. These were a real ‘so and so’ to drag out and a nightmare to restack, and the dried pulp goes down your collar and inside your shirt – all in a day’s work I suppose!!

“I was still looking for a suitable 16ft dropside tipping body and eventually saw one advertised, once again in Commercial Motor. This was just what I wanted and I fetched it back from the dealer’s yard in the West Midlands and the Bedford was quickly converted into a useful tipper in the farm’s workshop.

“The payload was less, as the body was a substantially built wooden one, but we still managed to get her nicely overloaded with nine tons. An old timber haulier once said 'it doesn’t pay to overload and it doesn’t pay not to', which just about summed up the job! When plating and testing came in with the 1968 Transport Bill, we were restricted to a disastrous but rather more sensible 6½-ton payload. This prompted me to seek out a lightweight alloy body, which I eventually found in Yorkshire, and after swapping it over got back to a more acceptable 7-ton payload.

“That TK was my pride and joy and was proving to be ideal for us, with a decent turn of speed. It was extremely versatile for bulk or bags and with the sides off and a 4ft extension to the body and a rack over the cab, it could carry a very useful 280 bales of straw, which we sold off the field at harvest time.

Carrier’s licence

Heritage Commercials“In fact, it was so useful that we were being offered work by the local corn merchants, which we had to decline because we did not have a carrier’s licence. Eventually, in 1969, we applied for and were granted a ‘B’ carrier’s licence, which was the start of an expanding and successful haulage operation.

“The TK ran faultlessly until 1971, when having delivered a load of timber to a company rejoicing in the name of ‘Yonder Hill Sawmills’, she developed a tapping noise. I checked oil and water – as you do – and finding nothing amiss, elected to carry on, as I was running empty, and I drove as sympathetically as possible.

“I got home without further incident and parked the Bedford in its shed until we could decide what to do. In the meantime, I bought a 1965 Ford D800 box van, ex Marley Tiles, at the BCA auctions at Frimley in Surrey. I paid £235, sold the body for £50 and transferred the alloy tipping body and ram from the TK and we were back in business, with another ‰ half ton of payload to boot, as the Ford was on 10 stud axles and plated at 13 ton gross.

“At this stage, I have to admit that we very nearly scrapped the Bedford and probably would have but for the intervention of Peter Stanbridge. He had just set up in business as S&M Vehicle Repair Services Ltd, doing commercial repairs and servicing with a mobile workshop, and was looking for work.

“I suggested that he had a look at the TK to try and find out what the ‘tapping noise’ was. He traced the problem to the No 6 piston and duly fitted a new piston and liner, which cured the problem and marked the beginning of a long-term business relationship which still continues to this day.

“Having got the Bedford running again, we decided to retire it from its previous haulage duties and just use it on the farm at harvest time. Luckily, the old heavy dropside tipping body had been kept and converted to a farm trailer and it was a relatively simple task to put it back on the Bedford. So the old lorry carried on, albeit in a rather more sedate fashion, for the next 30 years or so, hauling grain from the combine in the field back to the store.

“When her grain-hauling days finally came to an end, she ended up, as Alan said, on display in a hedge; but as this was a vehicle which had so much family history, it would have been a great pity to see her rust away completely. In December 2006, exactly 40 years after acquiring her, I made the decision to return the TK to her former glory.

“Over the next three years, she received a chassis-up restoration, with Peter Stanbridge, aided by his daughter Lucy, finishing off the mechanical work he started 35 years earlier.

A full brake overhaul was completed with parts from stock or readily obtained elsewhere, and the brake master cylinder was reconditioned by Past Parts, as was the Leyland water pump.

Major surgery

“However, while testing last year, the crankshaft vibration damper flew apart and despite dozens of calls, we were unable to obtain a new one and reluctantly fitted a used one which we had in stock. The injectors were overhauled and the fuel injection pump re-calibrated to the lower of the two recommended settings to endeavour to meet current emission standards, which it could not even have done when it was new! Unfortunately, this has compromised the performance a little.

“The cab required quite major surgery, which was carried out by Bob Cragg, and Malcolm Keen refloored the body and reframed the side boards where rot had entered the joints. He also refitted the spill board over the cab which I had cut off years ago to give more height when tipping in a low building. For some reason, the part I had removed hadn’t been thrown away and was still in my infamous ‘pile of bits that will come in handy one day’.

“A new sheet rack and headboard were also made and fitted. Paintwork was completed to Norman Smith’s usual high standard, while Dave Crouch copied exactly the signwriting carried out by the late great Pat Anscombe and his father in 1967. As always with a vehicle restoration, there are those hard to find bits and pieces, and Nick Howe managed to find many of these to enable the restoration to be completed.

“In the early days, I ran on whatever tyres I could get hold of, including second-hand and re-cuts; but after a front blowout with almost catastrophic results on a fenland road near Ely, I have always run with new tyres on the front whether I could afford them or not. Consequently, I was determined to find a good set of Michelin radials for the Bedford and these I eventually sourced with the help of a tyre dealer from Northampton.

“Well, the ‘old Bedford’ is now a ‘new Bedford’ and I am delighted at the way she has turned out; and being back behind the wheel really is a journey back in time.”

My thanks to Vic for allowing me to photograph another of his classic lorries and for taking the time to tell me a little about the history of this family heirloom.

Words & photographs Alan Barnes