Contentment is never having to ask for work
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'Be a little fish and keep swimming' is the philosophy of this ERF owner-driver. And very well it's served him, as Mike Rutherford has been finding out STAN McGECHAN is everything that an owner-driver should be. He operates from his own, impressive premises and has been driving lorries — mostly cattle wagons — for the past 30 years. He started by working for cattle hauliers until branching out on his own and becoming an owner-driver.
Operating from his home at Pitstone, near Leighton Buzzard, Stan has a long list of clients, most of them farmers, who provide him with work on a regular basis.
"I worked it out that I have about 180 customers, in all. Some I only see twice a year, others I see every week."
I asked Stan how his small but seemingly successful business went about finding work and was a little surprised at the answer I received. "I never ask anyone for work. Customers — mostly farmers — ring me or see me in the markets. I work for very rich people, and very poor people."
Apart from working for local farmers — rich and poor — Stan also has an impressive array of major clients like Burroughs and Wellcome and the Milk Marketing Board (about which there is a separate feature on page 41) whose livestock he also carries. But based where he is, on the Bedfordshire/Buckinghamshire/Hertfordshire border, it is the local farmers that are Stan's bread and butter.
"Agriculture is very popular around this region. I'd say that although it's not on the same scale as say, Cumbria, it is very big indeed."
Most of the cattle that Stan carries are collected from farms and taken to either Tring, Aylesbury or Banbury markets. He is also kept busy taking cattle to shows, transferring animals from one patch of farmland to another for grazing purposes ("farm to field as we call it"), and he also frequently takes loads from market to slaughterhouse, usually on behalf of butchers rather than farmers.
A glance through Stan McGechan's desk diary showed me how active he is during the week. The markets at Tring, Aylesbury, and Banbury can be largely thanked for providing him with so many clients and such a busy work schedule.
On the occasions when the work load is too heavy, which it often is, Stan gives the work away. "But I don't sub-contract out as such. Others give work away and take a 10 per cent cut for themselves. The people give work to are friends and I don't want anything out of them.
"It works the other way occasionally too. Although I'm pretty occupied myself, if I can fit it in I'll do a job that someone passes on to me."
But it is fair to say that Stan gives more than he gets and gives away work to some operators who do not, or are unable to return the compliment. Has he ever thought about taking a commission for himself when passing on valuable work to others?
"I'm not tempted. I don't want to be the richest man in the graveyard", says Stan with a grin that suggests that he is more than happy with the way he operates his one-man business.
He has been working as an owner-driver on and off now for 13 years. He started with a Seddon 14-tanner with a Perkins engine (" a vehicle which did me very good service") and then had three AECs. After a spell in the milk business, during which he had several vehicles moving battled milk, he returned to what he knows and loves best.
"When I sold the milk business I bought my first ERF and went back to carrying cattle."
Stan still has that same 16-ton gross vehicle. It was one of the first ERF M-Series and had a Gardner 180 engine, which was downrated.
Now that the vehicle is four years' old, Stan is trading it in for a new ERF. But how pleased was — or is — he with his first-ever ERF purchase?
"It's very good — that's why I'm buying another. Although there were some niggly problems at first and I was off the road for a day with propshaft problems, I'm happy with it.
• "It's fuel consumption is wonderful compared with some of the vehicles I've had in the past. On local work I get 13-14mpg, and 14-15mpg, if not more, on a run. I've no complaints whatsoever." Stan's new vehicle, an ERF 16G2, is another 16-ton fourwheel rigid. It is equipped with a Gardner 6LXCT turbocharged engine and Fuller nine-speed gearbox. The vehicle has the latest spec C-Series day cab with electric passenger window, tinted glass with laminated windscreen, and electronic tachograph. It also has a larger capacity (80 gallon) fuel tank fitted.
The vehicle is currently in Milnthorpe, Cumbria at Houghtons Park House Coachworks where it is having a 27ftx 8ft 2in cattle body fitted (the body on Stan's existing vehicle being 25ft long).
Stan is enthusiastic about Gardner engines. The engine in his present vehicle ticks over like clockwork he says, and his mechanic (who used to work for an ERF dealer) reckons he has never known a Gardner engine to be so good.
"Mind you, the vehicle has never been driven over 1,500 revs at a maximum of 52-53rnph since new, says Stan, "and I'm virtually the only person that's driven it. I'm the slowest man on the motorway.
"I believe that capacity is disaster. Drive anything to its maximum and there'll be trouble. He that goes fastest is he that stops first, as they say."
Stan firmly believes that the vehicles he has owned over the years have been free from major problems because they have been driven carefully and regularly maintained. His driving habits must also be thanked for his present vehicle's impressive fuel consumption figures.
As Stan rightly says, "when you are putting your hand in your own pocket, you think twice before you put your foot down."
He purchased his new 16G2 from ERF distributor Sellers and Batty at Peterborough which is 65 miles from his home/operating centre.
"Our nearest dealer is 30 miles away but we went to Sellers and Batty in Peterborough because we were shopping around for the best deal and they provided it."
Stan traded in his existing vehicle (which has now covered 126,000 miles) which he will be handing over to Sellers and Batty as soon as he has taken delivery of the new wagon. He reckons that demand for secondhand ERFs is such that Sellers and Batty were more than happy to take the old vehicle in part exchange.
Although Stan is generally happy with the treatment he had had from ERF dealers he reckons that some would do well to keep a larger stock of spares.
"About 40 per cent of the time they don't have the parts I need in stock so they have to order them from the factory".
That he does not mind because due to regular servicing, his vehicle rarely needs an urgent part. But what Stan objects to is the fact that when an urgent part has to be specially ordered from the factory, via an ERF dealer, he has to pay the carriage charge from factory to dealer.
If the dealer had the spare part in stock, his invoice would obviously not include such a carriage charge — something that ERF and dealers might like to consider when next he nee spares.
ERF might also like to nc that even though Stan lives in area that has a large loi population, his three near, ERF dealers are 30, 40 and miles away. His nearest Vol dealer is only seven miles aw and were it not for the fact ti the 6ft-plus Stan "cannot get i Volvo lorry", ERF might hg lost a valuable customer.
"You'd have a job to fi many areas where there g more lorries than around he Yet there are no ERF agei nearby. I'm amazed they do have someone closer."
Stan McGechan's success partly due to his down-to-ea attitude to his work and, indel life in general. He firmly belies that as far as his type of haula is concerned, small is beautil and he clearly feels that it is dr gerous to get tied-up with ji one or two customers. He p fers the "little and often" r proach to work.
After all his years in the indi try he has lost none of his entl siasm either.
"This is a way of life for me more than a job. I can hones say that I've never gone out that door to work and I wanted to go."