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bird's eye view by the Hawk
Page 34
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• Transport family
The interview with David McVeigh in this issue is a reminder of what a unique transport family the McVeighs have been, starting way back in 1932 when six of the seven brothers jointly started S. McVeigh Ltd in Grimsby —far from the Durham and Cumberland where they were born.
When the company was re-established after denationalization it was run by David (chairman), Joe (managing director), Bill (fleet engineer) and Jack, the eldest of the original seven who was then, in 1954, nearing retirement.
David's twin sons John and Michael later joined the business (while at public school they completely swopped their original career intentions, one giving up engineering for accountancy and vice versa). Jack's eldest son, Terence, who gained an engineering degree at London University, teamed up with Joe, who left McVeigh Transport to take on the Danish Bacon distribution from Grimsby. (Interesting point: Scandinavia was already a family link, since Terence had married a Swedish girl.) Joe still has two sons at school, I believe.
Bill (the engineer) died in 1969, while Jack's second son, Brian, never entered road haulage—he went into the furniture business.
• Mercy mission
A colleague tells me that a harassed householder in Portsmouth begs that it be made known that the telephone number listed in CM's British Vehicles for the World, 1970, for J. H. Sparshatt and Sons Ltd of Burrfields Road is in fact his private phone number, and not Sparshatt's. So please substitute the correct Sparshatt's number, which is Portsmouth 60361.
• Some tug!
This being the CM issue containing the emergency service guide, it seemed appropriate to publish the accompanying picture which came my way while CM was out of publication last November. It shows the beginnings of an operation in which Dial Engineering Ltd, one of the Dial Group, used its Diamond T wrecker to recover, of all things, a stranded tug.
The vessel had got itself hooked up under a jetty at Grays, Essex, and when the tide rose it foundered in 20ft of water, tipping over when the water receded and burying its bulwark in the mud.
Dial was called to the scene, after an enterprising young man had succeeded in pumping the tug partly out—it still weighed 86 tons plus about 190 tons of water—and to the astonishment of onlookers managed to winch it sideways to a point where it could refloat with the tide.
At first the grip was so poor that the vehicle started to winch itself towards the tug, but they gave it some dry land and a bit of seawall to get its boots on, and then put the vehicle in reverse. Result: it dragged the tug bodily sideways through the mud.
The 25th traditional Duple New Year's Day lunch provided the opportunity for chairman Frank B. Ford to make a presentation of a gold watch to Dennis Brown (left), who recently retired, to mark the last of one of the famous "Duple families". Son of Wafter Blown, who ran Duple from 1927 to 1944, and brother of Reg Brown, who was sales director from 1926 to 1966. Dennis started with Duple in 1932 and eventually became sales records manager—with a reputation as the man who could trace anything when it was needed. His father Walter had in fact joined the company's founder, H. R. White, in 1925, leaving Strechan and Brown to help build the first charabanc on a Lancia chassis just before Duple moved from Hornsey to Hendon.
Frank Shean, Dial's managing director, tells me the vehicle is just "a Diamond T wrecker with a few odd bits of ironwork hung on it by us."
Modesty, sir, modesty!
• Transplanning
There are some fortunate transport executives who will have no excuse for missing appointments this year, or forgetting staff holiday dates, or management meetings, or getting their expense accounts into a tangle —to mention, as they say, but a few. These are the recipients of the magnificent transport directors year book which British Road Services Ltd has had produced.
Taking the splendid Financial Timesdiary, BRSL has grafted on a mass of transport information, ranging from a résumé of the main legislation to a motorway progress map and details of road transport organizations and institutes. A really great reference book for the transport executive's desk.
• Getting men
Did you read in CM on December 11 (nice to have it back, wasn't it?) about •the successful recruitment of drivers by Edgar Williams and John Silbermann, using training as part of the bait? Well, I've just heard of another very similar, and successful, example. Herbie Taylor, the mid of H. G. Taylor of Stowmarket, Suffolk, received over 100 applications when he advertised jobs which included hgv training for car drivers over 21.
Over to you.