bird's eye view by the Hawk • Hot and cold
Page 71
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The ubiquitous Clifford Toyne, head: of the DoE's vehicle inspection division and "father" of truck testing in the UK, is off on his travels again. When I met him at the Mainstem announcement party he told me he was about to leave for Iran, where the Teheran municipality has asked him to do a feasibility study on vehicle testing.
No sooner has he reached a cosy Middle Eastern temperature than he will be off to Sweden, where he has a meeting of the international committee on vehicle testing, of which he is vice-president.
• Walking encyclopaedia Another traveller with an interest in trucks is Joe McEvoy, 66-year-old retired foreman who accompanied a group of businessmen whom Springfield Mechanical Handling, of Trafford Park, took to Italy recently. Springfield are sole concessionaires for Fiat OM fork-lift trucks and they were visiting Fiat plants. Joe went along because he is a walking encyclopaedia on vehicles, particularly Fiat and Ford, and as Springfield general manager Harry Lovatt told me: "During the visit to the Fiat museum Joe was able to tell the Italians some things they did not know themselves about their own veteran vehicles".
Interestingly enough, Springfield are using the premises which were once the first Ford assembly plant in Britain—established in 1911—and Joe McEvoy wor,Ired, there with Foal.
• Gutter Press What newspaper can boast that its most valuable news may come from the gutter? Why, Cleansweep, of course. This is the title of a bright—and brightly coloured—little paper which has just been introduced by Lacre Ltd of St. Albans for its customers and potential customers around the world.
As well as news about mechanized roadsweepers and the men who make them, the first issue features the solid-tyred 1913 Lacre 2-ton lorry which managing director D. A. Thomas drove in the HCVC run to Brighton this year. Restorer of this nice old vehicle was Albert Abbott, who at a recent Lacre ceremony received a cheque to commemorate the restoration.
• Buses on the beach Does the bus enthusiast get too little consideration at established rallies? It's a point that's raised in a press release I've just received from Dorset Transport Circle— which, with a Weymouth society, is organizing a bus rally on the town's biggest coach park on Sunday July 4. The complaint seems to be that vehicles are so close-packed at most rallies that the real enthusiasts can't get reasonable photographs. So Weymouth '71 promises to be a spread-out affair.
As well as the static display of vehicles there will also be a 20-mile run across the Chesil Beach Road to Portland.
For entrants from far afield, the rally site will be open from 6 p.m. on Saturday July 3.
• Lovely lib Women's lib is gaining ground all over. We've had a young lady putting up best performance at an LDoY round—and several women have got themselves hgv licences.
Now group training officer Cliff Speake of Herefordshire Transport Training Association tells me he's just had two successful female hgv candidates through his course. Jacqueline Stubbs is a 28-year-old mother of a small daughter who took the course and the test just to prove she could do it—and passed out with a class 1 licence on a 43ft attic. She's been driving cars since he was IS. Catherine Powell, who is 35, had a head start because she already drives a bread van—and intends to go on doing so, though there's nothing to stop her going up the scale now.
• Decision I was surprised to learn that a transport manager disgruntled at the stewards' ruling about his protest on behalf of one of his drivers at the Manchester LDoY round was planning to make his feelings known to the local press. After all, LDoY entrants are bound by the regulations, which clearly state that stewards' decisions are final and binding.
As a matter of interest, I've done a little probing of my own. Apparently the manager objected because the driver claimed that the barrier into which he had reversed, without actually displacing it, had not been at right angles to the line of test. The barrier was checked and found to be within one degree of 90 degrees and therefore acceptable to the stewards. But the transport manager apparently proclaimed himself dissatisfied with the decision.
• Royal male Knowing how Prince Philip enjoys stirring up turgid pools occasionally, I wonder if he could be persuaded to do something about that service which is graced with the term "Royal" and carries his wife's insignia EUR? I refer of course to the Post Office, whose postal services seem to have gone to pot. When I hear of first-class mail taking three days to cross London and second-class mail taking a week and more between two English cities I wonder how general the malaise is.
A haulier offered me the bright thought this week that all the congestion on the phone services in the mornings is caused by people ringing up to enquire anxiously whether letters have arrived/