BIRD'S EYE VIEW
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50 Not Out There aren't many people who can claim to have worked with one company for 50 years. One man who can is Mr. H. C. Fridd, of Gillingham. He is a driver with Maidstone and District Motor Services Ltd., and he now has the distinction of being the first employee to complete 50 years' service with the company. To mark the occasion M. & D. gave a dinner in driver Fridd's honour this month—and he was presented with a television set by the company chairman Mr. R. P. Beddow.
Driver Fridd joined the maintenance staff at Maidstone on June 6, 1914. M. & D. have other employees who have been associated with the company and its former subsidiaries, the Chatham Traction Company and Hastings Tramways Company, for more than 50 years. But driver Fridd alone has completed the half century with the one company.
An III Wind? How about this from the Dennis News Letter: "We have recently booked an order for two Dennis trailer fire pumps for urgent delivery—not unusual, but in this case two trailers had been borrowed from an overseas port fire brigade for the express purpose of saving a sinking ship. Too late, they sank with the ship! Well, it's an ill wind . ."
Lost Property Talking of fire pumps reminds
me of another good story from Dennis. This concerns a certain fire brigade who were having a fire engine test tank cleaned out. An unusual discovery was made at the bottom of their test well—a Mills bomb! Personally I think that's carrying practical joking a little too far.
Bird's Eye View ! While on the road in the
London area this week you may have had a funny feeling that you were being watched. Probably you were. For on Tuesday members of the L.C.C. Roads Committee, at the invitation of the A.A., started a study of London's road problems—from the air. A total of six flights were planned to take place over Central London, each lasting about an hour and a half.
• and Marplee' Also 'up in the air' this week was Ernest Marples, the Minister of Transport. Some 450 ft. above the surrounding countryside, on Monday he inspected at close quarters the construction of the Severn Road Bridge. Resplendent in a white safety hat that seemed more reminiscent of mining than aerial activity,
the Minister went out along a narrow catwalk and surveyed his ' domain ' from this lofty vantage point. Frankly, I'd rather him be there than me.
Plane for Clayton's Once again on the subject of
aircraft . Clayton Dewandre are to buy one. The decision to purchase followed an investigation by the company into the time spent by senior personnel travelling by road and rail. Their calculations showed that 30,000 miles of "conventional " travel occupied sonic three months in travelling time which could be cut by half using an aeroplane. The Group's managing director, Mr. S. J. Barnes, illustrated the saving in another way by stating that instead of having eight senior executives at his disposal he would have 9. Sounds reasonable enough to me. But what ton earth) can you do with half an executive?
Much Obstruction A colleague who has recently
been travelling extensively in the West Country tells me that he saw John Moon's assertions regarding the desirability of a minimum power-to-weight ratio for commercials demonstrated with monotonous regularity in that particular area. Heavy vehicles followed by long queues of cars at the top of steep gradients were much too common a sight, he says. One redeeming feature of the situation was the sensible driving and the consistent courtesy of lorry drivers.
Interesting to note that an automated system of toll collection is to be gradually introduced on the Forth Road Bridge, which is expected to be opened in September. At a meeting of the Forth Road Bridge Joint Board last month vice-chairman Mr. John McWilliarn reporting on a fact-finding tour of American projects financed by tolls pointed out that a major factor in the successful automation of toll collection was the expertise of the motorists using the system. "We will have to slowly wean our motorists on automated collection ", he said. One 'very interesting fact he quoted was that it took an average of 12 seconds. to clear each vehicle through the Dartford Tunnel toll booths. In America and Canada the average time was 2.1 seconds.
On Mr. McWilliam's recommendations the Board agreed to automate two of the eight toll booths on the Forth Road Bridge at once—and to switch four of the remaining six lanes from manual to automatic collection as motorists grew accustomed to the system. The flat toll rate, incidentally, will be 2s. 6d.
Collection Problems