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May lofts
Page 74
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• The last place one would expect to find a petite blonde is in the man's world of road haulage. But since 1958 May Tofts has been running Farmcraft Ltd, a 16-vehicle haulage company at New Malden, Surrey. Half of May's fleet is involved in own-account work, the other half on hire and reward work, but most of the vehicles are used by television and film companies for transporting their props.
It takes a courageous woman to mix with road haulage but that is precisely what this 5ft exiled Scot is. She found her way into the industry by the strangest of channels when working as a stunt driver for a film company. With an eye to business she offered to provide props for the company by way of cars, lorries, buses — in fact, she says, anything on wheels.
With womanly logic she realized that while on location the personnel had to be fed and that was only one short step away from her acquiring coachbuilt vehicles fitted out with catering equipment. May Tofts' company supplies the vehicles for such well known TV programmes as Z Cars: The Saint; and Softly, Softly. In fact she claims that 90 per cent of all vehicles screened on both TV networks are supplied through Farmcraft.
It perhaps demonstrates how involved she is in transport when you realize she is the chairman of the North London sub-area of the RHA's Metropolitan and South Eastern area which has a membership of 300. She is the only woman on the 20-strong committee, which meets bi-monthly, and confesses that she enjoys some''old world" courtesy from her fellow committee men who, she says, are always prepared to listen to the woman's point of view.
How does this extremely feminine female cope with driving staff? She breaks down drivers' complaints into two categories. They either claim that they need wage increases, or that the job they have been allocated is impossible. May Tofts answers the first by proving to them that they have a higher take-home pay than she has; and she answers the second by getting behind the wheel and doing the job herself! This latter demonstration of her proficiency will, of course, require a heavy goods vehicle driving licence when her existing licence expires. It came as nothing of a surprise to learn that she intends taking the hgv test before that day dawns.
This week May Tufts was in the thick of the discussion and controversy at the R HA
Conference at Brighton. I.S.