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bird's eye view by the Hawk

2nd March 1973, Page 39
2nd March 1973
Page 39
Page 39, 2nd March 1973 — bird's eye view by the Hawk
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

• Painted Pain

First it was weight, then it was noise, then followed smoke. Each in its turn and collectively has been the target of the• environmental lobby. If my guess is right the next area of attack will be the garishly painted double decker and I can't say 1 would complain. I still prefer the old fashioned company livery on my buses to this new, overall type ad. In my book it's the biggest intrusion yet on the environment.

In fact, reference to them in this month's Esso Newsline reads almost like a threat. "Motorists who haven't really paid attention to the . , . brand name when buying their motor oil are about to have the oversight rectified in a way they will never forget". In addition to the oil companies those plugging credit cards, radios, discount houses, ice cream and the yellow pages, according to Esso are catching the bug all over the country. It's called a production art job.

There may be other names for it too.

• Spoon fed

This month's issue of Public Service, the voice of the National Association of Local Government Officers (NALGO) carries the story of a new trophy in trade union circles.

It is a silver spoon mounted on an oak plaque for an annual competition in Coventry and carrying the strange title "For the Stirrer-Upper of the Year". The first winner was P. Jones of Coventry Corporation transport department. Described by Public Service as "proud". I wonder if they asked him.

I met one public servant this week who was not at all proud of his union's "stirring up". He was a licensing authority's clerk who shamefacedly and almost in a whisper said: "Because we were on strike last Tuesday all of the public sittings were cancelled.

• It's easy

Ask any fisherman and he will tell you that it is the little fish that get through the net, ask any operator and he will tell you that it's the easiest thing in the world for a new man to get an operator's licence. The relationship between the two surely is that the legislation is the net and the little fish are the new applicants.

For example, this week we received a letter from one of the latest applicants to obtain an operator's licence. Here is an extract: "I shall be starting a long distance haulage business soon. I have already obtained my licence and will be purchasing a motor in a month's time. Can you please advise me who to get in touch with to obtain work?"

'It must be a heavy goods vehicle driving licence', I thought, so I contacted the LA's office and had my worst fears confirmed; the man had actually obtained an operator's licence for one vehicle and two trailers. So much for the business quiz we have been hearing about, it certainly did nOt work here.

If this is not an isolated case then the claims of established operators are right, it is too easy to get an operator's licence.

• Free Aid

Saigon and Middleton Road, Oldham may be separated by thousands of miles but 35-yearold Joe Anderson is forging a link between the two locations almost every week. Joe, who runs his own small haulage business, after having been a low-loader driver with Kaye Goodfellow for years, is now involved in running medical aid supplies for Vietnam.

hi between ' his paying jobs with three nine-ton boxvans, Joe and his drivers run medical supplies from manufacturers in the north-west to Chelsea and Middlesex for transhipment to the Far East at their own expense. Last weekend he took four tons of supplies from Leeds to St Stephen's Hospital in London and more recently 700 pints of blood plasma to Middlesex. Joe does not make a penny piece of profit on this traffic and in fact the last consignment cost him over £60.

Incidentally, he is not advocating free haulage to his fellow hauliers, its just something that he and his drivers consider worthwhile doing on a voluntary basis.

• Liverpool look

Michael Samson, managing director of Fairfield Haulage Co Ltd, of Liverpool, starts a new venture this coming Easter and it looks like being both educational and entertaining. He is organizing cruises on the Leeds-Liverpool canal and through the Liverpool docks system. I wonder if the passengers will see any containers moving? The cruises will run daily on two barges, Ambush and Peace, very appropriate names when you think of Liverpool's recent history. I shouldn't be at all surprised if some north-east hauliers who have recently been in trouble getting through the dock gates book for one of the trips just to remind themselves of what Liverpool docks looks like from the inside.

• Long holiday

CM has just been saying farewell to News Editor Bob Holliday, though I doubt if he'll live up to his name in retirement; that pen is not so easy to put down, as this ex-editor of Motor Cycling recently demonstrated by writing a widely acclaimed history of the Norton.

From a working lifetime in publishing and journalism he could always recall some story for an occasion. Such as the time when his press agency had British Tar as a client and an alert cuttings agency sent him, at hefty expense, a great heap of cuttings containing the speech of an admiral who had called the British tar the salt of the earth!

Into his seat here at CM moves Bob's assistant, Tim Hoare.


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