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T o say that Roy Hill quite likes Bedfords is a
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bit of an understatement. Not only does he own nine"of . them. varying in age from 1951 to 1985, • but.whenfie's not driving One he can be sdembehind the wheel of a r934,BedfordNattxhall car.. . .BUt *h.& ." plenty. of people adriaire:Bedfords of this age, and a good number of.entbusiasts have . restored examples locked away for .showS, there aren't many will.) drive them on a daily basis--let alone: usinebern to earn their keep baul.ing sand and soil on and offroad. " But then Roy Hill isn't your typical haulier. In an increasingly throwaway age he :is. a :shining example of what"Can be done thrOugh recycling and innovation.. His: brightly painted tipper fleet,. complete with old-style head-. boards, has become such d part of. the r scenery in Long Ashton, Somerset:that the village's army of small boys wotild be in an uproar if they were threatened.
fn many waYs Hill has the per: fect business allow him to run such a "mature" fleet. The coinpany specialises in moving sand, gravel, topsoil and small plant over relatively shori distances. "1-f a:sk
0 a driver to go to Bath, which is about 25 miles away, he'll jokingly ask for night-out money as that really is about the furthest we go," he says.
The oldest one we have is a 1951 model 0 with a petrol engine. It's mostly kept as a spare but it goes out now and again, and if it's driven carefully will do just as many miles to the gallon as a diesel equivalent. Next up is 1968 J5, closely followed by another H-reg (the old, 197o Hreg that is) J5, and a J3, which is just a year older. From there on the fleet gets comparatively younger until you get the sprightliest, which was registered in 1985."
Among all those Bedfords is a single 1983 Volvo F6. Hill admits that it's served him well, but he is quick to suggest it's not as good as a Bedford (and according to his secretary, its days are numbered).
Transport heritage
While many hauliers can claim a transport heritage of several generations, not many go as far back as Hill: "I was the first one in the family to buy a tractor—up until then it had been horses. We have traced the family line in haulage as far back as 1830 and as soon as I was 14 I left school and joined my father's horse-and-cart business. He wanted nothing to do with engines."
Hill was just 14 when he bought his first tractor so he had to get older drivers to take it out on the road. At 18 he bought his first rigid, and there are no prizes for guessing it's make; suffice to say it was a Model A.
In 19 61 he set up on his own and soon built up a significant business: "At one point I employed 46 men until Maggie Thatcher did for us all. Now I am content with running the io trucks. The Bedford is a smashing little truck and they suit us down to the ground. The braking systems are very good and we don't have a problem getting them though the annual test. Over the years we have accumulated a huge stock of parts from other Bedford users who have shut down their workshops, and what we haven't got is readily available. Every now and then we buy one and break it, and what we haven't got we will either make ourselves or we know a man who can."
Hill has workshops that can turn out just about anything the fleet needs and even boasts a 6o year-old vulcaniser for repairing LyTeS. " I've got a very good fitter who has been with me 30 years, and although he sometimes grumbles about the Bedfords I think he must enjoy them too," he says.
Lean operation
Hill stresses that it is not only sentiment that drives his choice of vehicle: "It is a lean operation, but we are working in an area with low margins so it makes sense to be running vehicles that have already paid for themselves several times over. Why buy new trucks when these do the job perfectly well? The drivers like them. Make no mistake, they are just for local deliveries—you wouldn't want to go on a motorway in one— but they are easy to drive. They're not much bigger than the largest car.
"They all have synchromesh gearboxes and we've replaced the seats with some taken out of a Ford Escort. There's a heater and even a radio. They have an excellent turning circle—perfect for topsoil deliveries into housing estates—and they really cor into their own off-road; they just grind th way out of anything."
But surely an ageing Bedford can't mat the payload of a modem 8-tonner? "If you carrying topsoil the customer is usually hap to get it in two five-tonne loads rather th receive TO tonnes in one go as it gives hi time to sort it out," says Hill. "And if o breaks down they're small enough to towed back with a Land Rover (in this cast 1970 ex-army SWB model).
"We do a lot of work for the local wal company, pulling out the sand used to fill water. The driver loads up himself takes it the water company which washes it, a then we return it."
Hill has no problem finding drivers a thinks this might be because of the variety work he offers: "Everyone here uses the d gers; they drive, they do a bit of shovelling if they want to do a bit of welding they uWe all just get on with it really."
And what of the future? Hill is nearing t but says he is happy running one of the U I oldest fleets and clearly delights in usi vehicles that other people have deemed pi their sell-by date. He still regularly drives t trucks himself and has no intention changing a thing. As well as the haula business he has an 8o-acre arable farm a still finds time to indulge in competiti ploughing, entering several competitio with, inevitably, a vintage tractor.