Bird's Eye
Page 74
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
View BY THE HAWK
I Knight Retires
" HEAR that one of the original Knights of the Road has just . retired. He is Ernest Hedley Hill, who was elected a member r the Knights of the Road Guild in the 1920s, and who still as the framed membership certificate recording his election "for )urtesy and consideration on the highway". He also holds NSFA iplomas for driving free from blameworthy accident.
Ernest Hill has spent nearly 40 years with Devon General imnibus and Touring Co. Ltd., starting as a driver in 1928 and ten for many years serving as inspector at Exmouth depot. efore he went into p.s.v. work he was driving a heavy lorry for ye years for a Bournemouth firm, Edwards Motor Transport ad although his Leyland of those days had solid tyres, it also ad Westinghouse air brakes, he recalls.
?oadside Problem
OADS. have failed to keep pace with traffic growth and so N. have roadside facilities such as toilets. Just how appalling mne of the lavatories (and laybys) are is made clear in "Loos and ay-bys", the report of a survey which the Advisory Council on ublic Sanitation has just published. It covers A2 and A20 in Kent, ut I think its findings could apply to almost any stretch of main )ad in Britain. Of 96 lavatories visited—some public conveniences, mme in cafes, some at garages-13 per cent were rated excellent, ing fully equipped and sweetly clean, while 6 per cent were adequate", 30 per cent "inadequate" and 51 per cent "foul". This is not just a motorists' problem, as some authorities seem ) think. Coach loads of passengers and the growing band of rofessional lorry drivers are entitled to find hygienic "comfort :ationS" along the way. Perhaps RHA, TRTA and the public .ansport bodies should seek membership of the Advisory !ouncil to put their views?
geefers on the Road
of the fascinating sidelights of journalistic life is to study the way in which, over a relatively short period, =war words can change their meaning or, indeed; acquire uite different connotations for different people.
Now, just ' what are reefers? To seafaring types they are ouble-breasted jackets. To habitues of the less reputable night lubs, I believe,' a particular kind of dope. With those two efinitions in mind, what would you think was being carried y "reefer transport"?
The odds are you guessed wrongly: it's usually foodstuffs! ecause in this instance "reefer" is by way of becoming the ccepted abbreviation for refrigerated.
New Lease of Life
ALTHOUGH MCW have moved the Weymann p.s.v. coach building business to the Midlands as part of a consolidation plan, I see that the Weymann works in Surrey is still to echo to the same sort of sounds, and will certainly not lie idle. The premises have been taken over by Caddey (Coachbuilders) Ltd., who have vacated their Chertsey works and plan to produce 30 bodies a week by the end of this month.
The Caddey business has mushroomed dramatically in the past couple of years and I'm told that this reflects the driving force of the managing director, James Caddey, who brought about a similar expansion of the Palmer company at Twickenham about five years ago. He was Palmer's managing director when he left in 1964 to form his own company. Now he has more than £100,000 worth of orders, many from large goods fleet operators, for his Addlestone works.
In Season
H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE had summer fare on the menu last month. In its daily list of Government publications for August 24 there was one entry under the heading "Statutory Instrument Issue List", namely SI 1966 No. 1051.
In typically prosaic terminology it was revealed to the avid reader that the enabling power was an act of 1955 SS. 4, 7, 123, 136(2) Sch. 12 (para. 2 (2) )—not forgetting the double bracket— thereby revoking SI 1945/1177. For only 10d. you can read all about it before the day of reckoning—September 19.
In which case the short title might be handy—"Salad Cream Regulations 1966".