Whilst David
Hall was taking a break on his way to a funeral in Reading he received a call on his mobile from
a lady in Bloxwich. She said that she had found David’s number from the Vintage
Lorry Funerals website and wanted to know the cost of a funeral in Bloxwich.
David asked if the Deceased was her Dad, however, the lady replied that the
lorry was for her Husband who was only 53. Having recently been to Walsall, which is the next town to Bloxwich, David could
provide an instant answer on the price. The Deceased’s only wish was that he
should be taken to Streetly Crematorium on a lorry. The lady had enquired if
her Husband’s former employer could have provided a lorry, however, the company
pointed her towards ‘a bloke in Bradford-on-Avon
who has a Beaver.’
Whilst David
was on his mobile, he noticed that a young man in a Grundon uniform was waiting
to speak with him. David had previously undertaken his Dad’s funeral in Newbury
on February 2nd. He shook David’s hand and said, ‘We will never forget the
brilliant job you did for our Dad and the excellent Obituary article you wrote
for Vintage Roadscene.’
David then
phoned Sean Hayward who runs Haywards of Walsall a transport firm with over 80
vehicles, with whom David parks the 1950 Leyland Beaver the night before a Midland’s funeral. Sean
said it was no problem and he would get Quinn Holmes, his Fleet Engineer, to
make space available in the garage and Quinn would take David to the Premier
Inn and collect him in the morning.
David’s next
phone call was to the Bloxwich Funeral Director and Marie who answered the
phone asked if David was a friend of the Family. David was disappointed that
despite his marketing efforts, not for the first time, someone in the funeral
industry had never heard of Vintage Lorry Funerals. Marie asked the height of
the side roller and then expressed her concerns as all her employees were
female and the Deceased in his casket was thought to be 36 stones. David
responded, ‘You’ll need to find some blokes to lift the coffin onto my lorry.’
Cognisant
that an all female team would be at the crematorium, David thought of how he
could revise his handling techniques which would enable him to operate on his
own on the deck, supported by one person on the ground, treating the Deceased
as if he were 15 stones.
David can
never recall having achieved so much whilst taking his 45 minute legal break
from driving, parked in a lay-bye on the A4 in Thatcham.
David worked
out the best way to Bloxwich which involved going round the old inner
Birmingham Ring Road the A4040, which has stretches of dual carriageways in
dense populated areas. With no toilet facilities on this route David spoke to
Neeley Transport at Stechford and asked if he could take a comfort break at
their facility. The man who answered the phone said, ‘The old man would love to
see your wagon’.
The journey
went well and David made his first stop at Alcester Services on the A46. Having
experienced no hold ups David was surprised when the traffic came to a
standstill on Maypole Lane
due to road works under the low bridge on Colebrook Road. A long delay was
envisaged with cars turning around in front of the Leyland Beaver attempting to
find an alternative route. David spotted in his wing mirror two workmen
returning to the road works after a shopping expedition to buy sandwiches. As
they passed the vintage lorry David pointed to the ‘Funeral In Progress’ sign
in his windscreen. The men then started to run and took over the management of
the traffic lights manually overriding the system. They stopped the oncoming
traffic travelling toward the Leyland Beaver and frantically
waved the cars in front of the vintage lorry through the lights and as David
passed the men they took off their hats and bowed. It is said that a picture is
better than a 1000 words but on this occasion a sign was better than any words.
When the
Leyland Beaver trundled into Neeley’s yard their transhipment operation came to
a halt. All of the Fork Lift Operators were older men who had been Lorry
Drivers in the 1950’s and as soon as they heard the Leyland
600 engine they jumped off their Fork Lifts and surround the Leyland Beaver.
They said, ‘Sounds Good…That Slow Tickover….The restoration is immaculate.’
David was
instructed to park in the corner of the yard and with the transhipment
operation being performed in front of his eyes, David was transfixed, whilst he
ate his sandwiches. In a multiple delivery transport operations the
consolidation between consignments is paramount to achieving profitability and
this rests with two people, the person who routes the load and the person who
loads the trailer. The former usually gets most of the credit in the office,
however, in David’s opinion the person on the Fork Lift has a more important
role as he has to find the best way to fit the consignments onto the trailer so
that nothing is damaged and the Driver will have the minimum of pallets to
shift at a delivery point. Loading a trailer from one side has its’ challenges
and planning must take place to determine which face of the pallet should be up
against the far curtain. Normally a Traffic Manager tries to get a quart into a
pint pot and the Fork Lift Driver must decide which consignments can be double
stacked. To see Fork Trucks moving at speed, turning a pallet of the ground,
positioning it on the deck using side shift and reach facilities was
fascinating to watch.
A man with a
clip board was checking the consignments and came over to David and had a chat
about his lorry. The penny then dropped that this was Mr. Neeley and David
apologised for not recognising him. He didn’t fit the persona projected by his
staff and the ‘old man’ description conjured up an image of a much older man.
Mr. Neeley provided an insight into his business and he was interested that
David had previously managed a frozen food groupage operation some 30 years ago
which had the same characteristics of making a good margin on small
consignments. As David and Mr. Neeley watched the transhipment operation David
quipped, ‘You could sell tickets to watch this super show.’ Mr. Neeley laughed
and said David could stop there as long as he wanted and indicated where the
toilet facilities were.
Having
previously arranged to meet the Funeral Director at 1500 hours David drove through
Walsall and took the road to Bloxwich. The
plan was for the Funeral Director to see the lorry and for David to explain how
the coffin would be loaded, with the need to establish how many men would be
available in the morning being the cardinal consideration. Within 10 minutes of
David being there the Widow arrived and took an envelope containing cash out of
her handbag and gave it to David. She was there with her children and a friend
of the Family who looked at the lorry and said to the Widow, ‘You have done him
proud.’ David was intending to measure the coffin and the Widow offered that he
should do this without delay as David had been on the road a long time.
However, David said the most important thing was for her and her family to say
their last good byes and he had all the time in the world as Haywards weren’t
expecting the lorry until 1730 hours.
David got to
Haywards at 1645 hours and the entrance gate into the part of the site he would
be parking was blocked by a lorry and a car. Having been there many times
before everyone knows the vintage lorry and the vehicles moved off just as
Quinn was opening the gate. Quinn watched David reverse into the garage which
had been swept an hour earlier to ensure no metal got into the tyres of the 66
year old lorry. Quinn made David a cup of tea and David embarrassed the Fleet
Engineer with his rendition of Manfred Mann’s ‘Mighty Quinn’. David handed over
two boxes of biscuits and put his sandwiches in the fridge, before Quinn took
David to the Premier Inn. Quinn had arranged to collect David at 0745 hours but
instead of a car coming down the street David saw a Haywards Service Van that
was equipped to escort Abnormal Loads. When David saw the ‘Abnormal Load’ sign
on the head board he thought this was very apt knowing that he was about to
load a heavy weight coffin.
A number of
men helped David load and turn the coffin on the deck, however, at the
crematorium David use a lever mechanism to lift the head end of the coffin and
he turned the coffin himself on the deck supported by the Funeral Director on
the ground. After the service an elderly couple came to shake David’s hand to
thank him for the dignity he showed in manoeuvring their relative on his
vehicle.
David came
back using the A452 which is a fast dual carriage way in parts that goes around
the east side of Birmingham in which the traffic flows and his first stop was
at Tewkesbury where David normally refuels with competitively price diesel.
For once
David got home in time for his tea, however, whilst his wife was making the
meal David sent pictures to the Widow.
