34: A Tribute To Ian (Frank) Wallace

0:01Hello and welcome to Matt's Truck and Great podcast. This episode is a revisit of an old episode that I recorded whilst Truck and Drivers podcast was still active. I interviewed a good friend of mine, Ian Wallace, who sadly passed away last weekend. And so as a tribute, I've decided to re-release this episode to honour his memory. So Ian, this one's for you, mate. Hopefully see you again another time. Cheers. Today, I'm sat with a good friend of mine Frank and we're just gonna have a bit of a chat about his life in transport from around Suffolk uh Frank how are you mate yeah all good thank you yeah good all good enjoying this lovely summery summery weather wonderful isn't it yeah yeah good old breech summer yes my coat is in the car my trousers are back on once again there you go yes can't can't get enough of it yeah yeah so so we've known each other roughly I don't know maybe a decade or so yeah give or take I mean We've both worked in the same circles and similar sort of work, haven't we?

1:02But your experience in transport goes back, obviously, a lot further than that. Yeah, well, funnily enough, it's my 35th anniversary on Thursday of this week. So I started my own business doing sort of farming things in 1989 at the tender age of 30. and started, I'd been working for agricultural merchants and that sort of thing and had a little bit of a small holding and then decided that I was risk doing something for myself. Yep. So I set myself up actually as a contract shepherd, which is a very glorious title, which just basically meant running around after sheep in the summer of 1989, getting rid of fly strike and that sort of thing.

1:50and then it morphed through sort of contacts and everything. I had an opportunity to do the pig haulage, breeding stock pig haulage, for a local company based in Suffolk. Yeah. Pig breeding company. And that sort of bounced me into the world of transport. Right. So what were you driving? I started off with Land Rovers. Right, okay. Yeah, so my first Land Rover, oh, it was ridiculous. That was a V8 Land Rover. Petrol? Petrol. with the life of Williams trailer and I was getting six miles to the governor. So you probably would have been better running a truck. Yes, yeah. So I did that for probably only about maybe three months and then bit the bullet and bought a brand new Land Rover.

2:36Yeah, diesel? Yeah, diesel, turbo diesel. It was the last of the turbo diesel Land Rovers before they went TDI in 1989 on a G plate and made it save the fortune. Yes, I can imagine, yeah. Paid for itself fairly quickly, I'd say. It did, it did. So that, yeah, that was the start of it. And got this work that I was, took me all over England, Scotland, Wales. And the first Land Rover I kept for a year and a half, which is too long. So I did 148 ,000 miles from that in a year and a half. Yeah. But the Land Rover dealership had then been handed to Hammond's in that time. And I think Hammond's were quite keen to have my business.

3:24I can imagine, yeah. So I lost£1 ,000 on the price of that Land Rover. That's not bad. I bought it new for£10 ,000, plus that, and I sold it for£9 ,000 against the new K-Reg, which was the 200 TDI. Yeah. And then subsequently changed the Land Rover every year because I was doing like 90 ,000 miles a year. Yeah. so it was all just one way traffic or do you back load no no way yeah all my just drop off come straight back go to the next one yeah so we had a sort of nucleus of there's a lot of farms uh i mean it's the heyday of pig farming so there's a lot of little breeding units in and around east anglia so i used to collect from them and it might have been one boar it might have been 12 gilts yeah and then yeah anywhere anywhere in the country and so just for listeners who aren't aware of what a boar and a gill is sorry yes that's all right so a boar is a is a a male pig yep uh that you would use for breeding and a gilt is a female pig that hasn't then hasn't yet had piglets yeah they once they've had piglets then they then become a sow yeah so i did just the breeding stock so it was young boars typically sort of six months old um and gilts of a bit of a similar age yeah yeah yeah fantastic so that was good saw some wonderful places um i used to go up to in the end i was going up to scotland twice a month yeah only like a dozen pigs um which is good fun and into wales yeah it was just good good times good times yeah and working with some super people you know the agricultural and sort of a community was was something you know very close-knit then because there's all these little farms yeah so it was a nucleus of breeders and then obviously quite small pig farmers you know yeah um where everyone sort of knew each other and absolutely yeah absolutely yeah yeah so yeah it's good times and then the job morphed into it was getting busier and busier which is good um in that time i actually bought a pig farm near Beckles and then bought a lorry which is probably one of the worst things I did says most audience yeah for nothing else I was then beholden to a tachograph with the Land Rover despite perhaps a little bit but I didn't have a tachograph so what was the truck?

5:52the truck I bought a 13 ton Renault the G what were you it was a G plate G1A8ROD yeah good old rod yeah so that would have been the I can't remember the name of the cab now is it Midland? Midland that's the one yeah we're in Midland so did it take the cab? no no no just day cab which was a little bit limiting but I fitted it so it was a like a cattle float small cattle float but I it had a deck in it I fitted it out with nipple drinkers and a water tank and that sort of thing so by that time legislation was coming in that you had to have you know sort of um welfare of pigs yeah sort of the rspco running a scheme so yeah that that sort of did me and then to be honest that kept me going plus my my wife at the time had a land rover so she would do trailer work i'd do the lorry work yeah and it kept really busy right so this is still just uh england scottland wales yeah i was going but also doing occasional little soirees into Europe.

6:59Lovely, yeah. So I did Holland and Germany. Yeah. Went over to the far side, I can't remember where it was, it was far side of Germany, over the other side of the wall. Yeah. And that would have been in 1980, sorry, 1990, 1991, I suppose, when the wall had just come down. So just after Germany had become reunified. That's right. Yeah. So that was really interesting. That must have been quite an open experience. Really interesting, yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, used to sleep in the back of this 90 curled up in a ball um but i used to take it was all i think it was always just balls i used to take over to right to europe yeah uh and it would be one or two balls and that sort of thing wow because there's another company that used to do the all the bulk numbers of breeding stock gilts yeah on an arctic um so that was good the only downside was having to go across on the ferry because I'm not a very good sea traveler.

7:51You're a good sailor. Oh, man, a dreadful. So did you go Dover Calais or do you use... No, no. In fact, the first time I went over was from... That was on North Sea Ferries from Ipswich. Right, yeah. Back in the olden days. Out of West Bank. Yes, it would have been. Yeah, yeah. And frying the shit out of me. Yeah. Climbing up that wire-bloody road stairway up the side of the ship. But, yeah, what an experience. Yeah. What an experience. So that was about, I think it was two peaks that I took over. Right. And I'd never been on a boat before. Yeah. So that was good. That's when I realised that you weren't a saver.

8:27That's right, yeah. That wasn't so bad, but we did, I went over from Harwich. We used to go to Europort. Yeah. I went from Harwich one night and there'd been a real bad storm and I'd actually taken a mate of mine with me for a little ride out. There was only like four boards we had to take the other side of Holland. And really bad storm. The boat was, it was a P &O liner that came in that we were travelling on. And that had been delayed. And I think there had been some containers gone over the side of the ship. It was all dreadful. Anyway, we got on there. It had to have been on wait. So I went to the bar.

9:05And foolishly, I had four pints of Newcastle Brown. Yeah. And then went to bed. Yeah. And then we set sail. And then I was in the shower throwing my heart up for whatever it was, about 11 hours. Yeah. it was dreadful were you saying never again yeah i think i did a couple of trips after that but so obviously i was traveling then across to my mate slept through the whole thing we then traveled and got rid of these pigs and i was dreading the journey home but it's like a milk pond yeah so it's just the way i guess yeah yes so yes so that was good that was good yeah And then by the sort of early 2000s, I suppose, the pig job really sort of took a dive.

9:51People being paid, pig farmers were being paid to depopulate, as we did, actually. It was the outgoer scheme, so you were paid to get out of pigs, destroy all the equipment, so it couldn't be used again. In hindsight, it was a dreadful thing to do. for me it meant that I could then go into bulk haulage so I knocked the pick haulage on the head bought a 7 year old Volvo FH FH12 Arctic yeah it was a second hand unit which was a lovely thing a version 1 I presume yes 3 speed bucks just a fantastic truck and I bought a brand new SAS trailer so the SAS trailer then was £33 ,000 and then set about driving for various people quite big companies just subbing to them UK?

10:51European? just UK and yeah had some good times it was never as lucrative as running around with a Land Rover with no taco very true the bigger the vehicle it was good and then after i think after a year maybe two years but basically in 2003 i bought a brand new daft cf right that was a 480 at the time when i ordered it they literally then announced they were doing a version with the little wheel yeah um but at the time it was only going to be a 430 right for some region so i ordered it on christmas eve 2002 with a chassis cab cost me 58 000 pounds and i decided to go for the big wheel and a 530 480 run yeah 480 yeah and that served me well yeah that'd be well until 2005 and then at which point my marriage went down the pan everything changed yeah the lorry went and it was actually the best thing that ever happened fair enough just incidentally how did you find the stash trailer yeah the first one i had was a it was actually a um the mike beer i think he whether he designed it but it was certainly one of his sort of off the shelf ones that i got from newt try this yeah so that was a uh it wasn't um it didn't have the sloping front it was square front and back and it had barn doors at the back or a universal door at the back so bundles and tipping yeah subsequently it was very long and very heavy right and was from memory might have just about been a 65 yarder right so it wasn't that big yeah and i changed that i had to put uh uh the lifting axle i changed so it was on the rear so i'd get on way bridges yeah we were going down in the west country quite a lot then and wouldn't fill the way bridges right So I had to bugger about doing that.

12:57And then I traded that for a new 65-yard stash. Again, not with a slope in front, just the basic stash, obviously manual sheet and that sort of thing, ordinary tipping tailgate. And, yeah, that was a nice thing. Quite a bit shorter, a bit lighter. Because they seem to have a bit of an issue reliability-wise. there seemed to be quite a lot of people had issues with stas as i seem to remember at the time i don't know whether it was more to do with the automated tailgate or not i don't know i don't know the only thing that there used to be issue well concerns about was the chassis yeah because they're quite light they're very light they're alley and they used i mean they looked all wrong when they were going up you know this has been like a bloody banana yeah um but i never had any issues yeah and I wasn't aware I mean at the time people like Roger Warnes they had a whole bloody fleet of them yeah I think they still do yeah yeah yeah but they were sort of the first ones to have any sort of quantity of them and there was a lot of other trailers around at the time I can't remember United trailers there was quite a few a lot cheaper than the Stas yeah but they weren't built as well right weren't built so you found them pretty well built Yeah, fantastic.

14:16And held the money. Yeah. More of the points. Which is even better. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah, yeah. So I ended up working. I was, in the last probably 18 months, maybe two years, I was actually subbing to Stenets. Yeah. At Ingham. Yeah. And, yeah, had some good work with them. Yeah. And actually ended up in their transport office. Oh, right, okay. When things went early up, sort of, with my family life. Yeah. So that was good. Yeah, it was okay, but office life isn't it for me, so I stuck up for three months. That was enough. Yeah. Enough of being inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

15:02But, no, good times. Yeah. So what happened after that? Once you got back outside again, so to speak. Back outside, I decided that I'd had enough of driving lorries and went into the green waste industry, which served me well, really, actually, from 2006 up until 2015. So it was quite some time. Quite a chunk. Still involved with transport. I was transport manager for a company on two or three occasions, or two or three different companies, should we say. Yeah. And, yeah, they were, again, you know, good times interesting times did you miss the driving at the time no no weren't bothered not at all not at all failed I'd never get back in a lorry yeah and then look around that panda so I was yeah so after various events got back into driving lorries in 2015 yeah nine years ago yeah um and back on bulk wasn't it yeah bulk so I'd done bulk walking floor dirty water tankers yeah that's about it really yeah yeah so a nice variety all farm all agricultural based isn't it yeah because it is where we are exactly our factories our farms as I've said before on podcast it's just yeah so yeah it's been good you know interesting work yeah interesting work yeah variety of trucks and trailers yeah seem to be a lot of Renault premiums yeah Renault I've mentioned it before as well Renault very popular around here I think purely because we've got Roy Humphries on the A14, although he's independent, he sells an awful lot.

16:47Norfolk Trucks. Exactly. There just seems to be several Renault dealers all in close proximity, don't they? Yeah. And they're cheap or cheaper than other trucks. Absolutely, an ideal farm truck. Yeah. I've always said, I mean, people sort of looked down their nose a little bit to me when I bought the CF. I always felt an XF was just too big. because I was going in and out of Wales and all over the place and I just felt an XF was just too big. And they're a bit heavier as well, aren't they, the XF? So when you're paid by the ton, it all makes a difference, doesn't it? Although in hindsight, now I've been driving, if you like, full with lorries, then it's not really an issue.

17:28It's just, I suppose, the weight, what you win and lose on the weight. It's probably half a ton at least. Yeah, and that can make a big difference over a week, can't you realistically so definitely and as as nice an xf is a cf depending on how much time away you're doing one it's not too bad a place to be no i was away all week yeah um which yeah i didn't really enjoy but it's the only way to to make it pay yeah similar to that yeah it was okay but then i just remembered it called fire oh really yeah yeah i was um pulling a a taut liner which was all fine and dandy the gap between the front of the trailer and me was fine but I turned up a little road near Newmarket actually and it was on a hill and quite a tight turn which caused unbeknownst to me at the time but it caused the nose of the chassis on the tour liner hit the back of the battery box, I had battery boxes put across the back of the cab to accommodate the the telling gear yes caught those and basically caused the batteries to short out ah so i got about probably half a mile up the road cars in the mirror saw white smoke i thought oh it stopped and there's flames going up the back of the cab managed to get the lorry away from the trailer i've um empty potato boxes on yeah um managed to get the truck away from the trailer and away from some overhead um electric lines i think it were and literally just got out of the truck and then all the airlines went you know just lots of hitting and yeah poppin and fartin yeah and i'll be honest the worst thing i ever did was call the fire brigade should let it burn yeah yeah absolutely yeah because they were out within minutes right the old bell turned up and they weren't really interested yeah although they did think it was quite funny the only thing i saved out the truck was my briefcase and the crayostella which came back the cast yeah i might get it warm yeah um but uh yeah so the fire brigade came out and he said is that a sunroof i said yeah but it's electric well obviously all electric an axe went through that yeah and they just filled the cab with water right and then on the back of the cab they said oh we think the the insulation is still still smoldering yeah so they cut the back of the cab open to explode expose this sort of smoldering horsehair or whatever it is um and then manchester came along dragged it away yeah and the bastards wouldn't uh write it off really no wouldn't write it off well they wouldn't put a new cab on it and no no nothing so uh they the the cost i think it was somewhere 17 grand yeah to repair it and they the insurance company wouldn't even renew the seats i had to get the seats validated and they never did smell anything but smoke yeah unreal yeah that was dreadful i can imagine yeah yeah yeah so it's a barrier so yeah worth the wise don't call the fire brigade if your truck's on fire give it a few minutes make sure it's proper light but it must have been quite a scary thing as well at the time it's your own truck yeah it's just oh no another thing yeah so what did you just get a rental yeah I got a rental there's a guy I don't know if he's still going he's a guy up the A140 up near Pullen Market off to the left of Timbershaw I suppose and I rented an FH for quite a few months so that worked that's worked you know my insurance covered the rental of it as I remember it was quite reasonable rent anyway and then did bits and bobs and then came out of the lorry basically I think I had the lorry back for maybe not even a month yeah and then had the opportunity to rent it out yeah it was good and then sold it in early 2006 yeah must be that went onto a boat and off into the sunshine no it went local actually oh really yeah yeah but to some ports I'd gone and forth he's a heavy smoker yeah so so there we are yeah so that was the last lorry i owned which seems a lot well it was a long time ago now yeah 21 years ago yeah blimey yeah so yeah lorries yeah pain in the backside yes so since then you've just been an employed driver as such yeah Yeah, rather than either self-employed or a limited company doing anything and everything.

22:20Yeah. Predominantly for a couple of companies. Yeah. But it's kept me busy. It's kept me doing what I wanted to do. Yeah. So, and then, yeah, so two years ago, I had the opportunity to get my arse out of East Angling. Yeah. Why did you want to do that? how long you got as we as we glance out the window of the somewhat damp grey in June so I had the opportunity to go to Bali Indonesia which I did about 18 months ago yeah which has been yeah a wonderful experience it's continuing to be excellent although I came back I need to I'm not quite old enough to retire yeah and I came back last year for a few months to do a bit of work and came back this year to do a bit of work.

23:16Yeah. Just top the bank. Yeah, just sort of keep things bubbling along. Yeah. But unfortunately, I had quite a catastrophic incident. Yeah. Within a week of me being back in England, actually. Yeah. Where a dirty water vacuum tanker gave way, shall we say. Right. It burst onto one of its covers and left me quite badly injured. Right, so can I ask what happened? Yeah, in broad terms, loading the lorry, and for whatever reason, we still haven't got to the bottom of this. This was only a few weeks ago, but the inspection cover on the back of the vacuum tanker gave way. Right. So it followed by about 25, 26 tons of liquid, very nasty liquid yeah all the sort of washing some abattoirs that sort of thing all the type of stuff you want to make your teeth delightful stuff yeah yeah and I ended up with well if you want a list fractured skull fractured sternum fractured spine bleed on the brain cuts and bruises bloody hell yeah I'm lucky to be here Matt I'm really lucky to be here you are yeah what went through your mind when the risk of getting emotional because it is still very raw I'm not surprised I honestly because I've got a wife in Indonesia and my son my 22 year old son lives there yeah he's been out for quite some time and I've got a little eight year old stepson and I just the only thing where I was fuck I'm not going to see these people anymore yeah just and yeah and it was a very, very lucky chap.

25:11Yeah, yeah. I mean, it doesn't really bear thinking about. I mean, I said to you, one of the sawmills that I go to, in the last month or so, a chap was killed there. He was killed in a industrial accident, which they can't talk about as such, and it was about the same time as this happened. And it always, until it happens to somebody you really know or are close to, it always happens to somebody else, in air quotes. You read about it or you'll see it. It's like if a disaster happens on the telly, you'll see it and think, oh, that's really terrible and whatnot. But until it actually kind of hits home as such, you don't realise just how serious these things are because you've come over here to do some work, just top your bank up.

25:59Yeah. You managed, what, five days' work? Four days' work. Four days' work, yeah. And this was nearly two months ago now. So you've been sat about as such, unable to work, in pain, lucky to be alive, really. There's no two ways about it, is there? Because to have a fractured spine, skull, sternum, isn't going to be a barrel of fun, is it? Let's be honest. And it just doesn't bear thinking about, and it just really brings home why we've got health and safety in the first place. I mean, there's some of the arguments to, you know, falling against PPE. Now, from what I gather with yours, I don't think any amount of PPE really would have helped, to be honest.

26:45I don't think so. I think, I mean, the force was so much or such that it blew me out of one of my boots. Yeah. And sent me at least five metres. Yeah. That's an incredible force. Tsunami. Tsunami. That's right, yeah. So I don't think a hard hat, I mean, yeah, I ended up with two really bad lacerations to my head. Yeah. But I think a hard hat would have flown off anyway. Yeah. We don't have chin straps on hard hats. No. Well, there are sometimes, but you don't wear them because you look so bloody stupid. Yes, yeah. Yeah, that's exactly it. And I think that's what a lot of it comes down to with people.

27:25It's vanity. It's a vanity thing, isn't it? And they'll argue the case about why they shouldn't wear this and so on. And sometimes, yes, it is ridiculous, but sometimes it's there for a reason and unfortunately a lot of it comes from people getting hurt or worse is why things get you know reviewed and changes like um several years ago i did my issue advanced motorists uh motorbike test i've done car bike and truck and as the chat was saying you know the this is the tests and the procedures that they follow have all been worked out from statistics from accidents of people who've not made it on bikes and in statistically if you do your iam bike test you're i think 80 percent less likely to be involved in a crash because of what they've learned from less fortunate people yes um and again i did my uh formerly called an epic card i think mpq card i think it's called now uh which allows you in a certain quarries um oh yeah which ones they are it might be like breams tarmacs a a few of them, whoever.

28:25I know I teach stuff, but I've always been of the ilk of, if you go on a course and learn something, it's well worth doing, especially when it comes to CPC. Rather than sitting there getting bored, pick something that's relevant or useful, and you might learn something. Yeah, and it came up, so I think certainly Breedins, I presume most of the quarry companies now have decided to go for Orange High Viz. And so I thought, well, that's quite interesting. Oh, right. Yeah, now, so I thought, well, what's the reason behind it? It can't just be because us truck drivers look a bit better in orange than yellow.

28:59There must be some sort of reason behind it. So I asked the chap, and it stems from the railways, apparently, and because in certain light levels, yellow high-vis, they found with train drivers, if they had workers on the track, in certain light situations, they couldn't see them in yellow, but they could be seen in orange. That's interesting. So it's not just because they want to be a pain in the back so it'll make you buy more PPE. Sure. It's been thought about and there's logic and reason to it. And it's frustrating as it seems sometimes, you know, if you go somewhere new, you've just got to think, right, well, there's reason for this.

29:35Sometimes it is really frustrating because they just implement just the most rudimentary rules that another side of theirs have got. They haven't thought about it. And we've also all been there. like one of the places i go quite regular the footways as pedestrians have got to take a covenant timber so you've got to walk in the yard because you can't you can't unless i unless i put a harness on yeah and and manage to mountaineer over to the top of this timber i've got to move out so it also begs the question well who's in charge of health and safety is it that's a fundamental you know to keep walkways clear yeah uh in in the work way oh sorry workspace space um yeah absolutely yeah absolutely and if anything went wrong you know if you had to divert away from a footway and then got robbed by a forklift yeah then it'd be serious shit on the company yes you know yeah really would and and very painful for you it would yeah and but also would it come back on me as not reporting it but then it's is it my job to report because everyone's gonna be aware of it realistically so i think in the scheme of things we're all responsible if you you look at the health and safety um whatever it is sort of manifesto or whatever um you know we are all responsible for our own health and safety yes and that of the people around us yeah so it would be incumbent on you or me or whoever if you saw something you know a hazard it would be incumbent upon us to report it yeah you know it might not go down very well with the company no they might ban you yeah so at least you've done your bit haven't you as soon as that and it's just the big takeaway from what's happened to you is just you've really got to try and look after number one first first and foremost you know obviously i mean you you were fortunate that you had a work colleague there very much so very much he basically he dragged me out of the way I think without being too dramatic I think I could have drowned because it sent me flying which I guess is where I bust my back I couldn't move and there was this tsunami this torrent of shite coming towards me and I was laying underground you know so yeah go figure And also the fact that he's reacted to it and not been scared about moving you as well, because another thing as well that comes up an awful lot when we're teaching first aid and things like that, people are so afraid that they're going to get sued.

32:12Now, in this country, in Europe, we have good Samaritan laws. So as long as you're doing your best with the skills and the knowledge that you've got, you cannot be prosecuted. That's right. if he started to try and do open heart surgery on you with some sort of standing knife he's got in his pocket, then yes, you could sue him after the effect. But we are not in America where you have to ask permission for absolutely everything. Sure, sure. And it still amazes me that people I know refuse to do a first aid course because they don't want to get sued. Really? Honestly. And I've said to them, so you don't want to do a first aid course that could potentially save your wife or family's lives through simple basic first aid because you're worried that they're going to sue you.

32:59Fair enough, we covered it because I've been using my time to do my five CPC modules on Zoom. And I did the first aid one. I think that was the first one I did. And I spoke specifically about the Good Samaritan, this sort of scheme whereby you can't, if you've done your best, then you can't get sued if things go wrong. that sort of thing but i have to say my my work colleague um was brilliant you know he has done first aid because he's involved with football coaching and that sort of thing um so he's obviously had to have some sort of qualification for that yeah so he knew what to do yeah and you know he kept me conscious i was drifting in and out and he was you know he was there man he was you know forever grateful yeah really it's i mean and again it's not because i teach it um but i I just think first aid is such an important course.

33:51I think that if, as and when they change the law on CPC, it should be mandatory to do driver's hours and tap grafts because truck drivers deal with them all the time and the amount of people that get it wrong is unbelievable. It's probably believable, that should be fair. But also first aid, there's plenty of people who are terrified of blood. You don't have to get involved with blood. Even if you've done a first aid course and you're mildly confident about it even just not panicking and just phoning 999 could be the difference absolutely it really could and if if it was mandatory over time and i still i think it should be part of the car test as well they should have to do a very basic first aid course so well there's going to be crashes on the road we can't get around that there's terrible drivers out there that's the way the world is yeah if every single driver on the road is first aid trained so many lives we saved so quickly it would be you know just having truck drivers as first aiders isn't it might have been in enough that should be should be car drivers as well yeah like you say i think the the it's it's about not panicking yeah it's about knowing that just i mean it sounds simple oh 999 yeah but perhaps in the p at the moment in the panic you don't think no this guy who i was working with knew exactly what to do you know he couldn't put me in a recovery position because of the state in my back and all that sort of thing but i was i can't remember how i was now i was sort of leaning up but leaning against him yeah you know so he was supporting me yeah and he found the ambulance he guided the ambulance in you know we then had to get the air ambulance and da da da da you know um and he he was brilliant yeah he was brilliant yeah yeah so yeah very very worthwhile and any sort of training i think you're right to say with cpc in particular you know i think we all see it as this sort of you know pain in the backside oh it's just you know money for nothing blah blah but i suppose the biggest problem is when it first came out you could do the same module five times exactly and it's just it made a complete mockery of it and it just made it look so obvious that it's just about money and not you know actually teaching people stuff whereas now they've changed it slightly yeah it is better and yeah you know and like dear old bob card he always said to me like when he joined the army he'd volunteer for everything any any course going right volunteer for and it took him around the world if you hadn't volunteered for stuff he'd never gone to christmas island that's interesting you know he he was sent out there because he'd volunteered to do a course on caterpillar engines right and they needed an engineer out in christmas island so he was the one who got sent out there wow and he ended up going around the world paid for by the army because he kept volunteering for different courses very good and it just set him up so well for the rest of his life because he just knew how to take anything mechanical apart put it back together yeah deal with things excellent you know rather than just saying i'm not doing that i'm not doing that he just you know had to do his national service and he just made the most of it i mean i will say i've been on uh i was quite delighted actually i did a block booking with a firm called i think it's cpc driver for you or something like that yeah based down in barry in south wales father and daughter yes um very reasonable 169 quid for five for five modules right including all the uploads everything yeah i think that's really good yeah and you know very engaging um yeah it's been i've found it really interesting good because it's i was asked as well if i would do some teaching via zoom and i i've I personally said no because I think it would be difficult to keep, not only keep everyone engaged, but make sure that they're all being attentive at all times.

37:36I think that is the downfall or the pitfall, should we say, is that it's become apparent on I've done four. There is a core of people who like to just, you know, let's get involved. That makes the seven hours go quicker. Yes. If nothing else. Yeah. And also, you know, it makes life easier for the tutor. yes definitely you know but there has been okay yeah there's always going to be people who little wallflowers all sort of sit back and everybody else do the work absolutely it's just human nature yes yeah but no I've thoroughly enjoyed it yeah really have yeah which I never thought I'd say about CP Sequel no no especially as well as somebody who was involved in haulage long before it came along so you know if you're a newcomer now it's just you don't you didn't know how it was before no you didn't and also when it first came in what it was like I mean yeah I still remember the first day's CPC we went on.

38:31Right. That was RTT training of long since gone bust. And the chap who we were doing, it was somewhat low security, and we were also doing ADR awareness because I kept saying to Trans Am, although we're not doing ADR, people are involved with bits of pyro, catering with gas balls, things like that, and nobody has any sort of training at all. Although they don't need an ADR certificate, you need to have people know roughly, because also you should be declaring some of this stuff a shit, but nobody is, and the fines are huge. If you're breaking that law unintentionally, you need people to know roughly what they're doing.

39:06So anyway, they arranged this course, and I always remember this chap was trying to show us how to operate a ratchet strap. Right. And he couldn't thread it, and he kept farting about it, and in the end, my mate Rob Cole got up, took it out of his hands, threaded it showed him put it down sat back down and this guy just turned around and went well I don't know we just deal with containers who I work for so I've got no idea and you just think so you're being paid to teach us how to do our job and you've got no idea and which is a fundamental thing isn't it not only in hauling it's every line of work exactly yeah and so when you've got people like that that's going to put everyone on the back foot straight away look it certainly did with me you know and I'm just like well what a waste of time a CPC is and and I think from that point on I just thought right well I'm going to do my ADR because at least I'll get something out of it and it's people who are going to be talking about something that they know what they're on about sort of thing and it could help in the future with getting some work in between tours sort of thing and although I'd never lost work from not having it and you'd never get any more money for having it it's just a useful thing to have and I've used it since when Captain Captain It's a strange world isn't it And I think if you can stay ahead of the curve and with as much training and knowledge, I mean, that brings us back to training on specific lorries, specific types of vehicle.

40:34I mean, I don't know about you, Matt, but I've learned as I've gone along, I literally buy my mistakes mostly. Pretty much, yeah. You know? Yeah, hopefully not too expensive mistakes as well. because again like um with the tanks as far as i'm aware there's not an actual official like certified training scheme to say that you're competent no so i think it's the same with all these you know if it's a big company um well it doesn't matter the size of the company what they should have is some um system in place or procedure where you know any any employee or contractor or whoever's doing the work has to be assessed in the first instance.

41:19And then if the assessment, you know, dictates that, well, actually you don't know what you're doing, then go for full training. But that would always, I guess, be with an established driver, whatever, within that company, you know, who would be giving you the benefit of their own experience. But that, again, isn't qualified as such. you know it's all I know perhaps we're getting into realms of well you know it's more legislation and all that sort of thing but I think in the case of my recent thing you know I've never been trained on vacuum changers no you know you open that button and see what happens push that do that and out all the way you go and without knowing of the potential consequences of what's happened and that isn't the reason it bursts I think but just fundamental knowing your way around, especially mechanical stuff, air-driven stuff, hydraulic stuff.

42:22Even me and you have done bulk tippers for God knows how long. Yeah, yeah. No official training. I mean, I've just went with a bloke for the first week, I think, with my own tipper, but just went with them, shadowed them. They showed me roughly what to do. It was like, try not to tip on uneven ground. That's right. It's all well and good, but when you're then let out on your own and you go to a farm and it's uneven, especially as a new person and the farmer says well they've tipped there before and there is a part of something you think well surely it's going to be alright and that's we fly over the seat of our pants all the time we really do especially with tippers especially with tippers I mean I don't know it might be a fantastical thing to say but I can I always said actually years ago well you know when I was doing bulk myself that there must come a time where they ban tipping trailers possibly I mean it's going to be very difficult to do it would yeah but there are you know there's a lot of alternatives yeah a lot of the agglot lorries now got a belt in the bottom yeah they got the hoppers that feed it out there's no reason you couldn't do that with grain bats walking floors yeah I mean I love walking floors I think they're the most versatile brilliant bit of kit yeah as a worker probably yeah but yeah what a bit of kit yeah they're great yeah very effective and yeah multitude of cargo completely yeah yeah you know self-load offload whatever yeah um yeah nice and again they don't tip up so you're you're eliminating that danger yeah the only thing i've always felt and i've done quite a lot of walking walking floor work over the past probably five or six years invariably with manual sheets and it's always surprised me that you know if you go to i know most places now that if you've got an ordinary bulk tipper yeah and you've still got a manual sheet then you have to operate that from the ground.

44:09Yes. You know, you can't get up on a catwalk. No. Yet on a walking floor, you're going to be 15 foot up in the air, leaning out to put a handle in. Yeah. You know, in the socket at the end of the sheet. Yeah, to wind your sheet. To wind it over. Yeah. That's acceptable. Yeah. Yeah. It's mad. Yeah. It's mad. It doesn't make any sense. I can see why people still keep manual sheets on walking floors because, you know, a lot of the time you, you know, in various rubbish and waste and that sort of thing. These guys on these 360s, they really don't care. They just ran the stuff in. So invariably, you know, if you've got lovely expensive pumps and equipment on top doing electric sheet, then it's going to get knocked about.

44:52Exactly. So you can see why people still… And I suppose there's going to be a weight-saving advantage as well. Not massively. Not massively. Not massively. But, you know, it all adds up. It does, depending on how you're looking at it. Yeah, yeah. yeah um but yes that's always always been my thing yeah but then would they argue well because you've got the catwalk and you've got like the you've got an enclosed gantry should you not have a harness on well yeah i think that must be a very valid point yeah but we're not gonna wear one then are we no no why am i gonna fart about putting that on just clip on here and do this and that because you look stupid i will look like a right idiot yep yep look more than anyone to fall off exactly we don't think of that and 999 times out of 1000 you'll get away with it and you never have a problem but it's just that tiny little percentage I can remember when I was doing so this is like 20 25 years ago or whatever there was a spate there was probably about 3 or 4 in probably as many months of guys loading you know an ordinary bulker but you know loading a brake mill or something, you know, lightweight, very bulky.

46:04There's one instance at the Sugarbeak factory, the pulp nuts, and where the driver, you know, back in those days you were allowed on top of the trailer, you know, because you had to physically lift the bloody sheet over. And, yeah, I knew three, but there was another one as well, and when the pullover strap broke and they went all the way from the top of the trailer onto the ground serious stuff awful awful no one died but bloody hell they came close oh yeah I'm not surprised and again the development from them injuries has created a sheet that you can operate from the ground because you even have the long pole that's really ungainly and you're trying to get the answer to the end and you just think I'll just climb up there because it's just much easier yeah but if you fall over on the ground you've tripped over your laces you'll just look silly and it won't really hurt it might bruise your ego on the backside but yeah if you fall off that catwalk it's horrible yeah horrible yeah and again it leads on to the electric sheet but if you've got product that's piled really high you need to try and flatten it down I know it's so difficult I haven't loaded pulp out of Berry or anywhere for years so I don't know how that goes now I mean do they do they flatten it down have you done pulp I haven't done nuts rather oh I have no no not for a long long time or even pulp actually pulp out of berry can get heaped up you can give it a bit of a knock yeah I think from memory just give it a bit of a shunt yeah as best you can from I think at the times I've had an electric sheet because because pulp is a bit lighter yeah the sheet just sort of drags you through a bit and just knocks a bit off the side yeah that's right which kind of helps when you get the waivers because British sugar, as we know, is so strict.

47:59If you're 10 kilos over, you're going back to tip 10 kilos up. I know. Again, that's the right thing to do. It's the rules, mate. It is. And it's the law. Very frustrating. It is very frustrating because you think, well, if I get out, because obviously I only weigh 10 kilos, I'm only a lightweight chap, that would be bang on there, wouldn't it? But the downside is, from the audience point of view, I mean, whenever I go into Bury, I always make sure that I'm well under. So I'm buggered if I'm going to go back there and take a bit of Lyme-X off or whatever. Oh, yeah. Because it sticks like... So you're probably going out a tonne of weight.

48:35Yeah. Half a tonne at least. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So it's not cost-effective. No, not really. But, yeah, rules is rules. Rules are rules. These are the rules. That's what we have to abide by. Yes, yeah. But, again, ultimately, these rules are there for our safety. in our well-being because we all want to go home at the end of the day and uh so then just as a as a little aside i mean living in bali road driving is a completely different ball game right you can imagine um but the haulage side of things is atrocious really so there's i've only seen maybe two arctics right and they'd be old bloody old donkeys you know 30 year old arctic units Japanese sort of imports or something yeah there's or something yeah so I can't remember what the big ones are they're so old I can't recognise them yeah you know they've got bits hanging off them and they will take containers yeah to a couple of depots quite near to where I live but all the rest of the haul is just done on six wheelers with, I would say it's a 40-foot bed on a six-wheeler.