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George Spenceley recalls his years as a long distance lorry driver, the friends he made and the incidents that happened along the way.
After months of driving up and down the country in a tanker for ICE the novelty started to wear off. One Sunday morning I was with a mate who was experienced in bus driving.
We were called out to take the wagon and drag to Runcorn. My mate was junior to me as far as his service at Wilton was concerned and I knew that he was not allowed to take the wheel but he asked if I'd let him take over for a while.
Stupidly I did, I thought with his previous experience nothing could come to harm but I was wrong. I let him take the wheel at Elland Road on the outskirts of Leeds, which is rather a hilly area. He thought he was still driving a bus and had very little consideration for other road users.
The wagon would slowly climb the hills but he'd then let it run freely down hill, this made me feel very uneasy. 'Slow down' I shouted across the cab to him but he took no notice until we were running down the hill into Heckmondwike.
I had travelled that road on numerous occasions and knew that at the bottom of the hill at the crossroads there were traffic lights. He seemed unaware of this and was going far too fast. About fifty yards away from the lights they changed to red, he applied the foot brake as hard as possible with very little effect and I quickly ratcheted up the trailer brake but it was impossible to stop it.
A bus that had been standing at the lights started to move forward but saw the problem that we were having and the driver had the sense to stop and let us go through. We stopped about one foot away from the front of the bus.
Shaken and annoyed I told him to pull over and let me take control again. He wasn't very pleased but after a few sharp words I took over and we resumed our journey to Manchester.
The cargo of Titanium powder was at that time very rare, it was processed into a very hard metal and used in the aircraft industry, they reckoned that the powder cost one pound per pound so the total cost of the load we carried was about £75,000.
George Spenceley, 2002
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