Trucking: The Life of an HGV Driver -1980's style!
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- Опубликовано: 9 авг 2012
- Steve Higgins and Brian Marsden truck driving in the 1980s. A mini documentary showing the life of a HGV delivery driver. Shot with a JVC videomovie camera on VHS compact tape.
Originally had a title soundtrack using an Elton John track. Had to remove it to monetize hence the silent opening and closing. When I did so it seemed to cock up the whole soundtrack so had to add it back in.
Read more about Steve Higgins at www.stevehigginslive.com 
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Then as now, there is nothing like lying down in the bunk with the sound of rain on the cab roof to get a good sleep.
You'd be picked up by a jobsworth these days for this laid back approach.
From a 71 year old lorry driver got my HGV 1971 been retired for 5 years and glad of it , I still love seeing the old trucks of my youth but don’t miss the driving but miss the crack with my mates.
My dad is 68, he was on the wagons class 1 from age 21, he retired when he was 60, he said he’d never want to do it nowadays because the roads are a shambles with arseholes. That’s very true, I drive long distance and there’s no respect for you lads anymore 😢
@@Dan23_7 Your dad as got that right
@@franceliakarle_1 Doing OK hope you are well.
@@johnadams3730 Totally right, I see it day in day out. I was brought up around wagons and yards, I’ve so much respect. People today have no patience and are rushing about like dickheads
@Dan23 7 I am73 and drive a small van for a living needs must,but if I could go back to the old days on the trucks I would jump at the chance
Brings back some memories of good times. This video is why I drive trucks today. But I wish I didn’t anymore to be honest. Bring back the good old days.
I was a lorry driver for 13 yrs during the 90’s in Belgium. No sat-nav, no cb. Roadbook on the steering wheel. Good boss but underpaid. A lot of overtime meant that you had a good salary. But overtime does not count for your pension, only the standard wages. The only job I had for more than 6yrs. After 13 yrs I had enough of it and at the age of 55 I switched seats en became a driving instructor. Again for no longer than 6yrs an then early retirement at 61. Glad that it’s all over now. Truck drivers are treated almost like ex prisoners these days. No respect any more. Still, they will always need road transport. Without that, every thing stops.
Myself 79 and still at and keen... My dream is The Job of Yesteryear with The Motors of Today. Let's All Keep On Trucking Along The Highway of Life.... Keep Em Lit Boys.!!!!
I was an eighties trucker! Roping and sheeting load down, as most transport was flatbed, although tautliners were coming in. You got filthy dirty, especially when it was wet, and if you were up the road all week, was hard to keep clean. Not many stops had showers. When I started my hands were covered with painful blisters for a week or two from the ropes, until my hands hardened up! Many loads were handballed off, must be great now forklifts are everywhere. There wasn’t half the traffic there is now, and industrial estates were not clogged with badly parked cars. Remember getting my first motor with a sleeper cab, thought it was xmas and birthday rolled into one after kipping across the seats on a air bed. Not complaining, cos I loved it, and being out on the road was like being your own boss. Retired now and loving it, but glad I did my bit.
@@franceliakarle_1 doing fine thank you, hope all good with you!
@@franceliakarle_1 thank you hon , you sound nice, you like truckers?
Greetings from north dakota ! In 1980 I hitchicked from Oxford to Edinburgh to visit friends. Rode in DAF. MAN. Iveco. Scamia and one '49 volvo. Also a mini. Triumph and a Ford cortina... Good times !!!
Greetings from the UK. Never been to the USA but hope to make it there, one day . .
All the best and thanks for looking in
Just quit doing this job..had my HGV from 1978..so 42 years..glad I've finished..
Good luck Ray, enjoy your retirement mate, you've earned it!!
I wonder how the new drivers of today would like driving pre taut liners,sat navs. I was in the office getting my keys and manifest a new driver one week experience came in complained "I'm not taking that thing out,it's not got a fridge. Oh diddums I said i been trucking for 25 years and had my fridge on my passenger seat. When i first started trucking i had a 22 year old Leyland not auto, splitter boxes, no radio, no auxiliary plugs, no night heater, using public phone boxes, roping & sheeting in ice cold wet weather oh the good old days.
02:36 BRS now that is a blast from the past remember seeing those trailers growing up with my grandad in the early 90s going round the country in his artic, the good old days man, good memories I’ll take to the grave.
I always thought I’d be a lorry driver but nah under paid and over worked, no life, now every company wants you working away all week while your wife sits at home with the kids. My grandad for sure worked his bollocks off doing 13 to 16 hour days but he was home 3 or 4 days of the week.
Retired now with bad ticker ,i drove everything everywhere and boy did we laugh great nights out at regular haunts , I had a 2800 dad that wd do 85mph ,worked for s and w garages of Atherton I only had to pull up at traffic lights and the fuse would jump out on its own 🤫
A 2800 Daf will do 68 MPH and no more. If you mess with the pump to get more revs the engine won't last pissing time. I've known loads of smart asses on the roadside with blown engines😂
@@seamusburke9101 well Seamus ,your wrong the pump was wound up and the engine lasted 4 yrs with me then sold in running order, our firm was well known by lots of guys ,and owner drivers who ran with us ,it had the 4over 4 box with a coach diff as ordered by the boss , I'm not here to argue and you have the right to yr opinion , I don't need to make up stories as have lots of true ones and witnesses
Drive right passed my home town, the top oak was a great pub back in the day
Just love the way he had a 12v battery beside him to work his cb and his radio etc
Glad ive found this vid again
The racket in that Iveco cab. Drove something very similar back in the day.
Before VOSA and before the tacho-card menace arrived it was a lot freer in those days, but tougher graft. Mind you i think driver's mates were a more common thing in trucking in those days weren't they?
wow, remember the old "Echo mike" on the CB's, along with the "roger bleep". I got out of trucking in '99 after 8 years, I worked on containers and for Loadwell Transport out of Felixstowe, FL7, FL10, FH10, DAF and Scanias. It was a good time but although I still work shifts, I'm home every night (or day).
It was always a good day when schoolkids on a coach made rude gestures at you (always made me laugh, I often returned the gesture with a smile but it brightened up my day lol) , or pensioners waved as the coach came past.
I wouldn't go back to it for all the tea in China, I worked with guys who never got to see their kids growing up as they were out 5 nights a week, then later ended up divorced. I have every sympathy and utmost respect for truckers today, I get to meet a few of the "old school" lads in my job and always enjoy a chat with them.
Keep safe out there fellas. Clean and green all the way to the front door.
@@franceliakarle_1 Go to my RUclips channel, my email is in there at the bottom of the description on my vids
:)
Love the old taachoes
Sat watching this in France in my nice Scania. Thank god I’m truck driving now..
With you there. I'm quite happy with my night heater, air con, air ride seat, memory foam bed. Not to mention endless on demand TV through my laptop, and always being able to have a video call with anyone I know anywhere I am.
Same are
Have to disagree with you there mate, you could leave the yard and no one knew where you were until you rang them from a phone box, they couldn't get in touch with you to tell you to just pop in there for another pallet or top up with whatever, the roads were much clearer, everything abroad was so much cheaper, especially in Spain which was marvellous back in the day, there's no way I'd rather be driving now.
@@hughjanus4371 this is why I dont do the job anymore. No sense of freedom with the job, may aswell have a boss standing at the back of you. With tracking devices, mobile phones, in cab and dash cameras, the job will never be the same again. And the semi auto boxes are terrible. Much rather a manual. I'm finished with it all.
and how did you get to the south of France? motorway to UK port/tunnel then motorway on the limiter in your automatic all the way? How exciting! Glad I'm out of it.
Sutton Bridge on the A17. Looks familiar to me, high up in my DAF XF 105, with a knackered curtainsider on my back 😂
now theres one of them magical things that shows you where to go but does not tell ya to turn left in 300 yards great to hear the CB chatter
Brilliant documentation, fantastic watch 👌🏼
Hi how are you doing?
remember those days very well on long distance bloody noisy engines, compared whats on the road now,, i was born to soon ah well lol great video
+tiger bray Thanks for watching Tiger, That was one heck of a hard weekend watching Brian delivering. I couldn't have done that job!
Steve Higgins is he still truckin or is he retired
Love the trani radio, I at least put a proper one in my Commer TS3 powered truck, everyone laughed but I had had the cab insulated in 1 inch padding, I could hear it good
What a life it was.... across the water..... back again.CB radios... forget your tacho .... foreign truckstops... showers!..Lokeren in Holland.DAF or Transcontinental. Holland duck...all gone now 😭😭😭
Haha. My dad had the radio on the dash to. A metal wire rapped around the antenna and connected to the sunvisor for better reception. Back than everyone respected the truck drivers and look up to them, not like today.
Mind you alot of truckers today are an absolute waste of time. Rude, arragant and just simply unhelpful!! Long gone the days when truckers had consideration for each other.
@@ivecodaddy4817 sad , but true
That was hollies cafe at the beginning and that looks like an iveco dash and gearstick
great music reminds me of the good old days
@@franceliakarle_1 mighty all right and you brother
@@franceliakarle_1 I am still with the same company,are you still driving trucks Sir
@@franceliakarle_1 good morning angel I am still with the same company for 11 years,and I am also an ex London Bus driver
they is still pratts on the CB Radio today lol
The cabs were so noisy.... When bunking down for the night you could still hear the Fing engine in your ears!!!! Ear worm i believe they call it?
I thought it was only me 😬When I was a kid I used to travel with my dad in either a Dodge or mainly AEC and once parked up for a night in a freezing cab I could hear the engine and gear changes until I eventually got some sleep ( only to be awaken by the cold) good days though👍✅
hi steve great vid . Whats Brain upto these days ? Is he still driving ? love the old iveco with the 8 speed Eaton gearbox
still an HGV driver, think he does permanent nights!
good to here he still at it Didnt you take the HGV ?
You're only driving a puddle jumper Stevie, but I do love the ZX81 graphics on the video mate! lol
Exactly what my uncle used to call them
@@saunlloyd1475 I mate calling himself a trucker a poxy box van
At 7:19 did anyone else spot the 60 SQN Royal Corps of Transport mushroom flash stuck to the windscreen?!! I have my 7 SQN RCT Shiney Seven flash on my van :)
Elton is Good, thankyou...
Awesome , so much better , laid back no cameras , Not the same now
better than a sat nav a local with lane knowledge
I wonder how he was able to drive and unload without the high visability jacket and safetyshoes. The transportcontrol would not accept it now.😉😉😉😉 But a great video, i got my first volvo F 1225 with the very flat roof and hi-low shifter on the dashboard around that time dooing Nl-IT with fresh hanging meat. While the drivers from what is now Cris Salvesen were hopping around in mercedes Sk 1925 with a half sleeper cab. Great times those were. BBQ in Carisio and Santhia. Custumcontrol at novarra. Then 1 week blocked when you han analise from the meat
good old 80s
5:20 is Shefford in Beds! It hasn't changed!
6:00 is Baldock.
Look how empty the roads are yet we thought they was busy then. All them good old names there Amec and BRS Renwick.
Got out of it in 1994 couldn’t get a decent job or make a half decent living out of it, even though I had 14 years experience.Ended up on a van with parcel deliveries for 18 years until another redundancy . Now a cleaner in the NHS with three months to go.
Hope you enjoy your retirement. You earned it.
I could only hack 3 years of truck driving with automatics and satnavs. Shite managers but hell of a time with other drivers and yard dogs.
14 years i couldnt imagine.
@@thechongwolla I find generally employers are quite nice
Sudodrive agreed, I used to keep changing jobs. Out of the frying pan and into the fire every time. Packed it in and went driving cranes, never looked back. Thats going down the pan now too but I'm not fussed. Nearly time up for me.
Funny seeing the C.B. radio powered by a car battery in the cab. There also would have been more transport cafes then selling greasy breakfasts and “Yorkie” chocolate bars.
That's how I remember them days too No satnavs or air conditioning (Poor man's open both windows and pray ya paperwork didn't fly out windows) no mobile phone unless a car phone was in the cab or you had your ears on(CB radio ) 😀 good old days driving run's through my veins my late father who sadly passed away early this year was a trucker my brother too have done some too only to 7.5 t tho I'm on my partner's Google account my name's Dean keep on trucking
You had CB radios in the UK too? Cool.
Freddy Marcel-Marcum cb radio? Oh yes!
@@SteveHigginsWriterBloggerPoet no kidding! Them'r fun, greets from Kentucky 🚛 🇺🇸💞🇬🇧🚛
Thanks for looking in. All the best from Manchester, uk
@@SteveHigginsWriterBloggerPoet The Manchester Van Driver
I think there where no power steering wheels, you just had to grab it and wrestle it
Renwicks Freight hired on a real one😆
What year is this lads?
Ah 1987. Thought around that time with the B reg on truck.
@@emmetdonnelly2072 A C was 85 or 86
Come to think about it, Brian looks like my adopted mom and her son Chris.
Haha the old frisby tacho
He wants to get rid of that map and get a smart phone or a satnav..
the shire oak is now green lol
And it’s still empty
Good old days miss them very much retired now, trucker over 40 years, The days when you could make a few quid on the way home doing a few foreigners, 🤫🙁
Yes, Brian, the driver in the video has just retired too. Pity as I was thinking of asking him to do a follow up video
@@SteveHigginsWriterBloggerPoet that would be great. Ask Brian to do odd days. so u can do a remake. 👍
@@fatlad5090 somehow I don’t think he’d appreciate that. Looking at his latest Facebook post it looks like he’s getting down to some serious fishing.
@@SteveHigginsWriterBloggerPoet that would be a good video. Steve and Brain go fishing.
Just as well there's no such thing as smellyvision!
Do you still speak to brain Steve is he still trucking. Love the video and even today they is still nob heads and weirdos on CB radio
Yep, he’s still a wagon delivery driver, he works nights but seems pretty happy doing it!
@@SteveHigginsWriterBloggerPoet cool are you both from Manchester you're book looks very interesting Steve. Have u any more videos of days out in truck. Keep up the good videos.
Good times good lads sit wages ,fast trucks and no visa wnkers
That truck sounded like it had an 8V92
A truck don't make me laugh
No chance Daniel, I'm pretty sure it was a Deutz. The old screamin jimmy is not popular truck engine in Europe, they drink too much.
Didn't have to double clutch every ten seconds, I HATE double clutching.
best way to drive
@@steveluckhurst2350 I'm getting better at it...
@@freddymarcel-marcum6831 Good for you. Once you master it you'll feel like a driver, not a steering wheel attendant! Next, roping and sheeting ! 😊
@@freddymarcel-marcum6831 You don't need to double clutch a van
@@danbreen6946 thank heavens 😂
Jesus wept the state of that cab inside 🤢 I wouldn’t even let my dog sleep in there if I had one 🤢
Ahhh the days of a map, an A to Z, manual gearbox and a CB ...do i miss em ? No ! 😁 Give me an auto and a satnav any day 😁
Take it your mate didn't see much action with the lady's Steve?
mart f ha ha! Certainly not on that trip! 😀
do like you old videos Steve. Think its because i was a youngster in Urmston in 1987 so it takes me back. loved going to Ringway with my dad. think me and Steve Manson would have got on like a house on fire
mart f thanks pal, if you were interested in trains and planes you would certainly have got on.
Collins and AZ street maps yippee
No sat nav in those days!
Sounded like an 80's porno at the beginning..
That's what I thought
The music sounds like something from a bad porn movie........
+Gary Williams yes, it's not brilliant. Elton John. Tried to remove it and add something new, something I could actually make money on but when I did so the whole soundtrack de-synchronised so put it back to normal. One day I'll take it down and re edit but it'll be a shame to lose all those hits. Thanks for looking in Gary.
+Steve Higgins Ahh yeah fair enough. It's a good bit of history though!
I thought this was a bad porn movie.
What a dirty , filthy set up
Love Watchin these oldies
This bought me back to some good Memory's with my dad he drove foe Longsterm Chemicals back in 80s-90s used to go to work with him all the time used to sit at the wheel pretending I was driving while he unloaded :)
Chris same as me now I'm a trucker at last
Superb little video....
Amazing to see just how difficult the job was as opposed to the shite on the road today....
Lads seemed so much happier to do their job then,no real craic in it nowadays....
Thanks for the upload!!!
Thanks for looking in Barry!
@@SteveHigginsWriterBloggerPoet If you find any more for us to see,love to watch them Steve....Thanks again for the look back at more fun times!!!
Brings me back to riding alongside my Dad out on potato collections around the farms in the Irish countryside....
Sorry, thats the only trucking video I have. I got a video camera in 1986 and started shooting all sorts of stuff. My mate Brian was a trucker and I spent a couple of days with him filming. He spent the entire 2 days grafting. It was hard work!
who needed a sat nav when you had the cb , them were the days
Nice to see the air fresheners are still the same 2:54
The Driver looks like a proper laugh, to co truck with.
Used to enjoy being a truckers mate/ banksman.
Great days.
He's a natural comedian! He abused to make me laugh all the time.
Thanks for watching, cheers, Steve
Thanks too Steve, Great Video's you do mate, I like the Manchester Airport, So Nostalgic. Fantastic Days , watching & spotting. 👌
@@Jademyheart You the one that gave him the music a bit of 80,s Porn
They were the best times to be on the road.Even though it was tough at times.
Nice gear changes
@@franceliakarle_1 fine and you
@@franceliakarle_1 I am fine thanks where are you from?
@@franceliakarle_1 England
I miss the old world.
When we on years 2040..you gonna miss 2019..
Me2
Life was much simpler then, more relaxed, not a mobile phone in sight, and society was better for it.
And the days you could understand the conversation in the transport office !
how many drivers nowadays would know what that stick coming out the floor with the range change on it was for, or even begin to start using it. them was the days up early and "crack on" no risk assessments, no setting up post codes on a sat nav , no hi viz and a night out was spent in a hotel...……..the smell of diesel and a purring engine...………...what more could you ask......LOL
Thats sucks
Johnny 89 to u it might bcos u a college kid us real men like real work now go back to more lectures
Dont forget, with a bit of luck you might get your hole
those were the days, slack er back to 70 when ye spot the polis
than an old Turbotech you're in?
Sounds like a Magirus Deutz air cooled engine under the cab as well
Could be -was a long time ago!
@@SteveHigginsWriterBloggerPoet Did you ever drive a real truck or was just box vans
I never was a truck driver although I had a psv manual gearbox license which at one time allowed me to drive an HGV class 3
Brian was a long time HGV driver, I never was.
@@SteveHigginsWriterBloggerPoet Class 3? Like a single / double-axle HGV Rigid?
Shit 1987 I was 20 years old and stupid, but it was good times. I wonder if Brian is a distant cousin to my adopted mom, her dad was a Marsden, it would be funny it he was.
Very interesting. Seemed like a tough way to make a living. Did you shoot that on film stock or video?
It was shot with my old VHS compact video camera. A Panasonic similar to the one Marty McFly uses in Back to The Future! Yes, A very long and hard day for that poor guy!
Spot the scania 6 wheeler flatbed 82h sheeted load fantastic!!!
Wonder if he had got it registered after he imported it??????
There no navigation..paper map
John Lennon's let himself go!
Looks more like the guy who shot him .
Just imagine 😂😂👍
@@jamesllewellyn5191 Looks like a guy kidding on he's a trucker
In the days when you could make a decent living wage without having to work 70 hours per week like here in New Zealand hooker pasific pay time and a quarter after 60 hours and they complain about the driver shortage . They lobby the government to bring in oversaes drivers.
Here in the US if a trucking school doesn't offer classes in Spanish and Hindi, they're not going to make it these days. Fortunately ours is in Kentucky so they can, but California, New York, Florida, nope.
Same in the UK.
Got out of driving after 3 years in 2020 and make the same pay inspecting imports at a port for only 9 hours a day. Can get my overtime hours added to my holiday allowance and usually leave work an hour early. Stupidly good council pension too.
I did it for the fun of it but fuck doing if for more than a couple of years. Its the best and worst job in the world.
Eeeee,when I were a lad...eh ?? This was the days before tacho's the e.u and 'elf and safety'......Hard work,but far more enjoyable than today..... Waay too much bullshit these days ! What were you delivering.....multi drops ??
+Jayen4 p.s. I meant 'digi tacho's......
You had to ask the fork truck driver to lift up sheets up for your the load was high
Bet he was stinking of B.O
nitrorory real mens natural cologne
How dear u speak about my friend brian like that you fart 😠