H Fellows Transport Ltd

[Funky-Chicken]

John is still doing ok,he retired a couple of years ago.He and his wife are riding around Europe on his Goldwing. I think Len died a few years ago, I will ask my old man. You might know him. Bob Hibbert he was at Fellows some of the time, used to check up on the beast

[Jeremy Rowland]

John is still doing ok,he retired a couple of years ago.He and his wife are riding around Europe on his Goldwing. I think Len died a few years ago, I will ask my old man. You might know him. Bob Hibbert he was at Fellows some of the time, used to check up on the beast

Steve your dad must of been after my time there; I was there from sept 1982 to around sept 1988, to be fair I never went into Triplex as the main contract that Ellis held whilst I was there was the one out of Bromford tube works at Erdington.
I will have to look "big John" up as he was known, a good lad and a gent too.
The last driver I saw from HFT was Eddie Wilkinson he told me that quite a few of the old drivers had passed away; Lenny Watts, Alan Jackson and "Jumbo Jim"(James Heathcote) which made me sad.
Geoff Thomas "Top Cat" was driving for W.K. Edwards until he suffered a bad stroke, I don't know how he is doing?
Mickey Perrot drives for Chris Kelly and some of Ellis Fellows other workers are still there too.
There were some right characters that worked for Ellis but mostly they were good lads.

Jeremy

[Funky-Chicken]

My dad used to drive for H Welch transport then which was near Keltruck. I don't think Kelly has any other transport other than Triplex. When I worked there I cleared out most of the places, Genner, Ingles, Sheppards, Everitts and I can't remember the one in Stoke. I think the manager at Stoke is now at Fellows. I remember Len and Geoff well, I worked with both for a while. Alan Jackson I know the name but can't picture the face as there were quite a few Alan's from various places that came to work with us. I worked at TCH from 87, I think Ellis came there in 88. Alf Lovell used to be transport manager when I started and Geoff Thomas took over just before it closed. I enjoyed working with them all, most knew me from a very early age.

[Jeremy Rowland]

I remember that H Welch transport were located at the top of Union st on the dual carriage way by where Guest trucks are now, I do remember Kelly and Ellis taking over the transport companies that you mention above with the exception of one at Stoke that must of happened after I had departed from HFT.
There was one other small transport company that they took over and that was Pontefract Bros down at Oldbury, I forget the name of the road it was in now but it was opposite a pub called "The Manchester Stores"
Ellis did quite well out of the Everitts transport company as he bought all the old Sed Atki 400's whilst Kelly put Scania's in there and Ellis simply broke the 400's as they were Gardner 8LXB powered and made a packet, I know for a fact that Ellis used to get £2k for each engine alone and you could bet that went into his back pocket too.
I haven't bumped into him at all but saw Lorna Fellows a few years ago before she died.
Len Smith was a character and a half but a great man he was one of the old school type mechanics.
I only went into Thomas Ingles on about two occassions, one was when I took their ERF KV for its MOT and the other was when I towed their 400 series back from Leicester, I don't ever remember going into Genner's.

Jeremy

[Funky-Chicken]

We only had 1 400 series which was in the white and blue Ingles colours. I can't remember the drivers name, nice chap with curly hair but not very experienced. He didn't realise he had another set of gears to use for 2 days, he had only driven a Guy with a straight six before and didn't know how the range change worked. I remember him losing two loads, one of timber and one of paint powder. Ellis sent me with him to teach him how to rope, sheet and chain. He used to kill the 400 and never let in a Scania. I think the ERF you mentioned was the white one with a blue stripe, I never liked that, it almost killed me because the door swung open when I hit a pot hole and out I went. Lucky I was inside the yard and not going too fast.
I used to do lots of clear out jobs for Ellis. Everything was either salvaged or cut up and weighed in for his back pocket.
I just spoke to my dad who remembers Mickey Perrot. He was the one who had a heart bypass. He can't remember the drivers name who hit the mini bus but thinks he was called Gunslinger

[Jeremy Rowland]

The guy who hit the minibus was named Ronald Boulton and his nickname was "gunslinger" and as I type this I can still see the battered front top grill from that truck with the word gunslinger on it.
I could not tell you what he even looked like as it happened the second day that I worked there, I can tell you that Ellis was sh*tting bricks over it though, it was a most unfortunate event.

As for Ellis lining his pocket with salvage money well say no more he did rather well out of things lets put it like that.
The Ingles ERF wasn't a bad little tool to drive I think it had a 150 Gardner in it if I recall properly, I never got to drive it over any rough ground so no chance of chucking me out.

Jeremy

[turps]

Seddon Atkinson or Sudden Accident???

[Funky-Chicken]

My Dad will speak to John Gaunt and get an e-mail address for you. He does voluntary work delivering blood I think. Ellis always looked after the drivers but used to make me laugh with one of the transport managers, He didn't like to be ignored in a morning. I think I aged him a fair few years. One of the managers sent me out in a Scania 111 shunter which had a big hole in the floor by the accelerator, it had no tax or test and I was only 18. Len watts nearly died when i turned up with a trailer full of concrete reinforcement mesh from Barfab. They made a story up to tell Ellis and my dad as to how it got there. I can see Len's face now, he'd developed a stutter. The ERF was an easy start addict, it was a Gardner but not sure which

[Jeremy Rowland]

Yes please Steve I would appreciate John Gaunts e-mail address, its been many years since I have spoken to him.
Do you remember mouthy Mick Hemmings who became Ellis foreman when Ellis bought back the business from Kelly? I never liked Mick, a horrible bloke but I got on okay with his son Paul. I learned that Mick had died of throat cancer on boxing day 2001 aged 59, although I disliked the bloke I would of not wanted that to happen to him.
Do you remember one of the mechanics called Trevor Potter? He was another first class character, I can recall John Gaunt telling me what happened when Trev was sent to fix a trailer bearing that had collapsed on the trailer that John was taking to one of the works.
Apparently John said that after Trev had fixed it he only got half a mile down the road and was turning into the works where he was to tip when the whole hub complete with wheels fell off
Upon investigation it turned out that Trev had left the anti-rust protective paper on the new wheel bearings Len Smith was furious and said to Trev "I'm surprised you didn't fit the rest of the f*cking box as well!"
Yes there were many characters there in the garage and the drivers but most of them were sound, I always liked Ellis although he could easily rattle some people.

Jeremy

[Jeremy Rowland]

When I worked at H Fellows Transport there was 3 trucks that were known as the 'killers' of the fleet and all three of the trucks were RTA rebuilds the most infamous of course was COP921V which killed the 7 when I first started working there.
That same truck had been purchased by Ellis Fellows as a write off and had allegedley killed its driver and the driver of the vehicle that it had hit.

The second killer was MNP100T and this Seddon Atkinson 400 day cab truck allegedley killed a guy in a Morris Marina van who ran into it; MNP was the only truck that I ever witnessed seeing human blood dried on the passenger door windscreen and door panel; HFT rebuilt it with a sleeper cab.

That leaves one which had already been rebuilt long before I started working for HFT and that truck was vehicle registration number NAA289T. I was informed that this truck had a gone over the edge of a raised section of road and landed upside down killing its driver.
NAA was a sleeper cab 400 series Seddon Atki which had been rebuilt as a sleeper by HFT and was being driven by Malcolm Griffiths when I first started working at HFT.
I have done much work on this truck during my time working at HFT and broke this one for spares around the year 1986; it was the only one of the three alleged killers that lasted long enough to be canibalised for spare parts.
I often visit and post on a small Lorry drivers forum and was glancing at some photo's that were posted under a thread called "Lorry driving is a hazardous job" when I came across a couple of pictures of a 400 series Sed Atki that had been involved in a serious crash what took my eye was the when I looked at the second photgraph and looked closely at the truck registration number which you can just see is NAA289T

Jeremy