A TRANSPORT OF DELIGHT
Posted: 11 Apr 2026, 01:19
A TRANSPORT OF DELIGHT
(14 May 2002)
‘Travel with Wild’s for Miles of Smiles’ was the catch phrase that came into my head last week when I noticed that the old garage on Cobden Street was being demolished, and about time to, for a long while it has been well-qualified for the title of ugliest building in Barlick. But oh what happy memories it must bring back for many people in the town.
Wild’s coaches carried thousands of people every year on trips to all sorts of pleasurable occasions, theatre trips, seaside resorts and of course, the wonderful ‘Mystery Tours’. Vera and I once chanced a ride on one of these and I noticed Dan Smith the driver looking at us a bit quizzically as we climbed on. It wasn’t until we realised we were off for an afternoon at Grange over Sands that we realised why, Dan called it ‘The Elephant’s Graveyard’ and we found out it was definitely not a town jumping with life!
There was another string to Wild’s bow of course, Wild’s Transport. They were the biggest haulage company in the town and had long term contracts carrying Anglo containers at the latter end. Some of the drivers had worked for them all their lives and they were a rum bunch of characters. Normally I lay out the names as you know but this week I’m going to draw a veil over them in order to protect the guilty!
In those days I didn’t spend a lot of time in the pub, I’d got that out of my system long before I got married but occasionally I’d find myself in the Dog in the company of my mates and at times these would include some of Wild’s drivers and the tale-telling would start. One driver was notorious for having less than perfect eyesight. The story was that he had run over a bobby’s foot while he was on point duty outside the Lord Nelson. If you raised this story it would trigger them off and you knew you were in for a happy hour! In the days before the motorways one of the drivers used to pass a country house in the middle of the night on his way to London down the old A34. He had noticed an ornamental Grecian urn set on a small lawn in front of the house and he fancied it for his garden at home. One night, while accompanied by a mate, he coasted down to this house, pulled up and told his mate to wait for him. He jumped out of the cab vaulted over the wall and ran to the urn. When he got on to the small lawn he realised he had made a mistake, it wasn’t a lawn but a small pond covered with weed. His mate said that he seemed to run across the top of the water for a while but then went down full length and emerged looking like the Creature from The Black Lagoon. Undeterred he pressed forward, captured the urn and it finished up in a front garden in Barlick.
Times were hard in those days and it was a regular thing to pop into a potato field and lift a bag of spuds for home. Two of the drivers were doing this one night and weren’t having a lot of luck, they were early in the season and they were very small. One moved up the field a bit and after a minute shouted to his mate that they were bigger where he was. The bedroom window of the farmhouse opened and someone started blazing away at them with a shotgun so they beat a hasty retreat reflecting no doubt on the high price of spuds in that area. Evidently they weren’t the first to try this ploy.
The Anglo containers were only twenty feet long and the drivers used to load them at the back of the flat to lighten the steering of the four wheel AEC Mercury wagons that were standard at Wilds. This left a space at the front of the flat and one day in the garage Billy Wild noticed something on the flat and asked the driver what it was. “Donkey shit!” came the answer. Billy sauced the driver for giving him cheek and moved away but the driver had told him the truth, he had bought a donkey down south and brought it back up the country sheeted up and roped to the headboard!
In those far off days tales like these were the common currency wherever drivers got together. I think it was a product of the fact that we spent so much time in solitary confinement in our cabs with nothing to do but drive and think. Needless to say, I’ve got a few of my own! Let me tell you just one of them.
I was sat in Jimmy McCall’s on Clyde Street in Glasgow one day waiting for a load with some other drivers when we got word that one of our mates ‘Gassy’ Gascart had been killed on Shap Fell. We had a whip round for a wreath and a bloke called Taffy Hughes went out and bought it, he lived near Gassy and could deliver it. As we were sat there viewing the wreath the door opened and in walked Gassy! “Hello, who's died?” he asked. Of course we were stunned, it turned out it was another wagon like Gassy’s that had been in the accident but we were left with the wreath on our hands, we tried to get the florist to take it back but he wasn’t having any. In the end we all piled on to Gassy’s wagon and trammed off to the Necropolis, the enormous Glasgow cemetery. We waited until the first funeral hove in sight and Gassy walked across, stopped the hearse and laid the wreath on the bonnet. “Tribute from his mates.” he said and legged it back to the wagon while the undertaker stood there, blue in the face, shouting “It’s a woman and she didn’t want any flowers!”
(14 May 2002)
(14 May 2002)
‘Travel with Wild’s for Miles of Smiles’ was the catch phrase that came into my head last week when I noticed that the old garage on Cobden Street was being demolished, and about time to, for a long while it has been well-qualified for the title of ugliest building in Barlick. But oh what happy memories it must bring back for many people in the town.
Wild’s coaches carried thousands of people every year on trips to all sorts of pleasurable occasions, theatre trips, seaside resorts and of course, the wonderful ‘Mystery Tours’. Vera and I once chanced a ride on one of these and I noticed Dan Smith the driver looking at us a bit quizzically as we climbed on. It wasn’t until we realised we were off for an afternoon at Grange over Sands that we realised why, Dan called it ‘The Elephant’s Graveyard’ and we found out it was definitely not a town jumping with life!
There was another string to Wild’s bow of course, Wild’s Transport. They were the biggest haulage company in the town and had long term contracts carrying Anglo containers at the latter end. Some of the drivers had worked for them all their lives and they were a rum bunch of characters. Normally I lay out the names as you know but this week I’m going to draw a veil over them in order to protect the guilty!
In those days I didn’t spend a lot of time in the pub, I’d got that out of my system long before I got married but occasionally I’d find myself in the Dog in the company of my mates and at times these would include some of Wild’s drivers and the tale-telling would start. One driver was notorious for having less than perfect eyesight. The story was that he had run over a bobby’s foot while he was on point duty outside the Lord Nelson. If you raised this story it would trigger them off and you knew you were in for a happy hour! In the days before the motorways one of the drivers used to pass a country house in the middle of the night on his way to London down the old A34. He had noticed an ornamental Grecian urn set on a small lawn in front of the house and he fancied it for his garden at home. One night, while accompanied by a mate, he coasted down to this house, pulled up and told his mate to wait for him. He jumped out of the cab vaulted over the wall and ran to the urn. When he got on to the small lawn he realised he had made a mistake, it wasn’t a lawn but a small pond covered with weed. His mate said that he seemed to run across the top of the water for a while but then went down full length and emerged looking like the Creature from The Black Lagoon. Undeterred he pressed forward, captured the urn and it finished up in a front garden in Barlick.
Times were hard in those days and it was a regular thing to pop into a potato field and lift a bag of spuds for home. Two of the drivers were doing this one night and weren’t having a lot of luck, they were early in the season and they were very small. One moved up the field a bit and after a minute shouted to his mate that they were bigger where he was. The bedroom window of the farmhouse opened and someone started blazing away at them with a shotgun so they beat a hasty retreat reflecting no doubt on the high price of spuds in that area. Evidently they weren’t the first to try this ploy.
The Anglo containers were only twenty feet long and the drivers used to load them at the back of the flat to lighten the steering of the four wheel AEC Mercury wagons that were standard at Wilds. This left a space at the front of the flat and one day in the garage Billy Wild noticed something on the flat and asked the driver what it was. “Donkey shit!” came the answer. Billy sauced the driver for giving him cheek and moved away but the driver had told him the truth, he had bought a donkey down south and brought it back up the country sheeted up and roped to the headboard!
In those far off days tales like these were the common currency wherever drivers got together. I think it was a product of the fact that we spent so much time in solitary confinement in our cabs with nothing to do but drive and think. Needless to say, I’ve got a few of my own! Let me tell you just one of them.
I was sat in Jimmy McCall’s on Clyde Street in Glasgow one day waiting for a load with some other drivers when we got word that one of our mates ‘Gassy’ Gascart had been killed on Shap Fell. We had a whip round for a wreath and a bloke called Taffy Hughes went out and bought it, he lived near Gassy and could deliver it. As we were sat there viewing the wreath the door opened and in walked Gassy! “Hello, who's died?” he asked. Of course we were stunned, it turned out it was another wagon like Gassy’s that had been in the accident but we were left with the wreath on our hands, we tried to get the florist to take it back but he wasn’t having any. In the end we all piled on to Gassy’s wagon and trammed off to the Necropolis, the enormous Glasgow cemetery. We waited until the first funeral hove in sight and Gassy walked across, stopped the hearse and laid the wreath on the bonnet. “Tribute from his mates.” he said and legged it back to the wagon while the undertaker stood there, blue in the face, shouting “It’s a woman and she didn’t want any flowers!”
(14 May 2002)