Pages of Days Gone By

Most drivers cut their teeth in a 7.5-tonner. It is the classic starting point, and for plenty of people those early miles were happy ones — particularly before speed limiters arrived to put a ceiling on the fun. You went the length and breadth of the country with the throttle buried, and somehow got through a day’s work that would be hard to complete even half of now.

When we asked to see your 7.5-tonne cab club members and your 814s, an old friend called Darren came forward with a set of photographs and the story behind them.

A brand new 814, driven on a car licence

The registration was G180 SEW, and Darren’s firm bought it new. He drove it on a car licence at the age of 18, having persuaded his father that it was legal on the grounds that the trailer weighed only 3,500kg.

Twice a week he would head for London, dropping the trailer at a delivery point in Enfield on the way in. From there he took the unit into the city with more than 15 drops around the railway stations, delivering polystyrene cups and lids to the platform coffee shops, then collected the trailer again on the way back out. Cornwall and Scotland featured weekly as well.

The lorry went like a train and was limited to 70mph, with the throttle jumping in and out whenever it hit the limiter. At 18, he reckoned he was the king of the road.

The details that date it

That is exactly the sort of small tale worth telling. Everyone did it, and everyone simply got on with it — green, keen, and happy to be out there.

The photographs capture the before and after nicely: the 814 as it looked when new, and then once Darren had spent his first pay packet on it. Every 7.5-tonner needs an air horn or two, plus the obligatory pre-VOSA windscreen flags. A trailer was always on the wish list for mine, but it never happened. Given the chance, it would all be worth doing again.

If you have a story to tell and a photograph to share, get in touch. Send it over and we can all have a reminisce.