Driving for Hedges was a job that I really enjoyed. It meant that I could control how hard I worked and how fast I worked. I was free to plan the routes of the deliveries to suit the customers and myself. I tried to get most of the deliveries done for lunch time because the canteens and restaurants all wanted the food there as early as possible. It worked out well for me too because most of the time I could have a quiet afternoon before going back to the depot to plan the routes for the next day. I could enjoy the country side if I was away in the Pennines, Lake District or North Wales. If I was in the area of my home after finishing I could call in to relax for a couple of hours. The bosses knew what we did because they had our log books or later tachographs to check up on us. I had nice people to meet every day doing the deliveries and had some really funny times too.
The first time I was sent to North Wales to do the Anglesey and Betws Y Coed run was a bit of an adventure. I was in the yard at five thirty am to leave at six o’clock. I filled up the liquid nitrogen tank for the fridge in the van and collected my notes and two tickets for the Mersey tunnel. These were prepaid and meant we did not have to have money for the tunnel toll. The diesel and oil had all been done the evening before but I checked them all again. All the lights had to be checked every morning because sometimes they would be damaged by the shunters in the yard overnight. All was OK and at six on the dot I left the yard in Scarisbrick to head through Liverpool and to the tunnel. I had a good run because I knew the route to take to avoid all the traffic lights down County road past Walton hospital. I once counted them and it was something like forty two sets of lights between Ormskirk and the tunnel on one route and eighteen on the other. I took the new tunnel and on to the M53, it was again quicker the new Chester road and the Rock Ferry byepass. Then across to Two Mills and down to Queens ferry. Here I got on the A55 and headed towards Colwyn Bay. I had to at the representatives house for eight o’clock and it was a distance I found out of seventy miles from door to door. Remember that the A55 was not a dual carriage way as it is today and that it was in a ten ton TK Bedford.
Bernard Cooligan was the head representative for north Wales and I was knocking on his door at seven forty five with his paper work, he invited me in to have a cup of tea. I left at eight fifteen and went to my first delivery in Conway. I was enjoying myself finding the new drops to me and meeting new customers. Everyone was so nice and helpful, after Conway I had to drive along the coast road to Bangor and find all the university halls kitchens. I got a bit lost with one or two of them but by eleven o’clock I was on my way to the isle of Anglesey. Over the Menai straight through the Stevenson Bridge and on to the A5. I was looking forward to my next delivery, it was the cafe on the railway station at Llanfairpg or to give it its full name Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantyysiliogogogoch. It is the longest place name in the British Isles and the platform sign is over thirty feet long. Next was the Officers mess and the sergeants mess at RAF Valley. Security was tight, I had to show identification and sign in before I was allowed on the site. This is where I was given my lunch while the chefs supervised the unloading of the van, I did not have to do anything. After Valley I had to get to Wylfa Nuclear power station with their frozen foods. Here the security was the same as at Valley and I had to be accompanied at all times by one of the security guards. I had to drive all around the island and deliver to four other hotels before coming onto the mainland again.
I had a chip shop to deliver to in Caernarvon, it was right in the middle of the city walls, quite a tight squeeze for me to fit the lorry though the arched gates. As I carried the frozen fish in I could hear the staff in the back chatting away in English but as I opened the kitchen door and said hello they changed to Welsh, something I thought was quite ignorant. A few weeks later I asked them why they had done this and they apologised as they had not known me.
From Caernarvon I was going to Llanberis and the construction site for the new hydro electric power station that was being constructed inside the mountain. A lake that was at the top of the mountain would be used to drive turbines as it fell to the lake below, then at night when the power from the nuclear power stations was not needed it would be used to pump the water back up to the top lake. This was getting to late afternoon by this time and I still had to drive over the LLanberis pass and down the valley to Betws y coed. It was getting late when I pulled up at the back of the Waterloo hotel and the chef said I could park up for the night behind the hotel. I put their delivery in their freezers and the wagon was empty. I phoned back to my depot and they said to be back at about nine o’clock the next day for a local run to Liverpool. I had never had to sleep out in the van before and I needn’t have worried. The head chef took me into the kitchen and gave me a smashing meal of his own home made shepherd’s pie made with real welsh lamb.
He said that I could have a bed in the staff quarters and showed me to it before he took me through to the bar where I was able to have a couple of pints. The other chefs came out and joined us when they finished their sift at nine o’clock. I played darts and pool with them until it got to about ten thirty when I made my excuses and went off to bed.
I was up the next morning at five thirty and the breakfast chef was just getting up too. He said to come and have some breakfast before I left which I did.
The drive through the morning light towards the rising sun was spectacular as I crossed the bleak Denbigh moors. Miles and miles of peat bogs with a narrow winding road over the tops of the hills and the steep fall down to the Denbigh valley before the climb up again towards Mold and on towards Chester. It really was a good job, one I enjoyed for sixteen years.
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