The Writing's on the Truck (eBook)

The Tales and Photographs of a Traditional Signwriter

John Corah (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019 | 1. Auflage
239 Seiten
Old Pond Books (Verlag)
978-1-912158-30-0 (ISBN)

Infos

The Writing's on the Truck is a pictorial look at the traditional art of signwriting on commercial vehicles, by renowned signwriter John Corah. John began signwriting in 1982 working for Brian Harris Transport Ltd. Brian's well-turned out trucks were regularly seen on the roads between the Southwest and the North of Scotland and with this excellent showcase for his skills, John quickly built up a large customer base. Since then, he has written on ERFs, Leylands, Guys, Fodens, Atkinsons, Albions and AECs to name but a few and he is responsible for the distinctive livery of a number of traditional family run haulage companies. In some cases he worked on the vehicles when brand new and then again when restored some 20-30 years later! Sadly many of the once familiar and iconic companies have disappeared over the years and today computer generated vinyl lettering has almost completely taken over the art and few modern fleets are signwritten.The Writing's on the Truck includes 210 fully captioned and previously unpublished photos of the vehicles he worked on, many of which will be remembered by transport fans UK-wide. The book tells the story of the development of John's business, the methods he uses to create particular effects and numerous anecdotes from his working life. It will be of interest to anyone involved with road haulage and the preservation of classic trucks.

Before starting his signwriting business John Corah spent a period of time in the 1970s driving for Brian Harris Transport, the history of which he wrote about in From Moorlands to Highlands, which is also published by Old Pond and now in its 3rd edition. He is now a semi-retired signwriter and article writer. He is also very much involved in the preservation of classic lorries and owns three of them himself, giving him considerable empathy towards his job of signwriting restored classic lorries for their owners.

Textauszug

Chapter 2

A Lucky Break

For the majority of my career as a signwriter, I lived in Bovey Tracey in Devon. In the early 1980s, I got to know a fellow signwriter, Jack Simmonds, from nearby Newton Abbot. He did the signwriting for Brian Harris Transport, a company for which I had driven back in the 1970s. Brian and I regularly met in one pub or another but at that time I was not signwriting his fleet as he was loyal to Jack, and I certainly made no attempt to muscle in. However, when Jack retired, he passed a lot of his regular customers over to me; waiting in the wings had paid off and I began to signwrite Brian’s fleet of thirty-one vehicles. This was an extremely well-known fleet of beautifully presented lorries regularly seen on the motorways between the South-West and Scotland. As Brian had his lorries and trailers painted every year at MOT time he very soon became my biggest customer. The artic units, mostly ERF, had their chassis repainted every year so there was a continual job for me relining wings and fuel tanks, etc. and every year the trailers were completely repainted so there were two a month to signwrite. The trailers were signwritten on both sides as well as back and front. The rigid fleet also had the same treatment and not even the Transit truck escaped! Strangely though, Brian was not my direct customer as I billed John Fogwill, who is sadly no longer with us, who did all the paint spraying for Brian.

So far, this very traditional fleet consisted entirely of flat trailers and flat rigids, until one Friday evening when Brian announced to me in the Welcome Stranger pub that he was getting his first curtain-sided trailer and I had better come up with a design for the curtains. I sketched something out on the back of a beer mat and tossed it across to him. ‘That looks alright,’ was Brian’s reply and so it was that the design for the curtains was hatched. The yellow circle with BH in the middle then started to appear, not only on the new trailers but the drivers’ overalls as well. We didn’t need any fancy graphic designers and their fancy offices: ‘Whose round is it? Get ’em in!’

I was, by then, well established as Brian’s signwriter and this rapidly fostered many more customers, especially other haulage companies in the South-West. Having worked as a driver myself, I was on the same wavelength as the hauliers, which worked in my favour. I could talk lorries with them, and one or two also had interests in classic lorries, so that was something else we had in common. ‘A good repartee’, I think is the expression to use.

On several occasions, I fetched new lorries from dealers or paint shops and took them off to signwrite in one premises or another, as I have always retained my HGV driver’s licence. Up until the mid-1990s I was still doing a lot of work for main dealers: Scania and DAF were regular customers of mine. Westrucks was the Scania dealer, originally in Bovey Tracey, and now in Exeter, and Wessex DAF is still in Heathfield, near Newton Abbot. Such was the relationship I had with Wessex DAF that on many occasions I was loaned a DAF demonstrator and a step-framed trailer so I could transport one of my preserved classic vehicles to a weekend show. Brian Harris, of course, was just as generous. I used one of his units and his own step frame to carry the Taunton Cider Leyland Octopus to many a show but there was one instance when Wessex DAF insisted I use a Leyland DAF and not one of Brian’s ERFs. That was in 1996 when Leyland Motors celebrated 100 years of trading. Taking a Leyland lorry to Leyland in Lancashire behind an ERF was, in their eyes, just not on! So it was that I had a Leyland DAF demonstrator to play with for four days: up to Lancashire on the Friday and not returning until the Monday. At that time the Octopus was still owned by Taunton Cider, which fuelled both the Octopus on the trailer and the DAF pulling it on the way up and back, so the whole event was a win/win for us! Not long after that show Taunton Cider was taken over by Matthew Clark and ceased trading. Ann Taylor was the lady we had been dealing with over our custodianship of the lorry and when the firm was shut down she rang me to tell me to look after it and to this day I and a couple of good friends still do. The Historic Transport Club, of which I am a founder member, retains the ownership of this unique eight-wheeler.

I mentioned that my customer base was growing as a result of looking after the signwriting on the Brian Harris fleet. Within a few years I was signwriting many of the fleets in Devon with occasional sorties into Cornwall. Travelling long distances for a day’s work is not very cost-effective so having many customers reasonably local to me was a great benefit and I could turn away jobs miles from home.

However, coal merchant Noel, proprietor of E. C. Kendal coal merchants of Ochrwyth, Risca, in the Welsh valleys, contacted me out of the blue more than twenty years ago and asked if I would like to signwrite his lorries. I have been doing just that ever since. Originally, I asked ‘Why me?’ when I was well over a hundred miles from his depot. His answer was that he had seen Brian Harris lorries in Wales and had contacted Brian to find out who did his signwriting. Every few years he still brings a newly painted lorry to me in Devon and leaves it with me for a couple of days to signwrite. There was one occasion when I did travel to him to signwrite one of his trucks during a caravan holiday in South Wales. My wife dropped me off at his yard for the day while she and the dog went off walking the Brecon Beacons.

As I write this in early 2017, there is another of Noel’s lorries for me to signwrite, which I will once again arrange to put in the nearby workshop of Richard Edmonds, whose Scanias I also still signwrite. Richard gained a few bags of coal in recompense for the use of his building the last time about eighteen months ago. Before that, I managed to work outside on Noel’s lorry during the summer, having parked it in the road next to my house as the thatched cottage behind me burnt down and the road was closed! What a night that was: thirteen fire engines from all over Devon and two of a row of three cottages went up in flames right behind my house. Still, it created a handy parking space for a few months during the rebuilding.

I have several customers who, like Noel, have remained loyal to me for many years and who are still operating lorries traditionally signwritten by me! My hobby of tinkering has also resulted in a circle of customers with a similar interest and many are good friends as well. On a visit to a classic lorry show at the Gaydon Heritage Museum in Warwickshire in June 2016 there were six lorries present that I had lettered and lined. Ironically, the one I drove to that show, an ERF KV of 1960 vintage, I did not signwrite, a lorry Brian Harris had had rebuilt by J. and N. Boughy of Much Wenlock in Shropshire between 2002 and 2005. Being so far away from Devon, it was signwritten by a local man before the lorry was returned to Devon but I do get to drive it to shows from time to time.

So it was that with a little bit of good fortune and a lot of determination the business earnt a living for the family, which had by 1985 expanded to two daughters. My wife had given up a career as a legal secretary to be a full-time mum so it was rather important I made a go of it. A way of earning a living doing something creative that I loved proved a success and the family kept its head above water! Being involved with road transport and being around trucks for a lot of the time was a way of life to me and for the rest of the time I was involved with painting signs for breweries and pubs. What can possibly be wrong with that?

One thing I have learnt along the way is that using one’s hands as a craftsman can be very satisfying but will never be a way of making a fortune. I did briefly expand by becoming an employer in the early 1990s but the extra paperwork and P.A.Y.E. was not for me and after a year I returned to being totally self-employed.

That piece of good fortune taking on the signwriting of Brian Harris Transport, which led to numerous other customers, definitely gave me a big step up and introduced me to a wider market than might otherwise have been the case. It is an occupation that has few overheads and as my accountant once said: ‘You are cheap to run.’ Unlike my friend Phil Day (proprietor of Day Signs), who has premises and a lot of equipment as well as staff, all I have needed is my box of brushes and paints, a bit of know-how and a vehicle to get me to customers’ premises. I met Phil at a trade show in Plymouth in 1982 and we have been good friends ever since. His business produces all kinds of signs, including vinyl, from an industrial unit in Totnes housing some very expensive equipment. Should he get an enquiry for traditional signwriting he passes it on to me and on the odd occasion I get involved with vinyl lettering I get his firm to produce it for me.

Two Leyland Roadrunners new in 1989 for Les Hammacott. The telephone code is just 0626 and not 01626 and the telephone number only five digits; that rather dates the picture. A nice job for me doing a pair of them for my customer, Wessex Leyland DAF. I remember delivering these two to Les Hammacott; the salesman drove one and I drove the other.

Brand new ERF E10 8 wheel tipper for P. H. Transport, another firm in whose workshop I...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.10.2019
• Verlagsort: Mount Joy
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Design / Innenarchitektur / Mode
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Fotokunst
• Themenwelt: Natur / Technik ► Fahrzeuge / Flugzeuge / Schiffe ► Auto / Motorrad
• Themenwelt: Natur / Technik ► Fahrzeuge / Flugzeuge / Schiffe ► Nutzfahrzeuge
• Schlagworte: commerical vehicles • lorries • SignWriting • Transport
• ISBN-10: 1-912158-30-2 / 1912158302
• ISBN-13: 978-1-912158-30-0 / 9781912158300