Vintage Vehicles Shildon Ltd.

Family History

Michael Bowman has built up a collection of 40 classic commercials as tributes to his family history in haulage, which goes back to 1890.

The Bowman family's rich history in haulage began with one man, one horse and one cart in 1890.

John Bowman is believed to have moved to Corbridge, Northumberland, to work for the local council. He got 10 shillings a day, the driver receiving 4s 9d with an allowance given for shoes and feed for the horse, revealed his grandson, former haulier and now accomplished classic commercial restorer, Michael Bowman.

The fleet soon built up to 30 horses. Work included transporting 25-30cwt of coal from Corbridge goods station to the bigger houses of the area, where for an extra three pence; it was shovelled into the coalhouse.

Sand and gravel from the river bed at Corbridge was carried to use for building houses and roads.

“A huge project was walking 30 horses to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne for a massive project which involved taking a huge pipe across the Tyne Bridge and up a steep hill to Gateshead ,” said Michael. “In all, 100 horses were involved. It was around 1910 I believe, but I've never seen a photograph of the event, though some must have been taken.”

During the First World War, Michael's father, Thomas, drove traction engines and rollers in Belgium and France . After the war, the decision was made to move into steam haulage with Foden and Sentinel wagons coming to the fore just after the war. “They used to pull two or three trailers, taking timber out of the woods,” Michael said.

Thomas stayed with his father's business in Corbridge, while brothers Norman and Fred started up on their own, at Corbridge and Hexham respectively. The latter business, running under both the J Bowman and Rock Supplies names, continued until last year. Fred's son, John took over and about three years ago, the business passed to him.

Back to the original haulage operation. During the 1920's, AEC and Leyland petrol lorries were bought. Removals were also carried out. Michael recalls:

“One day, around 1920, my father was asked to move stuff from the house of a man who had died. They started loading the furniture, and in the scullery was an Ali Baba-type basket on a hook. When the bottom fell out, it was full of half crowns!

“What had apparently happened was that every time the man had sold something for half a crown, he chucked the money up into a basket. When they counted it up, there was £900 – a fortune then. The man's daughter had never known where the money was!”

By the mid – 1930's the fleet also included the Bedford name. “We carried coal, sand and gravel, anything really on general haulage,” Michael explained. “They were all tippers, and although my father, William, took over the firm in the mid- 1930's, it was still known as John Bowman until the 1950's.”

He recalls more wonderful stories. “Once a group of the lads were taking corn into the loft of a barn. One was in the loft and a rat ran over his foot. He dropped the sack and it went clean through the floor. Another lad on the steps had such a fright he did the same and the sack destroyed the steps. The wood must have been so rotten.”

He tells of a Northumberland tradition: “From about 1910 until maybe 1935, employers used to finish frameworkers on Mayday, and it was a tradition that they'd be moved to other frames that day.” Bowman's might have 30-50 removals of farm workers from one farm to another. They'd start at 5am and finish at 10pm.

“One day they were doing a move with a Bedford WT. They used to put all the furniture on the back, then put the sofa across the back to sit on it. It wasn't so easy in the case of one family. They had 16 children, but the entire family managed to get on the lorry!”

Bowman's delivered much of the steelwork to Tyne Bridge as it was being built in the 1930's. And the firm sometimes took loads by steam wagon to London , a journey taking two weeks.

Said Michael: “ Darlington was the first place where the council decided that there must be no smoke from traction engines and wagons – they'd be fined five shillings. My father said they used to build the fire up outside the town and get it red so they could go through without producing smoke.”

They also had a job on airport construction near Edinburgh , in which the vehicles were bashed about a bit. Added Michael: “After it was completed, the vehicles went to a Bedford dealer SMT in Carlisle to have new wings etc fitted, ready for further work. Six weeks later, around 6am, some army lads came into the yard – the vehicles were to be commandeered.”

Although the lads were ready for the task, driving the Bedfords appeared to have been a bit of a challenge. “The regular drivers had to get vehicles out of the garage for them,” went on Michael, “and then sit with them while they drove through the village and over a narrow bridge.

“They took 20 or so lorries, which possibly ended up in France .” As for compensation? “We got £100 each for them – eventually. I think it was about four years later.”

But a couple of lorries escaped … “With help, they were buried where they couldn't be found, down at the local quarry!” said Michael.

A huge and varied amount of work was carried out during and after the war. As did Michael. “We shovelled 10 tons a day, bagging it up and putting it on wagons.”

By the 1950's, the fleet consisted of OY and S-type Bedfords and Commer Q4s.

“We had a five-ton O-model with a coach built cab which went over where the bonnet was. It gave another 2ft 6in or 3ft on the body length. It came from Bedford agent, Corbetts of Wearhead.” Sadly, Michael has no photos of this vehicle.

In 1955, the film moved from Corbridge to Shildon, Darlington . “This was because we had about six wagons at ICI Wilton doing time work, mainly moving clay when new buildings were being put up.”

He remembers: “On one occasion, two tons of clay were dropped onto 0-series from about 15ft, and it snapped the chassis behind the cab. My dad and I jacked the vehicle up, chained some timbers on and drove the Bedford to one of the Middlesbrough shipyards where they welded it up for us.”

When the ICI work finished, the firm went back on general haulage, much of it work from Forsett Quarry near Richmond , and taking lime up to Scotland .

“We had a wartime Bedford OY as well as S-Type and the later TKs, with an Austin FFK also being used. This was particularly useful for getting down the back alleys of terraced houses. You could open the door of them where you couldn't in the Bedford 's,” he added.

Thames Trader entered the fleet, Michael recalling 656 DAJ, a short wheelbase version with steel body and Ebro tipper, which cost £1390 from North Riding Garages, Pickering.

He says “My father wouldn't put a heater in. That would have cost £22, and he used to say that if they had a heater, the drivers wouldn't get out and work.”

That heater was much missed one day when Michael was climbing 1:4 hill at the quarry with a load of limestone.

“There was ice and snow on top. The wheels started spinning and the lorry started going backwards. There was a steep drop and a railway line at the bottom. I started going back quickly. The Ebro tippers had a handle just outside the cab to open the tailboard. All I could do was to put my hand out of the cab and activate it! I dropped about 30cwt out the back to stop myself.”

By the 1970's, and the fleet was concentrated on Bedford TKs and a BMC FG. Michael drove BPT 235L, a 1972 Leyland Lynx, which was used on general haulage, especially steel from Stockton to the oil rig installations at Inverness . “We could do it in 10 hours,” he said. “There was no dinner, no nowt, we used to eat on the road.”

It was not all plain sailing on such trips, though. “In 1974, we got stuck in the snow on the run,” Michael said. “We were there for three days.”

After much soul-searching, the business was closed in 1978. “I just couldn't make a living from it. People were changing to gas rather than coal, the steelworks were being shut, and everyone was cutting each other's throats.”

Michael then bought a farm and ran three wallpaper shops, Décor Supplies, two of which are still going.

The Bowman's haulage history isn't finished though – Michael's brother, Raymond, who lives at Aycliffe, has been running lorries under the R Bowman Transport name, continuing in a fine family tradition.

Michael Bowman's bonneted 1956 Dennis Horla tractor unit. Acquired just 18 months previously, it has now been fitted with a lively Perkins P6 diesel engine and five-speed gearbox which are a vast improvement over the original four-cyclinder, side-valve petrol engine which it had when it made its first run preservation to the Barnard Castle truck Exhibition last year.

Finished to the high standards we have now come to expect from the Bowman heritage fleet, with its smart green paintwork and superb banner-style sign-writing, the Dennis aroused lots of interest as it stood on display at the Grand Prix Services parking area in Brough along with two fine Bedfords from the same stable, and I determined to make the trip to meet Michael in Shildon, County Durham, at the earliest opportunity.

The Bowman family has been connected with transport since 1890, when his grandfather John Bowman gave up his market garden in Cumberland and moved to Corbridge, Northumberland, acquiring 15 acres of land near the station and starting a horse transport business involved with coal, sand and gravel and forestry, operating around 30 heavy horses.

The coal was shovelled straight out of the wagons at the station and transported into the town; gravel was extracted from the bed of the River Tyne; and the horses pulled timber out of the woods as well as transporting it. Later, Bowman's operated traction engines and trailers in the days when a return journey from Corbridge to London could take the best part of a fortnight and by 1912 had steam wagons as well.

Long hours and hard led to success, and the business ended up with sawmills, a timber yard, sand and gravel quarry, taxis and buses as well as general haulage, operating no fewer than 40 wagons at its peak.

Lorries have been in Michael's blood for as long as he can remember. By the time he was born in 1944, the business had been taken over by his father, and even as a toddler Michael went everywhere in lorry cabs, if not with his dad then with the other drivers. He quickly acquired a mental map of the North-East as he travelled in tippers laden with sand to places such as Hexham, Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, Blyth, West Bowden, Heaton, Darlington and New York (the one near Whitley Bay, that is!). There's a picture of him as a chubby toddler clutching a bright blue tinplate wagon as he poses for a colour-touched studio picture (apparently he'd seen the toy in a department store and persisted and persisted until he got his own way) and another of him aged two or three sitting on a tyre beside a 1946 Bedford O-type short-wheelbase tipper.

Naturally he was driving lorries on coal delivery and general haulage work from the moment he was able, and by the 1970's he was running his own business. In those days North Eastern winters were still severe (many lorry drivers will remember how quickly places like Tow Law could become blocked by snow) and open fires still blazed in many homes.

With peak demand for coal products coinciding with the worst of the wintry weather, driving a Bedford TK laden with nine tons of coal in old fashioned sacks on treacherous road surfaces demanded consummate skill.

“For narrow back – alley work I had little BMC angle-cab which would take about five tons,” recalled Michael. “This was perfect for the job because I could get straight out to deliver the coal.”

He stayed in transport until the late 1970's, by which time it was becoming more and more difficult to make the job pay, so he decided to pack it in, buy a farm and open a wallpaper and paint shop in Shildon, County Durham, which he still runs. The last lorry C.M. Bowman & Sons, of Whessoe Lane, Darlington, County Durham, operated in anger was a Leyland Lynx artic, BPT 235L.

When lorries are in your blood, however, it's hard to keep away, and before he knew it Michael had bought a 1949 Thornycroft Sturdy diesel, MHN 302, to restore. “I kept it for seven or eight years, but never got it done,” he said. He also bought a Bedford , but like the Thornycroft he never had time to do it and sold it on instead.

Michael started building up his present collection around six years ago, after running into some serious health problems. “I decided that when I got better, I'd get two or three old wagons and start doing something I really wanted to do,” he said – and he's more than proved a man of his word.

The oldest lorry he has is a 1942 Bedford tractor unit with the 28hp six-cyclinder petrol engine which he had bought about four years ago. It was fitted with an Army body when it came from Doncaster, but Michael soon had that off and put a coupling on in restoration that took only four or five months. He bought a trailer separately, and YSJ 337 has been on the rally scene for about three years now.

The first lorry he bought was a 1950 Fordson Thames five-tonner fitted with the V8 petrol engine. A former Army vehicle, this had been fitted with a box type of body and had just over 4,000 miles on the clock! Polished to the nines in its attractive lined maroon livery, PXP 601 became a great favourite at Shildon Carnivals.

Although the family had used a red, green then blue liveries for its fleet over the years, Michael settled on mid-Brunswick green for his collection because that was the colour his second purchase, a Morris-Commercial dropside, arrived in. It seems to suit lorries of all shapes and sizes, particularly when enhanced by the glorious sign-writing applied by John Simpson of Ferryhill.

Three and a half years ago Michael bought a former Royal Bank of Scotland 1977 Bedford TK tractor unit, fitted with a 500 diesel engine, which had hauled a mobile bank around shows. “This had an early form of sleeper cab, well you could just about lie down in it, and was another low-mileage vehicle,” said Michael. “There wasn't much to do to it except get it painted up.”

Several O-type Bedfords also enhance his collection. He heard about the short-wheelbase PHW 364, fitted with an Australian-type cab, from Bedford parts supreme Norman Aish and picked it up from Ringwood, where it had actually been in use until only a few years before. Another O-type five-tonner, GAW 931, came from Dudley in the Black County .

Among Michael's favourite Bedfords are the J-types, which are “just like a car for running about in”. After hearing about JWS 986F at a show, he went up to Scotland to buy the former Bedford 300 petrol engine-fitted Ministry of Fisheries short-wheelbase five-tonner, which had just 22,000 miles on the clock. He remembers all too clearly driving it to Test Station 49 at Darlington after all the work had been done. “I had to be there by 10.30am and it was snowing like hell,” he said. The day did however have a silver lining because it passed first time!

Michael Bowman also has some fine S-type Bedfords . He bought the former fire appliance 372ECE, in Wymondham two and a half years ago. It had come off an airport in Hampshire where, with fire-fighting gear stripped and a tank full of sand, it had been used as a snowplough. Now in ordinary rather than four-wheel-drive mode, the 1965 vehicle has done two Tyne Tees runs in Michael's ownership. His other Big Bedford, the 1955-built NYR 827, has been on the rally scene for about 20 years now. After it came out of Army use complete with communications body, Cleminson's of Darlington ran it as a flatbed for more than a decade. Michael got it at a farm near Consett, where it had stood for quite a few years, and had to get a second cab to rebuild the lorry into the condition in which it displayed today, often in company with 372 ECE.

As well as seeing his lorries, crammed every which way into an old building in nearby Bishop Auckland, it was fascinating to go through sheaves of paperwork relating to his family's long association with the road transport business. He showed me invoices and receipts dating from 1941, signed in the manner of the day over King George VI postage stamps, and relating to coke or coal supplied to various destinations in the North-East; technical reports on sand samples dating from 1938; tenders for the hire of steam or petrol rollers from 1948; insurance policies dating from1944, when the annual premium for a Vauxhall saloon was £72s 6d; and details of lorry modifications carried out by the Carley Tipping Gear Co. Ltd. Of Mossley, near Manchester, in 1948 when the cost of fitting long-wheelbase tipping gear complete with power take-off was £117 12s 6d!

Michael Bowman has been a fine ambassador for the historic commercial vehicle movement, cutting no corners in the presentation of his superb fleet of dark green lorries and putting them on display and in road runs, especially in the North-East of England , for all of us to enjoy.

It was a pleasure to spend a day with him as he told the story of his family's long association with road transport.

Bedford collector extraordinaire Michael Bowman recalls how, aged about five, his quick thinking in the cab saved his dad's life. A trawl through the family archives has also thrown up wonderful pictures.

Few five-year-olds can say they've saved their dad's life – particularly when at the wheel of a lorry. But Michael Bowman won national acclaim for his quick thinking by applying the brakes on a runaway Ford which was about to run over his father.

Michael recalls:” I was about four-and-a-half or five. They had been cutting timber in a wood near Crook, in County Durham . They used to chop the trees down, load and pull them out with a tractor.

“We had an old Ford wagon which went around the wood to collect the branches. I used to be hours watching them. One day they loaded it up and it wouldn't start. My dad got out with a starting handle and swung it.

“The Ford fired up and just took off. My dad was in front of the wagon, I jumped over and put the footbrake on and stopped it in seconds. It was an instant reaction.

“My mother said: ‘We'll have to get the papers in about this', and there were lots of stories saying I'd saved his life.”

Following the publicity, Michael received letters from across the country congratulating him. “I knew what to do because I'd sat on my dad's knee ‘driving'. Once I was out of nappies, I was steering the wagon.”