Page 67 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

The factory manager explained that their
speciality at Stockport was innovation and
experimentation.
This was a new kind of bag with more room for
the tea to expand after ‘scalded ‘ by the hot
water. The bag which had arrived at the
destined spot to meet its tea, came in a long
‘string’, this was then sealed and cut to become
‘individual’ and drop into a bin below.
The further packing into boxes for the shops
was to be done at another location. Perhaps
the tea companies own?

Every Friday for several months I travelled to
Stockport with my cargo of potato powder in
large sacks on pallets and now the system of packing had begun its cycle, I returned with
the previous weeks’ powder, now in small packets and plain cardboard boxes.

All mounted on individual pallets of a certain weight and then unloaded back at the SWEL
factory in Boston using our pallet truck and hydraulic tail loader. In between times the box
lorry was used for our main job of transporting complaint commercial tyres to examination
centres at Burton on Trent in the Midlands and Dagenham in Essex.

We also had loads of “real” potatoes in paper sacks to take to wholesale markets up and
down the country.
I did find a part time driver with an HGV licence from Skegness, we shall call him Stan,
who would undertake one trip a week or so for us and actually came with me for my HGV
driving test at the Grantham test station, just as soon as I could apply for a test
appointment.
Several weeks had passed since first taking to the road in ‘Wonderbun’ and I had had lots
of practice. In fact I really knew the lorry backwards having driven it for perhaps in excess
of 5000 miles by now!

THE ACTUAL DRIVING TEST
Just reading this last story and thinking about one or two other ‘Wonderbun’ incidents sets
one thinking yet again, “does this kind of thing happen all the time to other folk?”

The driving test was destined to be another of these ‘incidents’.

I was first on the list for that day. Stan and I had arrived in good time and stopped off just
outside the test station to put my ‘L’ plate on the lorry as required by the law.

We were waiting in the outer lobby when the examiner arrived looking a little out of sorts.
“Oh dear”, I thought, “this does not look too good”.

We started off with manoeuvring in the capacious testing station yard, several weeks of

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