Page 74 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

Cars and small vans were getting
past the dustcart with no problem
at all and just as the road began
to clear from the opposite
direction I pulled out to pass.

I had clean forgotten how high
the box body on ‘wonderbun’ was
and the angle of the dustcart half
on and half off the road reduced
the gap at the top of the two
vehicles substantially.
The top corner of the tough
compressor loader of the dustcart
caught the van bodywork of
wonderbun about 12 inches from
the top.
The hole gouged into the
bodywork was over three feet
long and over a foot deep by the
time I had stopped. The air was
blue I should say, such a stupid
mistake was what I said but in
very short expressive words.
I had to reverse to manoeuvre so
the dustcart body was no longer
poking into my van.

The damage on reaching home proved to be not too bad, two broken wooden upright ribs
and the huge hole in the aluminium sheet side. This is what took the time, finding a large
enough piece of sheet metal material to effect a watertight repair!

After this episode ‘wonderbun’ lead a fairly calm existence until one day she was
abandoned in the centre of Hull and her driver threw away the keys!

“ABANDONED”- FURTHER ADVENTURES OF WONDERBUN
We had begun with the “Uniroyal” tyre distribution contract by this time and ‘wonderbun’
was leading a supplementary existence.
Potatoes, straw and various other agricultural produce options had all given away to
general concentration on the tyre trade.

‘Wonderbun’ had been loaded with new tyres from another client for a delivery in Hull and
the driver, a new chap not yet used to our methods had been in a bad mood when he
loaded the lorry first thing in the morning.

I suppose it had not helped that he was not experienced in tyres and their numerous
different sizes and types either. I was away somewhere else and Ruth was in charge of
the office on her day off from Nursing.

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