A Tribute To Ian (Frank) Wallace

Mat’s Trucking Great Podcast

This episode serves as a moving tribute to Ian 'Frank' Wallace, recounting his extensive career in the transport industry. The conversation

Key takeaways

• Frank began his transport career in 1989, initially working as a contract shepherd before moving into pig breeding stock haulage.
• He detailed a traumatic experience involving a Renault CF truck that caught fire due to a short circuit in the battery box.

Main topics

• Transport career history
• Pig haulage and livestock transport

Notable quotes

The worst thing I ever did was call the fire brigade. You should have let it burn.

Conclusion

The episode provides a sobering reminder that safety regulations and t

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) Hello and welcome to Matt's Trucking Great Podcast. This episode is a revisit of an old episode that I recorded whilst Trucking Drivers Podcast was still active. I interviewed a good friend of mine, Ian Wallace, who sadly passed away last weekend and so as a tribute I've decided to re-release this episode to honour his memory. So Ian, this one's for you mate. Hopefully see you again another time. Cheers. Today, Speaker 1 (0:26) I'm sat with a good friend of mine, Frank, and we're just going to have a bit of a Speaker 2 (0:29) chat about his life in transport from around Suffolk. Frank, how are you, mate? Yeah, Speaker 1 (0:35) all good, thank you. Yeah, good. All good, enjoying this lovely summery weather. Wonderful, isn't it? Yeah, Speaker 2 (0:40) yeah. Good old British summer. Yes, my coat is in the car, my trousers are back on once again. There you go. Yes. Speaker 1 (0:49) Can't get enough of it. Yeah. Speaker 2 (0:52) So we've known each other roughly, I don't know, maybe a Speaker 1 (0:55) decade or so, give or take. Speaker 2 (0:57) I mean, we've both sort of worked in the same sort of circles and similar sort of work, haven't we? But your experience in transport goes back obviously a lot further than that. Yeah, well, funnily enough, it's Speaker 1 (1:07) my 35th anniversary on Thursday of this week. So I started my own business doing sort of farming things in 1989. at the tender age of 30 and started. I'd been working for agricultural merchants and that sort of thing and had a little bit of a small holding and then decided that I would risk doing something for myself. Yep. So I set myself up actually as a contract shepherd, which is a very glorious title, which just basically meant running around after sheep in the summer of 1989. getting rid of fly strike and that sort of thing. And then it morphed through sort of contacts and everything. I had an opportunity to do the pig haulage, breeding stock pig haulage for a local company based in Suffolk. Yeah. Pig breeding company. And that sort of bounced me into the world of transport. Right. So what were you driving? I started off with Land Rovers. Right, okay. Yeah, so my first Land Rover, it was ridiculous. That was a V8 Land Rover. Petrol? Petrol. Right. With an I for Williams trailer, I was getting six miles to the government. Speaker 2 (2:24) So Speaker 1 (2:24) you probably would Speaker 2 (2:24) have been better running a truck. Yes, yeah. Speaker 1 (2:27) So I did that for probably only about maybe three months. Yeah. And then bit the bullet and bought a brand new Land Rover. Yeah. Diesel? Yeah, diesel, turbo diesel. It was the last of the turbo diesel Land Rovers before they went TDI in 1989 on a G plate. And, mate, it saved a fortune. Yes, I can imagine. Paid for itself fairly quickly. It Speaker 2 (2:53) did, Speaker 1 (2:53) it did. So that, yeah, that was the start of it. And got this work that took me all over England, Scotland, Wales. And so the first Land Rover I kept for a year and a half, which is too long. So I did 148,000 miles in that in a year and a half. Yeah. But the Land Rover dealership had then been handed to Hammonds in that time. And I think... Hammond's were quite keen to have my business. I can Speaker 2 (3:24) imagine, yeah. So I lost £1,000 on Speaker 1 (3:27) the price of that Land Rover. That's not bad. I bought it new for £10,000 plus that, and I sold it for £9,000 against a new K-Rage, which was the 200 TDI. Yeah. and then subsequently changed the Land Rover every year because I was doing 90,000 miles a year. So it was all just one-way traffic or do you backload? No, all one way. Just drop off, come straight back, go do the next one. Yeah, so we had a sort of nucleus of, there's a lot of farms, I mean, it's the heyday of pig farming, so there's a lot of little breeding units in and around East Anglia. So I used to collect from them and it might have been one boar, it might have been 12 gilts. Speaker 2 (4:08) And Speaker 1 (4:09) then, yeah, anywhere, anywhere in the country. Speaker 2 (4:12) And so just for listeners who aren't aware of what a boar and a gilt is, Speaker 1 (4:15) that's all right. So a boar is a male pig that you would use for breeding. And a gilt is a female pig that hasn't yet had piglets. Once they've had piglets, then they become a sow. So I did just the breeding stock. So it was young boars, typically sort of six months old, Speaker 2 (4:34) and Speaker 1 (4:35) gilts were a bit similar age. Speaker 2 (4:37) Yeah, fantastic. Speaker 1 (4:39) So that was good. Saw some wonderful places. I used to go up to, in the end, I was going up to Scotland twice a month. Yeah. Only a dozen pigs, which is good fun. And into Wales. Yeah, it was just good times. Good times. And working with some super people, you know, the agricultural. sort of a community was something, you know, very close-knit then because there's all these little farms. So it was a nucleus of breeders and then obviously quite small pig farmers, you know. Yeah. Where Speaker 2 (5:15) everyone sort of knew each other and... Speaker 1 (5:17) Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it was good times. And then the job morphed into, it was getting busier and busier, which is good. In that time, I actually bought a pig farm. Right. Near Beckles. And then bought a lorry, which is probably one of the worst things I did. Speaker 2 (5:37) Says most audience, yeah. Well, for nothing else, I was then beholden to a tachograph. Yes. Speaker 1 (5:44) With the Land Rover, despite, you know, perhaps through the land, but I didn't have a tachograph. Speaker 2 (5:48) Yeah. Speaker 1 (5:50) So what was the truck? The truck, I bought a 13-ton Renault. Yeah. The G, so it's got the... Speaker 1 (6:00) It was a G plate, G-1-double-A-R-O-D. Yeah? Yeah. Good old rod. Yes. Speaker 2 (6:07) So that would have been the, I can't think of the name of the cab Speaker 1 (6:10) now. Is it Midland? Midland, that's Speaker 2 (6:11) the Speaker 1 (6:11) one, yeah, we're in Midland. So it was a one of the, no, no, no, just day cab, which was a little bit limiting, but I fitted it, so it was like a cattle float, small cattle float, but it had a deck in it. I fitted it out with nipple drinkers and a water tank and that sort of thing. So by that time, legislation was coming in that you had to have, you know, sort of welfare of pigs. Yeah. Sort of the RSPCA running a scheme. So, yeah, that sort of did me. And then, to be honest, that kept me going. Plus my wife at the time had a Land Rover, so she would do trailer work. I'd do lorry work. Yeah. And I kept really busy. Right. So this is still just a... England, Scotland, Wales. Yeah, I was going, but also doing occasional little soirees into Europe. Lovely, yeah. So I did Holland and Germany. Yeah. Went over to the far side, can't remember where it was, it was far side of Germany, over the other side of the wall. Yeah. And that would have been in 1980, sorry, 1990, 91, I suppose, when the water just come down. So just after it had become reunified. That's right. Yeah. So that was really interesting. Must Speaker 2 (7:18) have Speaker 1 (7:18) been quite an eye-opening experience. Yeah. And yeah, used to sleep in the back of this 90, curled up in a ball. Speaker 1 (7:28) But I used to take, I think it was always just boars I used to take over to Europe. And it would be one boar, two boars, and that sort of thing. Wow. Because there was another company that used to do all the bulk numbers of breeding stock gilts on an Arctic. So that was good. The only downside was having to go across on the ferry because I'm not a very good... Sea dropper. Oh, man. So Speaker 2 (7:53) did you go Dover Calais? Speaker 1 (7:55) No, no. In fact, the first time I went over was from, that was on North Sea Ferries from Ipswich. Right, yeah. Back in the old days. West Bank. Yes, it would have been. Yeah, yeah. And it frightened the shit out of me. Yeah. Climbing up that wire bloody rope stairway up the side of the ship. But that was, yeah, it was one experience. Yeah. One experience. That was about... I think it was two pigs that I took over. Right. And I'd never been on a boat before. Yeah. So that, yeah, Speaker 2 (8:25) that was good. That's when you realised that you weren't a saver. That's right, yeah. That Speaker 1 (8:28) wasn't so bad, but we did, I went over from Harwich. We used to go to Europort. Yeah. I went from Harwich one night and there'd been a real bad storm and I'd actually taken a mate of mine with me for a little ride out. There was only like four boards we had to take the other side of Holland. Speaker 1 (8:49) And really bad storm. The boat was, it was a P &O liner that we were travelling on. And that had been delayed. And I think there'd been some containers gone over the side of the ship. It was all dreadful. Anyway, we got on there, had to be on wait. So I went to the bar and foolishly I had four pints of Newcastle Brown. Speaker 2 (9:08) Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:09) And then went to bed. Yeah. And then we set sail. And then I was in the shower. throwing my heart up for whatever it was, about 11 hours. Yeah. Speaker 2 (9:19) It was dreadful. Were you saying never again? Yeah, Speaker 1 (9:22) I think I did a couple of trips after that. But so obviously I was traveling then across to, and my mate slept through the whole thing. We then traveled and got rid of these pigs and I was dreading the journey home. But it was like a milk pond. So it's just the way it is. Yes. So that was good. That was good. Speaker 2 (9:41) Yeah. Speaker 1 (9:41) And then by the sort of early, mid, early 2000s, I suppose, the pig job really sort of took a dive. Yeah. People being paid, pig farmers were being paid to depopulate. Yeah. As we did, actually. It was the outgoer scheme. So you were paid to get out of pigs. Right. Destroy all the equipment. Yeah. So Speaker 2 (10:05) it Speaker 1 (10:05) couldn't be used again. In hindsight, it was a dreadful thing to do. For me, it meant that I could then go into bulk haulage. Right. So I knocked the pick haulage on the head. Yep. Bought a seven-year-old Volvo FH. Yep. FH12. Arctic. Yeah. Speaker 2 (10:23) Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:23) Yeah. Bought a second-hand unit, which is a lovely thing. Version 1, I presume, at that. Yes. Yeah. Lovely, lovely truck. Speaker 2 (10:32) Just Speaker 1 (10:32) a fantastic truck. Yep. And I bought a brand new SAS trailer. Right. So the SAS trailer then was £33,000. Right. And then set about driving for various people, so quite big companies, just subbing for them. Yeah. UK, European? Speaker 2 (10:51) No, just UK. Just UK, yeah. Speaker 1 (10:53) Yeah. And, yeah, I had some good times. It was never as... as running around with a Land Rover with no taco. Yes. Yeah, very Speaker 2 (11:02) true. Yeah, the bigger the vehicle, the less we can. It was Speaker 1 (11:05) good. And then after, I think, after a year, maybe two years, basically in 2003, I bought a brand new DAF CF. Right. And that was a 480. At the time when I ordered it, they literally then announced they were doing a version with the little wheel. Yeah. But at the time, It was only going to be a 430 Speaker 2 (11:28) for Speaker 1 (11:29) some reason. So I ordered it on Christmas Eve 2002, a chassis cab. It cost me £58,000. And I decided to go for the big wheel and a 530. 480, right? 480. And that served me well. Served me well until 2000 and... Speaker 1 (11:53) And then at which point my marriage went down the pan. Everything changed. The lorry went. And it was actually the best thing that ever happened. Fair enough. Speaker 2 (12:04) Incidentally, how did you find the Stash trailer? Yeah, Speaker 1 (12:08) the first one I had was actually the Mike Beer. I think he designed it, but it was certainly one of his sort of off-the-shelf ones that I got from Newton Trailers. So that was a... It didn't have the sloping front. It was square front and back, and it had barn doors at the back, or a universal door at the back, so barn doors and tipping. Subsequently, it was very long and very heavy. Speaker 2 (12:33) Right. And from Speaker 1 (12:34) memory, it might have just about been a 65-yarder. Right. So it wasn't that big. Yeah. And I changed that. I had to put the lifting axle I changed so it was on the rear, so I'd get on weigh bridges. Yeah. We were going down in the West Country quite a lot then and wouldn't fit on the Weybridges. So I had to bugger about doing that. And then I traded that for a new 65-yard Stas. Again, not with a sloping front, just the basic Stas. Obviously manual sheet and that sort of thing. Ordinary tipping tailgate. And yeah, that was a nice Speaker 2 (13:16) thing. Yeah. Quite a bit shorter, a bit lighter. Because I seem to have a bit of an issue reliability-wise. There seem to be quite a lot of people had issues with stasis, I seem to remember, at the time. I don't know whether it was more to do with the automated tailgate. I don't know. I don't know. The only thing that there used to be issues, well, concerns about was the chassis. Yeah, because they're quite light. They're Speaker 1 (13:38) very light, they're alley. And they used to, I mean, it looked all wrong when they were going up, you know, the chassis was like a bloody banana. Speaker 2 (13:44) Yeah. Speaker 1 (13:45) But I never had any issues. Yeah. And I wasn't aware. I mean, at the time, people like Roger Warnes, they had a whole bloody fleet of them. Yeah. I think they still do. Speaker 2 (13:54) Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 (13:56) But they were sort of the first ones to have any sort of quantity of them. And there was a lot of other trailers around at the time, United trailers. There's quite a few, a lot cheaper than the Stas, but they weren't built as well. Right. So you found them pretty well Speaker 2 (14:14) built. Speaker 1 (14:14) Oh, absolutely. Speaker 2 (14:15) Fantastic. Speaker 1 (14:16) And held their money. Speaker 2 (14:17) Yeah. More Speaker 1 (14:18) than Speaker 2 (14:18) the point. Which is even better. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 1 (14:20) Excellent. Yeah, yeah. So I ended up working. I was, in the last probably 18 months, maybe two years, I was actually subbing to Stennett's. Speaker 2 (14:35) Yeah. Speaker 1 (14:35) Ingham. Yeah. And, yeah, had some good work with them. Yeah. And actually ended up in their transport office. Oh, right, okay. When things went belly up, sort of, with my family life. Yeah. So that was good. Yeah, it was okay, but office life isn't for me, so I stuck up for three months. Speaker 2 (14:57) That was enough.