loogie

Sad to report that the works' van has finally met its' maker.

I was there on the day that Stan bought the van for GB. I distinctly remember it having just SEVEN miles on the clock - it was that new.

The "loogie" as I term it, served us very well - without too much trouble - until GB moved out of the Netherton premises at the end of 2007. I advised Stan not to overuse and overload the van between the depot in Netherton and the head office in Bolton (a mere 30 miles) because it'd get, pardon my French, "twatted".

He took absolutely no notice of anything I said, or anyone else for that matter, and bullied the van to the extreme that it needed several expensive repair jobs doing on it by the time we'd finished the move. Then Stan neglected the servicing (which wasn't done as regularly as I'd have liked anyway) to the point that when Ron took restarted the business, the van needed more attention. The van, in the last year, has flitted in and out of Dougie's garage. But the timing belt went on it the other week, which has caused major internal damage on the engine. And it's at a point now where it's not economically viable to fix it again. So Ron, reluctantly, has had to pull time after 150,000 miles of service for us.

The stupid thing is we'd had got another 50,000 out of the van if it'd had been looked after under the previous management.

Talking of the "previous management", it's exactly a year since GB went under. It seems longer. A lot's gone on in both my personal and working life in the last twelve months that I've completely lost track!!!