18 WHEELS OF STEEL ACROSS AMERICA TRUCK MODS

Article Published in the Illustrated Bristol News 1967.

'From ‘Tin Lizzie’ to Rolls-Royce in two generations the story of R. and W. Febry and Sons Limited'

ONE MORNING IN 1921 a 17 year old Gloucestershire boy was given 10 minutes’ driving instruction on the road across a common near his home, and was then sent off at the wheel of a Ford ‘Tin Lizzy’ truck to deliver a load of coal.

It was a disastrous day — on the return journey the front tyre burst and the lorry ended on its side in a ditch. But the brief introduction to the new world of motor transport fired the imagination of the young man. Today, Mr. ‘Dick’ Febry, chairman and managing director of R. and W. Febry and Sons Ltd., of Sodbury, Gloucestershire, is head of a ?1 million transport business, the biggest private transport firm in the South and West of England and one of the biggest in Britain.

Febry Transport operates 150 heavy vehicles all over Britain and the value of the fleet alone is more than ?680 000. The firm works for many well known businesses, such as Imperial Smelting, Tunnel Cement, Newman Industries, Fisons, and Amalgamated Roadstone and the special-purpose vehicles in the Febry fleet include cement tankers each worth ?10,000.

Dick Febry’s father was head carter at Cross Hands Farm, Sodbury, and had about 15 men under him. His wage was 12/- per week and Mr. Febry remembers how his father used to take him with his five younger brothers and six sisters for their Sunday night walk to The Dog at Sodbury, where he would order a quart of beer and small glasses for the children.

Mr. Febry started work at 4 a.m. and the young Dick Febry used to rise at 5 a.m. to get the earthorses ready before going to school. After leaving school at 12 he was employed at Cross Hands Farm at 3/- per week, helping with the carting, and ploughing behind two huge horses. He took his lunch of bread-and-dripping to work in a red handkerchief and drank a bottle of cold tea with it. Mr. Febry’s first means of transport was a bicycle frame fitted with two pram wheels. Today it is a Rolls-Royce.

He worked for a number of local people as a driver before starting up on his own in 1929. His capital was ?100 and he obtained an ex-First World War Peerless chain-drive lorry for ?650, which he had to pay for in instalments over one year. He worked 22 hours a day sometimes in the first weeks doing local haulage jobs and paid for his lorry within six months.

At the end of his first year he bought a second lorry, a new Studebaker and the first and second drivers he employed, Mr. Alfie Boucher and Mr. Bert Seymour, are both still driving with Febry Transport. Mr. Febry’s five brothers have worked in the business at various times; and the man who taught him to drive on Sodbury Common, Mr. Frank Bees, is now the licensee of the George Hotel, Chipping Sodbury.

They drove together on that fateful journey in 1921 delivering coal to Marshfield police station. The lorry ended up twice in the ditch during the day, because on the outward journey, when Mr. Bees was driving, they turned over and had to manhandle the loose load of coal back onto the righted vehicle before they could go on.

Mr. Febry recalls that in those early days of motoring when pneumatic tyres were just coming in, a new tyre cost about 15 shillings, Today a new tyre for one of his giant vehicles can cost more than ?90. Those were the days too when the driver did all the unloading by hand on his own — and the loads might be as much as seven tons of tarred stone.

When the war broke out in 1939, Mr. Febry had 18 Leyland lorries, most of which were requisitioned by the Government. The post-war period has seen the greatest expansion of Febry Transport, despite nationalisation in 1948 and what Mr. Febry regards as the unfair terms of denationalisation later when firms who had lost their fleets for relatively small sums of money had to pay at the rate of ?200 a ton buying them back, to get their licences.

‘Despite these crises in the past I believe that business is harder and more worrying now than it has ever been’, says Mr. Febry. ‘All we are working for now is the Government and the men. You cannot leave a business any more, you have to be working at it all the time’.

He is still active in the business seven days a week from eight in the morning. The family directors in the business with him include his wife, his own son and daughter, Derek and Diana, and his brother, Mr. Bill Febry, his wife and their sons, Robin and Peter. The total payroll of Febrys is now more than 200, and the ‘Sodbury Queen’ motorcoach business forms part of the Febry operations.

The entire Febry lorry fleet returns to the Sodbury headquarters each weekend and all maintenance is carried out there. When drivers are out on long journeys during the week there is a standing arrangement for them to ring in every evening to receive their instructions for back-loading. The whole tone of Febry Transport is one of efficient organisation.

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From Wikipedia.
Dim sum is a Cantonese term for a type of Chinese meal that involves small individual portions of food, usually food is pushed around on carts by servers and served in a small steamer baskets or on small plates. The server stamps your card to mark your order. Going for dim sum is usually known in Cantonese as going to "drink tea".

Traditional dim sum includes various types of steamed buns such as cha siu baau, dumplings and rice noodle rolls (cheong fun), which contain a range of ingredients, including beef, chicken, pork, prawns and vegetarian options. Many dim sum restaurants also offer plates of steamed green vegetables, roasted meats, congee porridge and other soups. Dessert dim sum is also available and many places offer the customary egg tart. Having a meal in a Chinese teahouse or a dim sum restaurant is known as yum cha (yam cha, ??), literally "drinking tea", as tea is typically served with dim sum.

Dim sum can be cooked by steaming and frying, among other methods. The serving sizes are usually small and normally served as three or four pieces in one dish. It is customary to order family style, sharing dishes among all members of the dining party. Because of the small portions, people can try a wide variety of food.

Dim sum dishes can be ordered from a menu or sometimes the food is wheeled around on a trolley by servers. Traditionally, the cost of the meal is calculated based on the number, size, and sometimes color of the dishes left on the patron's table (more below). Some modern dim sum restaurants record the dishes on a bill at the table. Not only is this tidier, it also prevents patrons from cheating by concealing or stealing the plates. Servers in some restaurants use distinct stamps so that sales statistics for each server can be recorded.

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