Young At Heart

They were never the biggest haulage operation on Teesside but the high level of service given by three generations of the Young family of High Leven kept their customers happy for more than 70 years. Eric Young talks to Bob Tuck about his childhood days of opening farm gates and falling in love with his Dad’s two-stroke Commer cattle float.

- Bob Tuck

As a youngster,” says Eric, “I can’t honestly remember ever going away on a family holiday. Yes, I’m sure my Mam may have taken us to Salt burn for the odd day but my Dad was never with us. I think the first holiday he ever had was about 1967 when I was 21 and my wife Olwin was working at a travel agents. I took a fortnight’s leave from work so I could drive his wagon and Olwin booked them up to go away to Jersey in the Channel Islands. And I know he really enjoyed that.”

When you sign up for a life as an owner driver then you have to ensure your regular customers are kept happy. But if you were Jack Young and your customers were the local farmers who needed their stock taking to market – virtually every working day of the week – then jetting off to sit on the beach for a while was never going to be possible: “As a kid,” says Eric, “all I can see him doing was either driving the wagon or working in the garden. He grew some fantastic vegetables - but holidays were never his thing.”

A Family A Flair

You’ll need a good map to pinpoint what was the centre of operations of the Young family’s life. Located mid-way between Yarm and Ingleby Barwick – at the top of Leven Bank – you’ll find the popular ‘Fox Covert’ public house / restaurant. Back in 1914, this hostelry was called "The Half Moon’ and together with the adjacent farm; a blacksmiths shop and a few cottages made up the hamlet of High Leven that was then in Yorkshire.