Tanker Taster

Road Tankers form the subject matter for the latest publication in our Road Transport Archive Series. So this month, Malcolm Bates gives us a taster of what you can expect. From beer to cement. From petrol to chocolate, there were tankers designed to transport it all.

- Malcolm Bates

You may have heard this story before, but one of my earliest encounters of a commercial vehicle was with a real tanker lorry. Nothing that special you understand it was just a humble Dennis Pax cesspool emptier operated by my then local council, Malling RDC. But, for all I know, it could have had a profound effect on my character development.

One day, there was a screech of brakes outside 3 Orchard Villas (my parents rented semi), followed by a knock at the front door. It was the driver of the Dennis. Hushed words were spoken. He’d come to apologise to my Mum, y’see. It turns out that, as he was approaching the corner in front of the house, a cat ran right out in front of the Dennis and... Well, there was nothing that he could do. While the performance of an early post-war Perkins-powered Dennis wasn’t up to much, the same sentiment could equally apply to the brakes. The cat was history. My Mum was very upset. It was the family moggie.

Now I can’t say I’m proud of my lack of emotion. Viewed from today’s perspective, it seems heartless. After all, I have a little cat today and I love him dearly. So my whooping for joy at the news of the demise of my mum’s cat needs some qualification. To me, aged six, it was simply proof that there is, if not a God, then someone up there who every now and then instigates a ‘payback’ scenario.

How so? Quite simply, that cat used to deliberately go to sleep on the stairs. One day, while coming down the stairs, I tripped over the cat and fell the rest of the way – hitting my poor little head on the paraffin heater in the hall. What kind of paraffin heater was it? Oh I don’t know. I think it was a mid-brown upright Valor, OK? Can we get on with the story, now? The bottom line was, the cat nearly killed me. The payback? My Guardian Angel saw to it that the cat paid the price.