Truckers

I remember watching Truckers as a 13 year old back in 1987, when I thought it was the best thing on TV. Detail-wise I remember very little about it, other than the fact that James 'Londons Burning' Hazeldine was the main character.

My single lasting memory about the series was - ironically - the BBC announcer stating during the closing credits of the final episode that, "Truckers will be back for another run in the New Year". This proved (annoyingly) untrue, because the series disappeared almost completely without trace after that. The only person I know who has ever even heard of this series (and not the animated kids' programme of the same name) is my best mate, who I continually extolled the virtues of the programme to during its brief life nearly 20 years ago.

The chances of me ever seeing Truckers again are, I imagine, close to zero because there's clearly no market for it either on DVD or broadcast on TV, so I'll just have to make do with the memories. Shame I don't have any!

Truckers was great. There were some good characters in this series and I too would like to see it on UK Gold at least. I was 18 when this series was out and there was nothing like it. A couple of other actors that I remembered in the series were Julie Shipley who played the office girl, who always wore very tight jeans and looked hot as a girl next door type and Maynard Williams (Bill Maynards son) played wide boy rocker driver Rollo. Hope it gets another airing, it was believable. There is nothing like Truckers on telly now, only reality shows and we don't want to see those, we want to see some underrated classic British telly that Truckers was.

Truckers was the BBC's attempt to match Auf Wiedersehen Pet. Of course some years later the Beeb decided it was just easier and better to get the cast and writers together and nab it off ITV.

This leaves Truckers with its earthy language and many shenanigans that lots of viewers did not find arresting, consigned to the footnotes of dramas that braked to a halt.

James Hazeldine was the star who took time out from London's Burning to make this. Apparently he took HGV lessons to prepare for the role.

Maynard Williams, a singer and actor and the son of Bill Maynard was the supposed eye candy for the ladies.

I was about 14 yrs old when i first came across truckers and the reason why i came across this programme was because of the Grimsby connection the Town i grew up in, the very first episode was titled.. One night in Grimsby... and i seemed to think it was a decent series for the late eighties as the story lines didn't go OTT!! and some of the characters were quite funny and the company seemed to be fighting for it's life every episode. The bloke that worked in the yard was quite annoying as i seem to remember, i would recommend this series and would hope to see it on DVD one day which i think is quite impossible as there seems little call for it. The only way of seeing this good series is to check out ebay ask for someone to do a copy.

The truck a ford transcontinental was originally owned by Philip Britain a truck driver and Roy Rigby who ran a fleet of trucks for pioneer concrete,sadly they fell out and Roy repossessed the truck.He was a boy racer and asked me to add to the paintwork to make it personal .So one Christmas eve we borrowed a workshop on Portsdown hill and i worked through the night spraying it with quick drying truck paint in multi colour's.Just as i finished to go home he said the front looks to bland ,what it needs is a eagle on the front,i said you must be joking its Christmas day, he persuaded me and using masking tape as a template i cut out a block eagle and air brushed it with multi coloured paint .Full Story on request