Men Who Make Transport
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Dere ood
AQUIET little place is Beer, in Devon. Not much hustle there: little enough need for hustle, one might think. South Devon—the very name conjures up a picture of tranquil lanes and blossoming hedgegrows, of peaceful teas of strawberries and cream, of cheerful pints of cider taken in some rural pub. It certainly doesn't prepare you for Derek Good. It wouldn't• surprise me one iota if I were told that Derek has never been known to sit quietly for a whole hour. He's like a spring rapidly uncoiling or, to change the simile, like a kettle perpetually on the boil—a whistling kettle, at that, whose existence it is impossible to ignore. Alas, I did not meet him in Beer: perhaps the explosive contrast between Derek and what I know of that delightful village is not so obvious' on the spot. But chatting as we were in the office of the Road Haulage Association's secretary-general—there was an important series of meetings in progress, or rather temporarily in recess, hence Derek's presence in London—I did not really get a message from the quiet Devon I know but from a go-ahead, go-getting enterprise more typical of a large industrial centre than a fishing village.
Pioneer Haulage is the biggest single commercial undertaking in Beer. That it is so is entirely due to the dynamism of Derek Good. He was its real creator. He sustains it from year to year. His ideas inspire the action. He is the mainspring which keeps the whole thing ticking.
Pioneer Haulage did, in fact, exist before the war. It was (as it still is) virtually a family business. But I inferred from what Derek told me that before he went off to the wars it was run along fairly quiet lines, fitting easily into the bucolic scene. But during the troubled years it almost faded out of the scene altogether. Derek was in due course demobilised and, returning to his native lanes, found only two lorries remaining to the business and its premises requisitioned It was a daunting prospect: all to do and little to do it with. Of course, that was before the nationalization and denationalization of the later 1940s. A man could try to set himself up in business, if he'd a mind to; given sufficient persistence and acumen he might succeed, what's more. So, during the first few months, after he laid aside his uniform, Derek was a human volcano—energy bursting out all over. Premises had to be wrested from the firm grasp of officialdom. Vehicles must somehow be procured and staff recruited. Business was somewhere to be had, and it was for Derek to find out Where.
The Ctutrome of his activities is well-known to his colleagues at the Road Haulage Association. Today, Pioneer Haulage, of Beer, Devon, operate 18 vehicles and do business in wide areas of the West Country. From Bristol, for instance, they carry fruit and other commodities daily to Plymouth. Goods are distributed over five counties from the company's own warehouses in quiet little Beer. Derek's set-up is in fact a major distributing and warehousing centre. Under his roofs are maintained stocks of refrigerators, 500 tons of grain, conveyors, products of May and Baker—a miscellaneous and heterogenous mass of products which Pioneer Haulage vehicles distribute for their customers as required. Here, therefore, is a business which requires much more than ordinary road haulage techniques. Inventories must be checked, storage must be appropriate to the categories of goods, and carriage must be available immediately on demand.
In addition, Derek Good runs C. R. Good and Sons, He is in the motor trade as a Ford dealer. Derek drives (I believe) a Zephyr; but I dare not divulge his record elapsed time for a trip from Beer to London. I will, however, hint that I am glad I was not with him! As I said, he loves to pop about quickly.
Bright Sidelight
It is a bright sidelight on his character that he was instrumental in forming South Western Traffics, Ltd., an association of some 30 hauliers. Their function is to handle members' surplus traffic and capacity in order to avoid uneconomic journeys and so on. The association's offices are situated in Exeter, Plymouth and Bodmin. Derek Good's own description of this exercise in co-operation is that it was a " Clearing House" with a difference.
It is a fine thing for the industry that busy executives are willing to give up a great 'deal of their time to association work of one kind of another. Derek is one of those and is rightly proud of his connection with the Road Haulage Association. It was some two years after he began the tough task of re-establishing his business that he looked around and took notice of what was going on in other sectors in the industry. His first contact with wider aspects was made in 1947 when he was elected to the area committee of the Road Haulage Association. The high esteem in which he, was held in his area led to his appointment as representative for Devon and Cornwall on the national council. Now he is national vice-chairman and chairman of the Devon and Cornwall area, the Honiton sub-area, and is active in the National Road Transport Federation, of which he is this year chairman.
" If anybody wants an indication of how democratic our industry is, all he needs to do is to take a took at me," Derek said. "After all, I was a very minor chap in road
• haulage, yet the big boys gave me a welcome to the Association's councils just as though Pioneer Haulage were among the giants."
He is utterly convinced of the high value of the Road Haulage Association's work, not only for the 17,000 haulierc it represents but for other aspects of road transport, too. It is this conviction that causes him to speed so frequently on the road leading from Devonshire to London, and to sacrifice so much of his productive working time to the cause.
Any spare time?—I asked him. It appears that he does enjoy some. Then it is his great delight to watch all kinds of sport. It would have to be very urgent business that kept him away from Twickenham on a big match Saturday.