30 years ago on 1st August 1987 the transport arm of Dennis Dixon Ltd opened for business.

Initially pulling both bulk powder tankers and tote-bin trailers on behalf of ICI Fibres, the company also operated two road tankers that were purchased from ICI. Dennis Dixon is shown photographed in the cab (on the main news page) and still takes great pride and interest in the business, some 18 years after retiring.

We have some interesting (& also some hilarious) photographs from the past, which we will release via our twitter account with a selection also published in the Monthly Safety Bulletin.

A quick note of thanks to all our employees (both past and present), customers and suppliers without whom we would not exist.

The 1st August gives a 30 year service award to Wayne Greenwood, Mark Dixon & Steve Dixon with Brian Atkinson shortly to follow. The nice thing is we all look exactly the same, with no additional weight, wrinkles or grey hair!

Below Dennis Dixon shows off the 1st Magyar tank he purchased some 29 years ago!

We even had an old Seddon Atkinson purchased from ICI for site work, that often made it's way to Doncaster covering additional loads with Mark Dixon at the wheel.

... the key to driving this was simple: find a gear & stick with it!

Those old garage doors have thankfully been replaced with electric roller shutters now ... but maybe they explain where JT got his muscles from?

The fleet steadily expanded so after starting with only Volvo trucks (& a few 2nd hand Seddon Atkinson trucks x ICI as shunters), we purchased some ERF, MAN, Foden, DAF and finally (once we had saved up) some Scania trucks. Today we only operate Volvo and Scania trucks.

The snap below shows the fleet in our old depot on Murdock Road where we were between 1990-1992. The shot was carefully set up on a bank holiday as it was rare to have the trucks standing in the good old days of ICI 24/7/365 opening hours!

So who remembers The Purple Pig? (as it was not so affectionately known)

A day cab truck that came ex stock in metallic purple ... yes, you guessed it ... it was cheap!

This photograph below shows the longevity of top quality equipment!

Tank GPT 29 originally was purchased specifically to work on Methanol for ICI Petrochemicals and can be seen here in their livery. Years later the tank was replaced with higher payload equipment (when GVW was increased to 44 tonnes) and the tank is still in operation now, but has just been sent to have a complete new bogey fitted (chassis, running gear and axles) at Crossland engineering. The tank will be back in service in October.

An interesting photo below showing the variation on offer within the fleet many years ago.

As well as the DAF vehicles, the tanker on the left was a soap tanker we used to run for Uniqema Wilton (now shut-down) and also a Carlsberg lager trailer on the right! We used to trunk Carlsberg (& other alcoholic drinks) from Northampton to the depot on nights, then deliver by tanker to Sunderland (Vaux) and Alloa in Scotland on a daily basis with curtain trailers.

We worked for ICI Fibres, which was taken over by Dupont, for many years where we held both an excellent relationship and reputation for quality. Dupont asked us to put three curtain-sided trailers on a set job and after we initially declined the work as "it was not our bag", we were pursuaded to look after this one critical piece of work for them on a 3 year fixed deal until site-work had been completed and the work would move to a multi-modal job using containers.

From tiny acorns do oak trees grow ...

Lastly, a photo of Dennis washing off a tanker (not sure that ICI knew about the jacket being a retirement present)!

We hope you have enjoyed our brief trip down memory lane. If you have some old photos with our trucks or staff at work then we would love to see them, email them in to: [email protected].