Sandra Cheek recalls her childhood at J K Kings

Thought you may like these photos. We lived in the one farthest from the camera. Roderick Miller lived in the middle one and Eric King lived in the one nearest the camera.
also a picture of my dad driving one of King’s lorries in the carnival.

I was born in 1 Kings Acre and lived there until I got married in 1981. My parents Violet and Les Perkins lived there until not long before they pulled them down. My dad worked at King’s and as a child myself my sister Patricia and Roderick Miller and his brother Stephen Miller played for hours around those buildings in the pictures. I knew every inch of that yard inside out! We used to stand on the weigh-bridge and try to move it. Someone used to climb all the way to the top of the big silo to put the flag on top on special occasions. They used to use a few of Kings lorries for the carnival and very often the floats would be parked outside our house. Orchard house was beautiful inside. There were several ways into it from the warehouses and I very often wandered in there. I’m not sure I was meant to be in there though?
I also remember Mrs Newman making wooden seed trays. There was a shed with machines in and we called it the box shed. She worked in there putting the wooden seed trays together and packing them in piles. I watched her for ages sometimes, a big distraction im sure! I remember Jack Bowers. He used to use a big machine to clean the seed sacks and coat them in poison because of the rats and mice. Then there was Colin Brettles dad Titch who used to repair the sacks with holes in. He used to cut patches off old old sacks that couldn’t be repaired and glue them over the holes.

John Baker was a fireman who used to run off every time the big siren on the Market Hill went off! He used to go to one of the buildings when he came on the yard after dropping off his load wherever then get a clipboard for the next day. Then he would load his lorry up and park it near the house all sheeted up and roped off and be ready to go. I remember him very often driving to Gainsborough. He was gone all day and half the night too. There used to be a big set of heavy metal gates at the bottom of the yard and he used to have the key for it because they were closed when the yard was closed. But after a while it became impractical as people used to turn up with loads at all times of the day and night. Then he would have to go out and help them unload. very often Chris Miller who lived next door would end up going out to help too. Sounds like hard work to me but they seemed to love it. All the drivers and chaps in the yard used to go to Edna’s cafe near Saunders garage for their tea breaks etc.

My dad drove lorries for Kings for years and years. I remember watching him rope a load on the lorry and how he did it and how he made these big knots that used to slide up and down so he could tighten them up. He used to tie up one side then throw the rope over and do the other side then throw it back again. Cross crossing the load all the way from the front of the lorry to the back. He would think nothing of getting up at 6am and drive to Bedford or somewhere then be gone all day then come in about 7 or 8 at night! They’d never allow it these days. I used to go with him when I was on holiday from school. We went all over the place. Even up until he died he could always tell you where a certain place was. He’d say ‘Oh yes I know. There’s a nice pub there called (whatever it was!)’. He used to drive a coach for C & R coaches in his spare time and would often come in from driving his lorry all day and eat then change and go out to take a coach out somewhere!
In one of the pictures there is a sign saying kings horticulture. When he came off the lorries my dad was in charge there, I think it was when they started using lorries less. He said he hated gardening but didn’t mind telling other people how to do theirs.

At that time people used to work together. All the men who weren’t busy would help load up a lorry then when another lorry came in empty they’d all go and load that one up for the next day. You never heard anyone say ‘It’s not my job' they all mucked in and helped each other. Lots of happy memories

Roy Tuckwell

I left school in 1969 and spent 6 months at Courtaulds in Braintree, so I started at Kings when I was 16 years old in early 1970. I heard a job was going for somebody in the warehouse so I went to Kings office and was told to come back next day. I met Eric King [no relation] and he asked how I knew they might need somebody as it hadn’t been advertised yet [that’s Coggeshall for you]. Anyway he said I seemed pretty willing and was very polite but maybe I would be a bit young for all the heavy work involved. I told him I was not scared of a hard days work and to give me a chance and after a week or two if the other lads thought I couldn't handle it then let me go. The word he got back was that I was already as good as all the rest, and I had passed all the initiation ceremonies [and they were horrendous in those days] without a whimper. The rest is history.
When I started at Kings Sandra lived at no.1 Kings Acre, Roger Vince in no.2 and Eric King in no.3. One of my first jobs as a lad when I started was to empty the box shed where Mrs Newman worked with Mrs Mills, Viv Mullinger and Barbara Middle.
From working in the warehouse I went on the lorries and did the same job as Les. Kings put me through my HGV courses and I drove a 24 ton gross 6 wheeler, the best and biggest in the fleet. Mostly all hand ball in those days. Les was foreman driver until he took a warehouse job and then George Heard became my foreman. All us lorry drivers got made redundant in 1982 but I did enjoy my years at Kings even though it was hard graft in those days.