Join the club

The visit from Fran on Tuesday prompted me to look through all my Lady Truckers Club memorabilia. We were searching for some photographs that Fran wanted copies of. Amongst the pile of paperwork, I have the master copies of all the Newsletters I wrote for the club, and I thought it might be a good idea to post some snippets here.

I started the club in 1986, when I had already been driving for ten years. I hadn't met many women on the road, so the whole idea was to find some more, and offer my support to those who were having difficulties getting a job, and dealing with the discrimination and bullying, mainly from other drivers. The monthly newsletter was a way of passing on stories and information to the members. Starting with just a handful of women, after ten years we had over 300 members nationwide.

Truckfest Peterborough is one of the biggest truckshows in Europe, they were very supportive and gave us free space to set up our stand. This served the purpose of providing a meeting place for us, and to recruit more members. This is me and Fran at one of the shows. 

There were several other truckshows around at that time, and we attended most of them. Often I had been working all week, then going home and packing my car up, and heading out to a show on a Friday night to get set up for the weekend. Before we got our own teeshirts and sweatshirts printed, we got sponsorship from Keltruck, a Scania distributor from the West Midlands. Here we are at one of our earlier meetings, with a free space for our stand, from the Shell Diesel Drivers Club.  

I had loads of ideas to promote the club, even writing to royalty. This is a reply I got back from the secretary to Princess Anne. I made a collage of some of the members, to put in our scrap book. I took photographs at every meeting we had.

I've picked out a few snippets from the Newsletters, I hope you find them interesting.

MARCH 1986

Hi Girls, Have you all got your copy of March Truck and Driver magazine? If not go out and get one, we are on page 13, quite a good write up about the club. Up to now I have had five letters, four of them are prospective members, and the other one is from a future possible member. She is 15 years old and is mad on trucks, and dreams of becoming a driver. She asks if some of our lady members could please write to her telling her about the jobs they do, and she would be grateful if anyone could send her photo's or posters of truck to put on her bedroom wall.

MAY 1986

First of all let me say what a great time I had at the Truck Racing at Brands Hatch. I was very pleased to meet the other members who turned up, there was twelve of us. Val and Alison had their photograph taken with Barry Sheen, and we all had a group photograph taken for Trucking International magazine. I was interviewed for a feature on the club which should be in the next edition.

JUNE 1986

At the last meeting at Truckfest we had a total of 17 members turn up over the weekend. A few new ones that I hadn't met before, and some that were at Brands Hatch. Our next meeting will be at the Truck Racing event at Donington, meet at the Trucking International tent at 1pm. On Sunday there will be food and drink provided.

JULY 1986

We go from strength to strength, we now have 34 fully paid up members. and I am still waiting for some application forms to come in. Our next meeting will be at Silverstone on 16/17th August. Meet 1pm both days at the Shell Diesel Drivers tent.

AUGUST 1986

We are now up to 51 members, brilliant eh! My firm B R S, are kindly lending me a rental truck to use for the meeting at Silverstone. I will chuck some bedding in the back if you need somewhere to kip down for the night. I will have stickers and badges for sale if anyone needs any extras.

OCTOBER 1986

Did you get your copy of this months Headlight magazine? I was dead chuffed to see my letter printed. I met the editor recently at Findern Truckstop, we had an enjoyable evening with the Headlight staff. Congratulations to three of our members who have passed their class 1 test this month. Well done, Jane, Chris, and Annette.

DECEMBER 1986

Our first Christmas party was a huge success. The lounge bar at Findern Truckstop was the venue and we easily filled it. The furthest distance travelled was Valerie from Hastings, and KT from Seaford. John and Martin from the Observer newspaper were snapping photo's for the Sunday Supplement, January edition, so look out for that.

JANUARY 1987

I have recently managed to obtain quite a lot of publicity for the club. My interview on Radio Derby seems to have started a chain reaction. From this recording I was invited to appear on Womans Hour. I went to the Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham, and I enjoyed it very much. Next I had a phone call from a guy who wants to do a feature for the Sunday Times. John from the Observer was at the party, and so was Radio Derby. I recorded an interview with Julia which went out the following Monday morning. Look out for a programme on BBC 2 called Night Moves, it's on Friday night. I am on it, and so is Dee, Christine, Angela, and Jenny.   

There's a heck of a lot more, I think I'd better stop. I might carry on with this another time, something to write about if I am stuck for ideas, and nice for me to look back on my time running the Lady Truckers Club. Hope you're not too bored, but hey, it is my blog, I can write what I like, ha ha. 

Toodle pip.