‘The housewife doesn’t buy anything which hasn’t come along the road’ – Aneurin Jones
Who are the men and women who drive lorries along the roads of Wales and beyond? Who are the characters amongst DJ Geraint Lloyd’s Bois y Loris (the Lorry Boys) club on BBC Radio Cymru?
November 2010 and Owain Llŷr was starting on his journey around Wales. His aim, as author and photographer, was to create a book which would reflect the unique character and culture of the lorry driver. ‘The culture of the lorry driver affects us all,’ says Owain Llŷr.
In the words of Jack Vaughan – ‘Mansel Davies carries everything from shit to shampoo!’
Now, the diesel is in Owain’s blood. He spent months travelling along the roads of Wales with dictaphone and camera trying to record a very different way of life. ‘I am now one of Truck & Driver’s regular readers and have even started my own model collection.’
On his journey, he stopped to interview men from Mansel Davies’s transport company including Jack Vaughan, Lyn Owens, Gerallt Phillips and Stephen Mansel Davies himself.
Since the company was created at the beginning of the twentieth century, Mansel Davies and Son has grown to be one of the main transport companies in Wales.
‘We are now one of Wales’s biggest bulk hauliers. We collect milk, there are sixty artic tankers there. We also transport foodstuffs, food grade liquids and orange juice. We have coal lorries, a slate mine – the old one at Glog. Dad bought it about sixty-nine, and its mostly slag there, waste.’
Has Stephen ever thought about doing anything else apart from the work he’s done since leaving school? ‘No, no. This is my life. That’s all I ever wanted to do.’
‘It’s not a job, you see – it’s a way of life.’ Jack Vaughan
The book is also a tribute to William Thomas Hefin Jones, a farmer and lorry driver from Troedyrhiw, Ceredigion who died aged 43 when his lorry was hit on the viaduct. Hefin Jones worked for Patterson Transport, Plwmp.
The book Bois y Loris (Y Lolfa) will be launched on Thursday 16th of June at 7pm in Mwldan 3, Theatr Mwldan, Cardigan. The programme Bois y Loris is on S4C on Thursday night, June 23rd at 9pm.
Bois y Loris, Owain Llŷr, Y Lolfa, £9.95
