People of Conwy: Martin Cawley

Martin Cawley sml

People of Conwy: Martin Cawley

Martin Cawley has lived in Llanrwst for most of his life. Growing up, he had an interest in lorries and, while working at Vale of Clwyd Farms, he asked his manager if he could have a lorry to help with deliveries. Ten years or so later, Cawley Bros Ltd was born, with over 25 lorries in service.

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Martin Cawley lrg
 
 

 

Transcript:

 … I went to school, and left school, Bro Gwydir from there to here, and then to grammar school. But I wasn’t keen on school at all and I left the grammar (school) when I was 15 years old, and went to work for Vale of Clwyd Farms as they were back then, they’re called Wynnstay now …

 … on Watling Street, they had a small warehouse there …

 … But all the time (I was there) I wanted a lorry, that’s what I wanted you see …

 … my dad worked for a company in Llanrwst here. Huw Berry and the company of his father, Wil Berry, it was a sweet shop on Denbigh Street and …

 … I could see then that he was working every minute of the day and night for very little you see, and I didn’t want to go down that route, so the only way of getting over that was to get my own lorry you see …

 … I was talking to the manager and he said ‘yes, you can have one’ …

 … and that’s how we started with the one lorry, then another lorry became another lorry, and by … oh ... how many lorries did we have by then, four or five?

 … and we had our own yard near Preswylfa, on the Tal y Cafn road over there …

 … my brother came in with me at the time, but that didn’t work out, and …

 … we carried on with the youngest brother, he came in to drive at that time and that was going well and …

 … in the end we had over 25 lorries you know …

 … we have sold out to a company from Carnforth Border Aggregates who bought the lorries, they are still running them in our ‘Cawley Brother’ colours …

 … it feels strange not to be with the lorries anymore but it is nice to still see them in our colours and that they are still carrying on …

 … the hardest work of course was loading the lorry. Nowadays it’s all bulk, a crane or a chute which loads for you in seconds, and it gets re-bagged locally, but in those days everything was in bags and the lorry needed loading with ten tons of flour, and then load and stack them so that they are all safe and cover them with an overblanket with the weather and so on, we started at three in the morning in those days you see, yes, and there weren’t any tachographs like there are in lorries these days, someone had to go morning and night, yes, yes, it was hard work you know but we enjoyed every minute of it …

 

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