HITCH-HIKER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 139, 15 June 1938, Page 16

HITCH-HIKER.

ON ROAD "FREIGHTER." TRANSPORT MINISTER. TRIES EVERYTHING ONCE. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, May 27. Mr. Leslie Burgin, our try-everything-oncc Minister of Transport, lias been hitch-hiking on a big night '-freighter" of the roads. In utmost secrecy he joined a seventon lorry in the Tower Bridge district and spent seven hours in the driver's cab in a not-over-20 m.p.li. journev to Daventry, 70 miles north, 011 the road to Birmingham. No one but the owners of the lorry knew of the plot, even the driver had no idea who his passenger was to be. I'm Your Mate. And when Mr. Burgin turned up at the dispatch yard of the haulage firm— Messrs. Alan Simpson, of Tower Bridge .Road, S.E.—just before 10 p.m. one recent evening, he looked the part ,so well, with a greasy old mackintosh, muffler, and aged cap, that the driver "Ah, here you are, mate!"

The Minister of Transport smiled at this greeting; it was just what he wanted. "Keep that up, sonny. Be as natural as you like. I'm Mr. Burgin, Minister of Transport, as your boss will tell you, but forget it. To-night I'm just—well, you said—l'm your mate." The trip was undertaken, like Mr. Burgin's air trips over the trunk roads, his motoring survey trips, and his recent day on the Caledonian Canal, to give the Minister an insight into conditions at first hand. He got plenty on the night "freighter." Stanley Homewood, the driver, saw to that. For 25-vear-old Stanley Homewood lias driven night freighters on that famous Loud on-Holy head road — busiest transport road in Britain—summer and winter for years, and there were plenty of tilings he would have given a month's wages to tell Mr. Burgin. "Crikey, though, I never expected to have the chance," he said, "and when I did there wasn't any need. I think Mr. Burgin saw everything for himself." He had just returned to London with his lorry. In hw khaki shirt, sleeves rolled up. oil smudges on his face, he was a typical pi lot of that great mercantile niai,.ie of the roads which conies to life when most people are in bed. Sir. Burgin wore an old mackintosh. They gave him a rug for his knees and a small cushion for his back, before we started," said Homewood. "The only difference it made to me, after I got used to the idea, was that I didn't smoke at all. You see, Mr. Burgin didn't, either. But I was wondering what my pals on the road would be saying if they knew who I had aboard. Pretty ThoughtfnL "There was the usual staggering amount of lorry traffic on Watling Street going in both directions, and it amazed Mr. Burgin, who said he'd never seen anything like it. 'It's always like this,' I told him, and he seemed pretty thoughtful. After a bit he said he thought the road ought to be widened in one or two places. "As he said I wa« to be the same as if he was my mate, I stopped at a 'pullin' I know on Watling Street, about 2«> miles out. "There was a bunch of a hundred lorries there, if there was one, and Mr. Burgin walked round them all. He seemed flummoxed. They were all big ones, too, five to ten tonners. Well, we went in, and I had a coffee and a hot dog, but Mr. Burgin had a coffee only. "There were a lot of drivers in there, mostly feeding, but some swopping yarns and others asleep across the tables. "We stopped twice more, about 00 miles out and then at about 70, where Mr. Burgin left me. "At these stops we were joined in the 'pull-ins' by two gentlemen from the Ministry, who had followed us in a car. Tliey had dressed for the part, too. and wore caps and scarves and old coots, and though 6ome of the drivers looked at us a bit, no one thought mu.li of any of us. "Altogether, we were seven hours on the road. Mr. Burgin took over the steering for about a quarter of a mile just to see if it was very heavy. It was as light as a car's, and the visi-! bilitv, he said, was fine. "I don't know what he thought of the hard seat —but it's good for a 'commercial.' " "I Admire Them." What Mr. Burgin did think he told a luncheon of the Associated Road Operators in London: "We left London a little before 10 o'clock at night and got back at 20 minutes past five in the morning. "During that time I saw half a dozen examples of bad driving, every one on the part of a private car. I saw nothing but perfect compliance with road regulations and good road sense on the part of my own driver. "I wish to express my entire admiration for lorry drivers. If the average road driver could back and manipulate into narrow places like the drivers of these lorries, the roads would be much safer than they to-day." Mr. Burgin has ordered a silver cigarette case with his initials to be sent to Stanley Homewood as a souvenir, and is sending the driver's small boy a special model of a 7-ton lorry.