United Front – Part 2

In last month’s issue of Heritage Commercials, we traced the very early times – and fortunes – of Stan Robson as he rode the peaks and troughs of an adventurous life in the first half of the 20th century. Those downs could well have forced him into walking away from road haulage on several occasions as circumstances beyond his control tried to thwart his every move to expand. Also, Stan might well have lost his life firstly when TB (tuberculosis) struck and again when the plane he was flying to Switzerland for emergency treatment actually crash-landed in France.

It was obviously destined that Stan would see things through and under the banner of Robson’s Border Transport Ltd., his Carlisle-based operation was to generate a huge following. The reason why so many eyes were attracted to the Robson fleet of old was because of Stan’s insistence that each of his cream and maroon painted load carriers was adorned with an individual name – prefixed with the word ‘Border.’ Of course, many other operations have personalised fleets but the big difference with Robson’s was that those ‘Border’ names were painted in big, bold and easy to read lettering. Because, as the company’s first enthusiast, Stan himself wanted everyone to share the pleasure of being able to identify each and every one of his load carriers at just a glance.

Border Wizard

As far as back as Peter Noble can remember,