HAPPY memories of driving the length and breadth of Britain in the golden age of motoring came flooding back to Barnoldswick's Harold Pearson at a special reunion.

It was a fantastic moment for retired Silentnight lorry driver Harold when he was teamed up again with his fully restored "workmate" from all those years ago.

Harold, 70, spent 10 years at the wheel of one of Silentnight's original delivery vehicles - a British-built Guy lorry known as "The Otter".

Together they travelled Britain's highways and byways throughout the 1950s, delivering the growing Silentnight company's mattresses and divans and helping build the Barnoldswick-based company into what it is today - the UK's biggest beds manufacturer.

Built by Wolverhampton firm Guy and a familiar sight on the streets of Barnoldswick 50 years ago, the Otter was a firm favourite with Silentnight's home delivery team. Its painstaking restoration brought back many fond memories for Harold, of Queen Street, who worked for Silentnight for over 23 years.

"The Otter was a real pleasure to drive and very well liked by all of the drivers," he said.

"With its big cab and comfortable driving position, it was one of the most luxurious delivery vehicles on the road and together we covered thousands of miles and made hundreds of deliveries from Devon to Cornwall right up to Scotland and the north east."

The man responsible for reuniting Harold with the Otter was his former colleague Brian Carlos, who worked for 37 years at Silentnight in transport and customer service. He drove the Otter himself in the late 1950s and, despite having retired at 60, he was happy to go back and oversee the two-year restoration project from start to finish.

It began with Brian tracing the historic vehicle to the scrapyard at the Guy works in Wolverhampton, where it was originally built. In fact, he traced eight examples around the country, with the Wolverhampton one the pick of the bunch. Since then, Brian has overseen every stage of the painstaking restoration, the work done by Silentnight's own garage and some of its main suppliers on the transport side.

Brian said he was "over the moon" with the finished product.

"It's absolutely marvellous," he said. "Everyone involved has done a fantastic job, right down to the original Silentnight livery. Parts of it, like the van body, had to be built from scratch."

Now the fully restored Otter is ready for work again, but its load will be a good deal lighter from now on.

As a valuable part of the company's history, not to mention Britain's automotive heritage, the Otter will be used at various events to promote Silentnight and its products.

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