Thompson, Hugh - Hugh Thompson, Bellingham haulage contractor
By Eileen Walton (nee Thompson).
Hugh Thompson worked at a small coal pit at Shilburnhaugh in 1926, while at that time living in part of a rented farmhouse with Nan and Will Waitt, (my aunt and uncle) and their three sons Alan, Victor, and Thompson. I was just a few month’s old then. Then in 1927 a fall in the pit meant it had to be closed down. Our family then moved back to Bellingham and rented the Bridge-End cottage from Hesleyside estate.
My father, Hugh Thompson was now driving his own wagon, and we nearly moved to Scotland as dad was awarded a contract for his wagon, making a road between Fort William and Fort Augustus, but it was all cancelled due probably to the 1926/27 crash.
In 1928, my brother Tom was born at the Bridge-End cottage. However, my father went on with his work and by the 1930s had a couple of wagons, and he employed his brothers Harry and Bill for a new contract working on the road improvement scheme at Starward. They lived in a caravan during the week and on weekends came home, leaving a local chap to look after the caravan.
By 1932/33 my father had developed TB which was a killer in those days. When the first Council houses were built in Bellingham along Reedsmouth Road, we moved from the Bridge End cottage to one of the new houses. We also had a baby brother called Kenneth by then, but he died at 18m months of age in July 1934 of tubercular meningitis.
In 1936, dad went into Wooley Sanitorium but was their for only 3 months before returning home to look after the business, as November and May were very busy times as farm hands and their belongings moved from farm to farm. The cattle wagon was used to do all the moving of the farm hands’ furniture and personal effects, while the other wagons were working out of quarries and on local council work.
The business was going quite well by then, and my father had five wagons employing his two brothers along with Jake Cowan, Tommy Smith, and Noel Scott. Later on when Noel left to become an engine driver on the railways, his brother Cyril took his place. They all worked for Dad for quite a number of years before retiring.
The year 1939 saw the beginning of the war and the military took over our only new wagon and the next best one that we had, so we were once again left with older type wagons. The best one we had was converted into the cattle wagon, but it was involved in an accident at the Knot-of-the-Gate in Scotland and was written off. It had been transporting sheep from Catcleugh Farm to Carlisle when it ran off the road and down a steep embankment. No one was hurt as the two occupants bailed out.
By then my father was pretty ill and he died in May 1941 aged 42. My Mother kept the business going right up into her eighties.
In 1948 my brother Tom was demobilised from his National Service and became part of the business where he had a few idea’s of his own such as going to army surplus sales to acquire one or two wagons. By then Alan Waitt a cousin was a new driver, and a guiding hand too, where he helped to arrange new contracts with a cement marketing company and British Gypsum at Cocklakes Carlisle. He also got work for the Forestry Commission transporting timber and did quite well right up into the late 1980s.