![]() This week I spent three days shooting at the Commercial Vehicle Show. Perhaps she saw it as she peered out from her pram as a child? As power has changed from steam through to petrol and diesel, throughout her lifetime, I’m sure the Queen would give her Royal seal of approval to the latest commercial vehicles powered by renewable energy. One of the steam-rollers I photographed at the weekend – on the right – was built one year before our Monarch’s birth. Two decades further back, at the time of her birth, commercial vehicles were even more rudimentary – most still had solid tyres and many were steam-powered. The Queen worked on these, qualifying as a truck mechanic in the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service before becoming an Ambulance driver in 1945. Wind back the clock a little more and you’ll probably picture WW2 flat-bed trucks fitted with canvas covers. Three tractions engines are decorated with Union flags minutes before the opening of North Staffs and Cheshire Traction Engine Club’s two-day Steam Party at Klondyke Mill which will see dozens of steam-powered rollers, agricultural equipment and classic cars displayed at Draycott in the Clay, Staffordshire. L/R: 1890 Fowler-Allen roller, 1908 Wallis & Steevens agricultural traction engine and 1925 ‘Mary Anne’ Wallis & Steevens advance. The most iconic vehicle from the decade, the Routemaster double-decker-bus, was only phased out in 2005 and still resonates with us today. There are plenty of black and white photos from the period showing models from Morris and Bedford – often with sliding drivers’ doors – sharing the streets with little Austin panel vans. ![]() It’s easy to imagine commercial vehicles on the roads of Britain at the time of the Queen’s Coronation. I positioned my Proace City for a photo in front of a trio of enormous old traction engines. I headed to Klondyke Mill in Draycott-in-the Clay, for the North Staffs and Cheshire Traction Engine Club’s annual Steam Party. This week I wanted to photograph a vehicle with some relevance to the Platinum Jubilee celebrations. In this weekly diary, Rod shares his experiences of being a Toyota Proace City owner. ![]() Rod, in his trusty Proace City compact van, travels the length and the breadth of the UK in search of images and stories for both national and local newspapers. It’s fair to say that professional photographer Rod Kirkpatrick gets about a bit.
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