Company Profile
The Early Years..
A selection of images from the early beginnings of macs, showing how far the recovery industry has come over the years.(provided with thanks by Gary Ratcliffe)
The vehicle chassis is a Daf 2800 6x4 heavy duty tractor unit gtw 108 tonnes. Gearbox was Fuller 16 speed splitter range change, driving twin Rockwell hub reduction axles with cross locks,additional braking capacity was achived by fitting a Telma torque converter. The chassis was extended to accomodate the Holmes 750 equipment along with a Darlington extra heavy duty drag winch. This was probably the first heavy recovery vehicle to come fitted with air conditioning as standard.
This image was taken in 1976 in Blackwater Way Aldershot, picture shows on the right Frank Mc Allister joined by the newest recruit to the team a very young Gary Ratcliffe, Gary spend the next decade under the vigilant eye of Frank Mc Allister. he commented that Frank taught him all he learned about recovery and life in general, he could be a hard man to please but we all wanted to emulate him, he had the call sign recovery one and that is how we saw him, number one the boss! It some times appeared to us that he only had to look at a difficult job and it got sorted!
Below is a very young Jack Armsorth sorting out the air cushion unit around 1980
Company line up showing Bedford 4x2 TM, Ford D serties, Dodge commander, Leyland Terrier air van.
Below Ford D100 with Hiab 550, first in the industry in background Holmes WP45 (1979)
early underlift shot beleived x head on EKA
Below arrival at scene loaded 8 wheeler on its side in a ditch, usual stuff nice narrow road no room to work, attending are Leyland marathon 6x4 with holmes 750 and a Daf 2800 fitted with the first Century 1050 in europe, this piece of equipment featured a single extending boom and twin winches and rear hydraulic stiff legs, also attending was the Leyland air cushion unit.
Aec Mammoth Major 6x4 extra heavy duty rig again with Holmes 750
Below is a nightmare situation, could it get worse, a runaway fuel tanker overturns in the middle of Farnham town centre, note the petrol spilling from the damage portals on the tank, apparently they vehicle has just come out being serviced at Theale nr Reading, instead of clicking the brakes up the apprectice clicked them off, the vehicle entered Castle hill in Farnham, the brakes were not worked efficiently they quickly over heated the drums which expanded away from the brake shoes on the tanker which resulted in a complete run away situation.
The driver could see the tee junction coming up and decided against going left as he knew he would probably fatally injure himself when the inevitable overturning of the vehicle would happen so he decided to turn right into the oncoming traffic, at that point providence took a hand, the traffic light went to red just before he made his frantic turn to the right, that meant that the two damaged cars on the direct lane were at risk and did sustain damage, the tanker overturned and the fuel spilled everywhere down alley ways, into pub cellars, into Elliots shop down the storm drains however by some stroke of luck it did not ignite, again two holmes 750 and air cushions sorted the job out. Another spectaculer recovery carried out by the emerging Mc Allisters team!
This image taken around 1978 shows an overturned continental tanker on the A31 near Alton in Hampshire, this show the effective use of air cushion, the guy sitting on the seat operating the air cushions hidden behind the beard is David Mc Allister
Picture and a 1000 words come too mind, note the old hand mangle crane on the ex military chassis parkd at the front of the incident, note the posture of the two operators standing there in their buff coloured workshop coats!
Overturned meat lorry just off J5 M3 north warnborough, the 5th wheel had snapped off the tractor unit so total improvisation was the order of the day, a pivot point and landing stack was created using railway sleepers to the front end of the box trailer, using the air cushions and again the two holmes 750 units the job was succesfully completed. Note the carnaby street trendy cloth safey helmets!
Below is what can only be classified as a tough hard recovery, a fully freight articulated meat truck has gone down the motorway embankment and overturned on its side. First it had to be righted using air cushions and a Holmes 750, note the chassis it was fitted too, a Diamond T Brockway one monster of a truck but very suited to this type of extremely heavy winching job, the whole operation took some 12 hours.
Chris and John Young decide on a plan!
The plan in action
Either way this is where it gets personal, that truck is coming out off here...end off!
Time to go ploughing up the embankment
job done now on the hard shoulder note the darknes has fallen!
Time to clean and stow the kit for the next one
This is it not long to go now just hope we have the stamina to keep going!
