Tk Bedford

My Father used to keep lorries like this one.
He worked at collecting scrap metal all his life.
In the spring of 1971 we were staying about three miles outside Fort William, we had two trailers on a piece of ground just off the main road.
One morning My Father went away early before I was up, he was going to Perth.
Later in the day me and my Mother went into Fort William to get shopping and we went to visit my Mother's brother Jimmy Stewart who had a house at the time in Claggan.
By this time it was the afternoon and there was a knock at my uncle's door it was a young policeman telling us that my Father had an accident with his lorry.
He had a head on crash with a Hemphill tanker on a narrow bend between Tyndrum and Crianlarich.
The chassis on his lorry was lower than the chassis on the other lorry so his cab took the full impact the men in the other lorry were okay but my Father was critically injured.
He was kept alive until he reached the hospital by a retired lady Doctor who went with him in the ambulance to Stirling. She was driving behind him when he had the accident and had her bag with her out of habit.
Five months later he came out of the Hospital on crutches.