At weekends you’ll find Dougie Condon down the club playing with his band to a packed audience. He and his brother are really popular and have a huge following all over West Cumbria. His day job takes him much further – Manchester, Birmingham, London and beyond. Sometimes he’s away for days on end. Over 30 years a truck driver, Dougie knows all about transport logistics…

It’s all about timing really – taking one load to Newcastle or wherever, trying to avoid the rush hour and picking up another load in say Bradford for the return journey. If I miss one pick up then I’ll miss the next and the next. Trucks waiting for my goods also get delayed. It’s a domino effect. Everybody’s hanging around and at the end of the day it’s the customer that suffers.

And, despite his super 430 bhp DAF truck, journeys can take just as long now as they did 30 years ago in his old 130 bhp Atkinson Borderer.

There’s a lot more motorways and all these bypasses which is great! But there’s just so much more traffic. All it takes is one accident, a breakdown or some roadworks and you can be stuck for hours. We need to get traffic jams sorted out much quicker, the job is stressful enough. Congestion charging is a bit of a pain because a lot of truck drivers have to pay it themselves – not the haulage companies. But if it cuts down on jams and helps get the goods delivered on time then the customer’s happy.

And that includes Dougie’s fans at the club on Friday night!