Miller’s Transport, Rose Lane
Millers Close is named after this family, not after an anonymous grain miller!
George Russell: At the other end of Rose Lane lived Johnny Miller, who did haulage works with horses – he also had his yard and stables there. Later when Johnny bought his first lorry, his son Bert came home to drive it for his father and lived next door with his family.
It was a Ford lorry with a canvas top and sides and during the week carried tar barrels or pigs, then after a good scrub wooden seats would be put in at the weekend to transport the local football team.
After his father’s death Bert carried on the business and moved into his father’s house.
Fred and Cicely Buckle: The fire engine was parked in the Fox yard, a big copper boiler on the back, 4 rubber-tyred wheels. If there was a fire, the factory hooter would sound once for in-village, twice for out-of-village; Mr Miller (who had a carrier business down Rose lane) would nip along with his lorry and hitch up.
Mr Miller had a haulage business, eventually had 2 big lorries. Miller Close is named after him.
Charles Nunn: Married Ivy Miller on her 21st birthday in 1941; her grandfather Jonathan Miller, and then father Bert, had a carrier business running a service to markets etc, Bury and Stowmarket…
Bert carried, horses initially….; supplied horses to pull the tarpots when they started macadaming the roads; also pulled the Elmswell fire engine: this was then a longish machine with a long wooden handle on either side, 4 or 5 men each side – he remembers it visited Norton for a demo – the only time he saw it himself. Of course this was before the Greene King steam one came.
The business was in Rose Lane, the first locally to have a petrol lorry; George Hurst used to drive for him, and Bert’s son Ron who eventually also took over, but for health reasons Ron couldn’t carry on and the firm folded.
Jean Folkard: Millers Transport was on the east side of Rose Lane