OUR daily lives would come to a grinding halt without the supplies which are moved around the country by commercial road transport.

Up to the Second World War, the movement of most types of goods for shops and equipment and raw materials for industry was moved by rail.

A flood of ex-army and RAF petrol and diesel vehicles was sold off after the war.

They were converted to 101 uses from garage breakdown recovery trucks to long-distance heavy haulage wagons and door-to-door delivery vans.

As we got used to goods being delivered directly to homes, shops and factories, more firms sprang up to provide specialist vehicles.

Examples of many of them – and associated road transport collectables - were on show at last weekend’s Cumbria Steam Gathering at Cark Airfield.

If you want to see more vintage commercial vehicles, there is a good opportunity to watch them in action on Saturday and Sunday, September 2 to 3.

There is a 9.30am Saturday start from Keswick for the 15th Cumberland Trunk Run, which takes a tour through much of West and South Cumbria.

The Saturday route takes the vehicles to the Carnforth Truck Stop for lunch – via Kendal, Kikrby Lonsdale.

Then it is back to St Bees to finish the day at the Seacote Hotel, via Greenodd and the A595 through West Cumbria.

Sunday’s road run is from St Bees and up the coast to Workington and then Maryport, finishing for lunch at the White Heather Hotel.

Among the commercial vehicles on show at Cark was an Ulverston-based Foden Model S21A which was shown by father and son, Howard and Jon Turner.

It started life in coal and coke haulage, in Walsall in March 1964 and then in Lichfield from 1969.

From 1979 to 1991 it did quarry work after getting a new engine and gearbox.

It was restored in 1992 and appeared at its first show in 1996.

The collections tent at Cark had a range of traffic signs shown by Mr M. Harriman.

A new range of signs was introduced by the Ministry of Transport in 1919 and they were in used until the Worboys Committee of 1965 saw the standardised range of signs we see today.

Most of the equipment used to fix our roads has changed greatly through the decades but a visitor to Cark would still recognise the group of road hammers which were shown by Mr A. Sedgwick.