Priestman Video Strikes a Chord (#ThrowbackThursday)

I have written numerous posts about the long-gone British excavator manufacturer Priestman Bros over the years, but over the weekend I came across this video which tells the historical story about the old Hull based company, which I found quite interesting.

Usually, I am not a fan of these types of videos, which use AI generated voiceovers and images clearly ‘farmed’ off the internet, in fact quite a large number of the images collated in the video have come from my archives and been posted on the Digger Man Blog in the past.

However, despite the fact that many of the images don’t tally up with the commentary, and the inclusion of random images like the Kobelco excavator, the video from the Lost Industries You Tube channel, is still a good watch, especially for the rare footage of the Hedon Road factory where the machines were built back in the day.

There is a lot of talk about the famous orange paint that adorned these machines, but they don’t mention that during the Sanderson era of ownership, they were actually painted yellow.

I operated Priestman Mustang 108S and 220 excavators back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and I always found them to be very good machines, as such they will always have a special place in my heart.

I was also delighted to hear the name of Ex-Priestman employee Bill Bromwich mentioned in the piece, over the years I have had numerous communications with Bill and he has very kindly sent me a lot of archive material about Priestmans, one of these days I hope to meet the man in person to shake his hand. 

It also brought back memories of the days when working on building sites was a fun and fantastic job, with great camaraderie and lads all pulling together for the greater good.

Anyway, if you have the time, enjoy the video for what it is, a trip down memory lane, via Hedon Road!