In 1969, E.K. Cole's factory, the Ekco Electronics Works on the Sweynes Industrial Estate, off Ashingdon Road, Rochford, was closed down, causing much unemployment in the area. The old Ekco building was taken over by the Lesney’s toy factory. It became the largest employer in Rochford, and in the first year of production there business trebled.

At one time over 2,000 people were employed there working both day and night shifts, making model cars. Special Lesney buses brought workers in from Shoebury, Southend and Rayleigh. The company wanted to build a road around the estate, but locals complained about the number of huge lorries that would be thundering past their houses. It wasn’t long before the firm ran into difficulties, and went into receivership in 1981/82. Many people lost their jobs and shares were suspended. The company continued trading under a different name, Matchbox, and its fortunes fluctuated.

This was an adhoc range of toys rather than models that ensured Lesney Products was remembered as a toy manufacturer rather than a diecast and electrical components manufacturer. By studying Dinky toys, the founding partners John (Jack) Odell and Leslie Smith came up with a line of 'economy models', that is, vehicles of one piece of heavy equipment that sold for much less than the Dinky models. The first toys, the Cement Mixer, the Caterpillar/Crawler Bulldozer, and the Aveling Barford Diesel Road Roller were made in the late 1940s.

Lesneys had their own rigid lorries; two long wheel-based Comma lorries (G-Reg.), and one short wheel-based Comma (E-Reg.). They were all liveried in red and grey and the Lesney name was painted on the doors. A few drivers used them to take lessons in, with an instructor, and put in for their HGV to get their Class 2 license. All at their own expense, of course, but it was handy for them because it was on the doorstep.

The Commas were two-stroke engines that were really noisey. They had powered-steering, but it wasn’t particularly effective, and they had a short lock. The gear selection was a normal 'H' gate, but the stick came out from the back of the cab. It often took a good few shunts to get into some of the loading bays, as they also had a large rear overhang to contend. They were quite gruesome things, really.

The long wheel-based lorries Commas used for factory deliveries around London, like Hackney, Abbey Wood, Chingford and Enfield. It would take nearly a whole day to get round them all, delivering and picking up. The short wheel-based Comma was used for more local deliveries, like taking homework to Runwell Hospital.
The Commas were eventually sold or scrapped, and two short wheel-based Dodges (TME 694S and TME 695S) were acquired.

The Lesney staff bus fleet was well known for its former London Transport RT types, some of which lasted long enough to gain the final "Stagecoach" style livery.
When any buses were off the road or they were short for any reason, they used to hire in from Southend Corporation Transport; usually a half-cab Leyland, long or short wheelbase, sometimes a single-decker, and now and again, one of their open-top 'seafront' buses (obviously roping off the stairs). If the drivers were really lucky, they got a semi-automatic Daimler Fleetline, which was then perhaps only two or three years old, and seemed like driving a Rolls Royce after the RT’s. They were longer and wider than the RT and there was the overhang at the front to contend with, so it took a couple of hours to get used to it. They didn’t have any ‘types’ familiarisation or training– you just got in it and drove.

Most of the buses belonged to Newman’s of Purfleet, and so they went back to him and he took them to Purfleet Test Centre for the M.O.T.. Lesneys started to buy their own buses, two short ‘Bull-nosed’ Leylands from Scotland, and a few RT’s with re-conditioned engines and gearboxes, and painted in Lesney’s colours, for £5,000 each. The M.O.T.’s on those vehicles were done at Chelmsford.

One of the fitters who lived in on Canvey but worked in Hackney (and used to work for the Post Office working on their lorries), transferred down to Rochford. There was no workshop at Lesneys, but they had an inspection pit installed out in the open, and they used to keep the motors up to scratch there. If a job was too big to handle, he would send the vehicle up to Hackney to have it done.

In the early seventies, all the buses were fuelled at Warrens garage, at the bottom of South Street, Rochford. They eventually sank a big diesel tank on the Lesney factory site, under the ground where the flower-bed used to be next to the factory, and they had their own pump installed. A master power switch was housed in a shed by the pump, which also doubled as a tea room for the drivers because, up to then, they didn’t actually have anywhere allocated to them for their breaks. They either had to walk up to the canteen where all the factory workers, or sit in the tool shed, or even on one of the buses. It did the drivers a big favour, because it was built larger than was really necessary, and they put in a desk, an old aircraft seat, a bus seat and made a right mess-room of it.

There was a narrow gantry that they would park the vehicle alongside, and from which the drivers used a hose, brush and bucket for the cleaning solution. When one side was done, the bus was turned around to do the other side. With the RT’s, a hose could be taken upstairs, and floor could be washed of all the old dog-ends and stuff, and hosed down the rear stairs, or out of the side vents.