Weird things that happen at night..

Last night, (or this morning) around 12:30, I was on my way back from Lubbock, passing through the tiny town of Guthrie. I don't even know if they have enough people for a population. I might also add that the towns along highway 82 in west Texas are roughly 30 miles apart, and they are very small in size, with nothing in between. I was driving along, and here comes a truck heading westbound (I was eastbound), which was a WalMart truck, and a car behind him. About a half mile behind them was blue and red lights coming. Sheriff's pickup. At first, I thought maybe the sheriff was after the car, but when he went by, I heard his siren. I don't remember seeing anything, or anyone on the side of the road. It's not every night you see lights and a siren in no man's land. I kinda wondered what might have been going on for a minute, and then I went back to watching what I was doing..
About 10 miles later, here comes another set of disco lights. This time, it was a DOT man in a Tahoe. I heard his siren for a split second, as he flew by. Now I am really wondering what happened. I never saw anything, anywhere. And what could possibly go wrong in west Texas, where there's nothing between the you and the North Pole but a barb wire fence, but it's things like that that make ya go, hmmmmm...

 

thats awsome man lol

 

Doctor Who, what is the name of your book? I was reading your stories for the last few days and I'd love to get my hands on an actual printed material. If you are not published yet, when do you plan to be? I wanna be one of your first buyers.
p.s. was gonna send a pm, but couldn't do so.

 

One day I shall come back. Yes I shall come back. Until then there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me I am not mistaken in mine

 

Well I'm back. Another tale from the Asphalt Side!!

Dealing with a serious medical problem I'm stuck home all day and it does get bloody boring, so I decided to go for a walk since the temp was 75 degrees. The walk up the boulevard was rather uneventful but the walk back made the day rather interesting.

As I was wandering back I noticed the traffic was seriously backed up that's when I noticed a truck blocking the entire boulevard I also noticed a Wilson City LEO getting rather frustrated with the driver.
I continued to walk on by when the LEO saw me and he knew me. He came over to me and asked if I could back the truck in for the damn fool driver.
I told the LEO that due to my medical condition I did not have a CDL, plus the medical professional said i should no longer drive period.

He told me he would over look the problem just to get the Boulevard clear. I walked over to the cab and asked the driver to move over and let me back the truck in. I also noticed that in the traffic back up was fire fighters trying to get through. I will add that the truck was a POS Freightliner, also I had to back in blind side.

I did get the truck to the dock then asked the driver if he has ever been to Philly or New York. He did say no I told him he's going to have fun!

The LEO did thank me for the help but the driver did not. The LEO gave me a ride back to the house. It sure did get the neighbours curious!

Before I leave I will say that the Wife found out and she told me that she would spank me if I move another truck again!!

And that's all. Have a safe ride!

 

Great Posts here.

Wish I'd stayed at home.


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By Newmercman On TrucKNet

This story comes from around 1991, I've worked this out from the car I was driving at the time. As you'll see the car plays an important role in the tale.

I had a job running abroad that was a four weeks on, six days off deal, because of that I hadn't taken any holiday that year. My kids were young and with a week off up to ten times a year, the mrs and I had taken them to all the theme parks and did a few Butlins weeks here and there, but was still entitled to two weeks holiday, which i decided to take over Christmas, I got back from my last four week stint a few days before Christmas, so my holiday never started until my six days off finished.

The first week and a bit was good, all my mates were off work, so there was plenty of socialising and we got round to seeing all the family we wanted to see. then everyone started back to work and I was stuck at home, it wasn't the weather for going away and the bank balance had took a beating over Christmas, mainly due to my attempt to get in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's largest Scalextric layout. I was seriously considering knocking the wall down between the kitchen and dining room to give my son and I a bit more room to use all the track I had bought for him.

I then got a phone call off a mate asking when I was shipping out, I told him I was off for another couple of weeks and we left it at that. A couple of hours later he called back and said a mate of his was stuck for a driver to do a trip and asked if I was interested, I mentioned it to my beloved and she ran upstairs and started packing my case! I phoned my mate back and got the bloke's number, called him and got a few details of the job. I had to meet him at his yard, which was near Chelmsford, about an hour away from where I lived, so I arranged to go and see him the next day.

I got to his yard and couldn't find anyone around, I waited for an hour or so then got the hump and started on my way home, at a big roundabout I was waiting behind a few cars for a gap to appear, the car in front of me pulled away, so I looked to my right, saw nothing coming so pulled away. BANG! I hit the car in front, for some reason the bloke had stopped, even though there was nothing coming, I had mangled the front of my car, both headlights and indicators were smashed, the grille was busted and the bumper was all bent, the bonnet and wings were ok, but that was no consolation. The other bloke's car was a mess too, I don't need to go over the conversation we had as I'm sure you can imagine how that went. We swapped details and I carried on home, now pissed off big time as I only had third party insurance and was looking at a good few hundred quid to get my car sorted out. It was an Orion 1.6i Ghia, in black for those of you who wish to picture the scene, the other car was a beige Triumph Acclaim, I know what you're thinking, all the signs that he would do something stupid were there.

So, I get home and the mrs tells me that the bloke had rung me. I want reveal his name for reasons that will become apparent as the story unfolds. The next step was now to meet him at the yard later that evening, he ddn't need to see me beforehand, the recommendation from my mate was good enough for him, wish I'd known this earlier as my car would still be in one piece. Anyway I packed my stuff into the car, said my goodbyes and set off to the yard. Upon my arrival I could see that there were no units there now, on my earlier visit I had seen a couple of tidy Turbostars there, but now there were none. It turned out that my lorry was just being serviced and had been fitted with four new back tyres and we had to go to the garage to pick it up from there and then I was to go to Watford to pick up my trailer from there. So I threw my bedding and case in the bloke's car and off we went.

At the garage I waited in his car while he sorted out the bill, he came back and said it would be a while, they were out on roadtest at the moment. Just then an old S reg Merc pulled in the yard, it was quite tidy and he remarked on that, I agreed and noticed the badge on the door, 1632, this meant it was the big V10 and we had a little chat about that, he seemed to know quite a lot about this lorry and then it dawned on me that the lorry I was waiting for was in fact not a nice newish Turbostar, but this old dog of a Merc, I had serious reservations, but as I was stood there with all my gear and no car to escape in, I was kind of stuck, telling the bloke bollocks was going to look bad on my mate, so I decided to get on with it.

I gave it a bit of a wipe down inside and looked around, it was in pretty decent nick to be fair and then I noticed there was no night heater controls, so I asked the bloke about that, he then gave me a gallon of some liquid and a red evice that looked like a gas stove and said that was the night heater, ok, not what I was used to, but heat is heat. So I set off to Watford to pick up the trailer. I arrived in the yard, found the trailer, banged under it, hooked up and pulled it off the bay to close the rear flap and seal it. The trailer was a stepframe tilt, it looked in pretty decent shape and was from the TIP rental fleet. As it was my first time with it I thought it would be a good idea to have a roll around underneath and make sure all was as it should be, check the brakes and adjust as necessary.

It was at this point that I got another sign to turn around and go home. Instead of the twelve wheels and tyres I was expecting, there were only ten! The center axle only had the outer wheels and tyres. I was taking down a load of antiques, well it looked like a load of junk to me, old window frames and doors and that kind of thing, but it wasn't heavy and my reload was going to be a full load of tyres, so again it wouldn't be heavy, so I shrugged my shoulders, pulled up the brake and got on my way.

By now it was dark and the temperature was dropping, I cranked up the heater and settled down for the run to Dover, except cranking up the heater had no effect whatsoever, all I could get from the heater vents was tepid air at best. The big V10 in the Merc was not really working hard and with a 19litre capacity it wasn't going to be running too hot anyway, I suspected the thermostats had been removed as well as the temperature gauge was running on the low side, but this was the least of my problems as the cab felt like it was made from a net curtain as there were drafts coming from everywhere, I was bloody freezing.

The next step was drama free, I arrived at Dover, I already had my paperwork so checked in with the ferry operator, stood on the steps and got my T form stamped, went back with my stamped up piece of paper and got allocated a lane for the boat to Calais. I ran through the usual procedure on the boat of dinner in the driver's lounge and a visit to the duty free for a carton of B&H and waited for Calais to appear on the horizon before going back to the Merc, getting my paperwork together and getting my FF10 ready for the Douanes Benevolent Fund collection before I could leave the dock and get down the road.

I debated on running the corridor and down through Belgium, I was going Swiss as I was light, but before I left Calais I noticed that the lorries from Belgium, Holland and Germany had snow all over the front, but the Italian and Spanish lorries didn't, so I thought it best to avoid the Ardennes and run down to Reims and across the RN4, but that was going to be tomorrow's problem, my destination that night was the first services past St Omer. I made it that far with no problems and settled down for the night, it was a bit chilly so I fired up the burner thing and jumped into bed, it kicked out a surprising amount of heat and I was soon in the land of nod, only to awake a couple of hours later freezing my tits off, I hadn't used enough fluid and it had ran dry, I also had a banging headache, which I assumed came from the fumes, so I cracked the window down a bit more, refilled the heater and got back under the covers for the rest of the night. I awoke in the morning, cold again as the poxy thing had ran out of juice during the night and my headache had got worse. A cup of murky brown liquid from the vending machine in the services did little to warm me up or help with my headache, but that was the best I was going to get there, so I set off towards Reims and looked forward to lunch at the Centre Routiers.

Within five minutes of leaving I ran into the snow and it was coming down good, but the roads were well salted and I could still make good progress, except for one thing, I was absolutely freezing, my legs were going numb with the cold, I went through my case and got a few pairs of socks out and started stuffing them into any gap that looked like it was letting cold air in, but I soon ran out of socks!

My hands were also going numb now, I could only get ice cold air to blow through the vents and the exhaust was getting smoky too as the temperature gauge was barely above the bottom mark, so I blocked off the radiator at the next services with a ripped up cardboard box, it did little to help, but even a little heat was better than none, at least the windows stopped misting up and I could no longer see my breath, I also purchased a sleeping bag and a pair of them silly moon boots, they were two sizes too small, but as I had lost all feeling in my trotters it didn't matter anyway. The Les Routiers sleeping back was placed over my legs, I had my coat on and also my work gloves, not something I would usually have dreamed of doing, but a dirty steering wheel was the least of my worries.

The rest of the day was spent driving, stopping every hour or so to thaw out and then driving again, I made it to the French/Swiss border at St Louis and parked for the night, I walked through the border to a little restaurant ran by a Swiss ex M/E driver, had dinner and got pickled so I could spend the night in a drunken stupor instead of waking up cold multiple times, I had given up on the burner thing by this point as I had come to the conclusion that it was the source of my headache after running it while coming down the road in a vain attempt at getting some heat into the cab. It was tll snowing as I staggered back to the lorry.

Sunrise came, but couldn't be seen as the snow was still falling, I paid my tax and set off for Chiasso, it was a pretty crappy day to be out on the road and my stop at every service area to thaw out method was adding to my frustrations. The Holding compound before the border was open and I spent a couple of hours in there before being allowed to head down to the border. I bumped into a driver I knew and sat in his warm cab as we waited for permission to leave, he offered me his top bunk that night, but unfortunately he was only going as far as Milan, whereas I was pushing on a bit as I was delivering just south of Pescara and I wanted to get cleared and tipped the next day, as anyone who has been there will know, this would involve a good long drive, which was not going to be much fun at all in the Iceberg on wheels, but I was more concerned with getting it over and done with asap than I was with driver's hour's regulations. Not that anybody cared about them much in those days.

I arrived at customs in the early hours of the morning, I had anticipated warmer weather, but I was wrong, it was still snowing and still bloody freezing in the Merc. I was stood in the reception area of the agent's building waiting for them to arrive, one because I wanted to get sorted quickly and two, because it was a lot warmer than sitting in the cab, I had my extra sleeping bag to ward off drafts as I was driving, but it was only a cheap and nasty thing and it didn't make much difference when I tried to sleep. It only took a couple of hours to get the magic stamps on my papers and I set off in search of my delivery.

The town I was delivering to must have been the only town in Italy without a snack bar, so I broke all the laws of international lorry driving and jumped in the trailer to help them unload, at least it warmed me up a bit. During one of the many coffee breaks they had I was leaning against the wall waiting for them to come back, the miserable gits never invited me in for coffee! A Jeep pulled up behind the trailer and a young bird jumped out and started gobbing off at me in Italian, I was pretty good at it myself back then, so we ended up chatting for a moment or two and then she asked me where the driver was, I told her she was talking to him and then she started speaking English to me, it turned out she was English and was working as a nanny to he local doctor. During this conversation I learned that she had just split up with her boyfriend and was bored and lonely and wondered if I fancied going out later that evening. Being spoken for, I of course declined, saying that I was loading on the other side of the country the following morning, but she forced her phone number on me, saying if I was ever in the area and we'll say no more about that...

Once empty I made my way across country to Latina, parked outside the factory and bedded down for the night, I went across on a motorway that had a lorry ban on it and had murders at the peage, I played dumb and just kept waving the 30,000lira fee at the bloke in the booth and he eventually got bored and let me go. I think the ban had something to do with the weather, it was of course still snowing, but I'm not sure, it could have been a weak bridge, whatever, I was way past giving a [zb] by this time.

No need to set an alarm, I was going to be woken up from being cold long before that could start beeping at me and sure enough that was what happened, I went to the security gate and gave them my load number, only to be told to come back Monday, it was Saturday morning. I told the security guard that I was loading today as I had been told that by the bloke I was doing the trip for, this was met with a typical Italian response and again I was told to come back on Monday, the factory was shut and that was that. I felt like crying, not only was it still snowing, but I had turned down the chance at charming my way into a nice warm bed the day before. I drove off in search of a phone box to find out what was going on.

Nobody was answering the phone number I had been given, my mate who set me up with the trip was out on a trip himself, so I had no choice but to sit and wait until Monday, so that's what I did. I dropped the trailer and did the tourist thing, went and saw the beaches where the US troops had landed, visited something to do with Mussolini and then made my way up to Rome for a tour of the Coliseum, as I was travelling light I never had a camera, which was a shame as this was the most touristy thing I ever did in the times I ran over the water. I was on my own as well, so it wasn't much fun, but at least I wasn't sat in that poxy Merc freezing my tits off. It was still snowing on and off too just to compound my misery.

I seriously considered coming home, but you can't do things like that, even though the bloke had took me for an idiot and given me this heap of junk to drive, you can't go around doing things like that, so I sat with it.

Monday came and I was first though the gate, being awake all night freezing cold helped there. I was loaded and on my way in a couple of hours or so and felt a lot better, t was still snowing and freezing cold, but at least I was heading in the right direction, the hilly terrain and a heavier load also allowed the engine to get a little warmer and I could drive without gloves for the first time. I was still stopping every hour or so to get a hot drink inside me, but it wasn't as bad as it was on the way down. I made good time and it was still daylight as I rolled down the big hill towards Bologna.

Then disaster struck, well nearly, it was still a disaster, but it could've been a whole lot worse. I felt a vibration coming through the lorry, due to the loss of feelings in my extremities it was hard to tell where it was coming from, but something was definitely wrong somewhere, so i pulled into the next services and had a good look around, my initial suspicion was a wheel bearing, so I had a feel around the front hubs and they didn't feel too hot, I checked the tyres, they were ok, in fact apart from the two that were absent from the trailer, they were all in good shape, especially the brand new ones on the drive axle. So with nothing standing out I set off again, by the time I got to Parma the vibration had got a lot worse, I had been trying different things as I ran up the road to try and identify where I should look and I had decided that it was possibly that the propshaft had lost a balance weight as the vibration was more pronounced under acceleration.

The best way to inspect the prop is to slide underneath, so I did, I could see any signs of a missing weight, so I pulled myself back out. It was then that I noticed the wheelnuts laying in the back passenger side wheel, eight of them and the two that were still attached were side by side! Oh [zb], now I've got a problem, the holes in the rims were oval and the studs were in a right mess. I also noticed that the wheelnuts were flat faced nuts, not the cone nuts that should have been fitted to locate the wheels in place. It turned out that the tyre fitter had somehow managed to put the wrong nuts on when they changed the rear tyres. A phone call was made and as usual, nobody answered.

I had another number, this one for the firm he was subbing the load for so I contacted them, told them the problem, told them what it needed to fix it, new rims, the proper wheelnuts, new studs and probably a new drum too, told them where I was and said I'd call back later to get an update. The bloke on the phone seemed to know what he was doing and I went back to the lorry to wait for someone to show up. It was still cold, but at least it had stopped snowing. As the evening wore on I realised that nobody was coming out that night and retired to the services for an evening on the Peroni. I managed a few hours sleep that night thanks to the vast quantity of alcohol I consumed.

Sat in the restaurant the next day nursing a hangover and a very welcome Latte Machiatto I noticed a van pull up next to the Merc, two old boys jumped out and started getting tools out of the van, I almost jumped with joy and ran out to the parking area. My joy was shortlived, they had brought along a torque wrench and nothing else. It wasn't a completely wasted journey for them though as they learned how to use every swear word in the English dictionary in their short time in my company. I went back to the phones and tried in vain to contact the owner of the lorry. Back on the phone to the bloke who sorted the load out, he apologised for the confusion and promised that the two old boys would be back with all the stuff I needed to get going again now that they had seen what I needed, the very same stuff I had already told him I needed the day before!

Another night in the restaurant on the piss, by this time I had blown all my own money and was delving into the running money, not that I cared, I should've been sat at home playing Scalextric with my boy by now, not stuck in Italy with a self destructing piece of junk freezer on wheels. The next afternoon the old boys turned up with two new rims to replace the ones they took the day before, a new drum and set about putting it back together, this time withe the correct wheelnuts too, which was a bonus. I had already got them to check the other side just in case the tyre fitter had put the wrong ones there, but they were as they should be, so I was on my way again within an hour of them arriving. I had arranged for more running money with the bloke whose load it was and I had to pick that up from an agent at Como.

But all that could wait, I had another destination in mind, Carisio. I needed to speak to the bloke who I was doing the trip for, I was promised that I would be loaded and on my way home on Saturday morning, that was a lie, then I had the problems with the lorry, which I know wasn't directly his fault, but it certainly wasn't my fault and I wanted a bit more money than we had agreed upon once all that was taken into consideration, my lack of contact with him despite numerous attempts to reach him on the phone had done little to make me feel any better about the whole thing.

I rolled into Carisio that night, had some dinner and attempted to phone the bloke again, I eventually got through to him and then things went from bad to worse, he had obviously had a drink and started hollering down the phone at me, I told him to FO and said he could find his POS lorry in Carisio, I was getting a lift home with a mate. And that is what I planned to do, but first I got a room. I was still frozen to the bone and I needed a decent night's kip, the most I had managed in the previous week was a couple of hours here and there. I went up to the room, ran a bath and sat in it most of the night, draining out the water as it cooled down and topping it off with hot water, it was the best feeling in the world, finally I was warm.

During the night I had thought about things and decided to give the bloke another call before I abandoned ship, I got through straight away and he started by apologising for the night before, we reached an agreement for a bit of extra money and in light of his Lord Lucan behaviour I insisted that he meet a mate of mine and give him the money before I left Carisio, he reluctantly agreed and I called my mate and set up the meet. My threat to leave the lorry was just that, a threat, so I made my way up to the agent at Como and picked up the promised money. It had started to snow again.

I managed to get through Swiss that day and parked for a few hours sleep at Mulhouse, when I inevitably woke up freezing cold I set off again and then it was big licks to Calais, I had a green card when I got off the boat, so apart from a brief phone call to the mrs from the wheelhouse I was good to go, she confirmed that I had been paid the money that we had agreed upon and I took the lorry back to the yard, parked it up, got in my poor mangled car and drove home, I have never been so glad to pull into my drive in all my life.

 

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Wish I'd stayed at home 2

by Newmercman On TruckNet


Continuing my series of trips that I wished I’d stayed at home for, here’s the next installment, it's more than 25yrs ago, so the details are a little sketchy in places…

I had a very good job, like all good jobs it changed and was no longer such a good job, so I found myself looking for something else, I knew a few people and one of them put me in touch with a bloke and I had another job. I wouldn’t say it was a good job, but it was alright, I could earn a decent wage and it was going over the water, which I enjoyed.

The lorry wasn’t as good as the one I just parked for the final time, but I was quite looking forward to driving it as it was rather iconic, in fact I would say it was the most iconic of all the iconic lorries. A big Henry, the mighty Ford Transcontinental, it was green and orange, so it certainly stood out from the crowd and had a matching green tilt trailer, which helped the looks a bit, but it was still green and orange, quite why anyone would paint a lorry in those colours is beyond me, but that’s what it was.

The work wasn’t bad, full loads of waste paper, lead or forklift engines down to Italy and groupage back, I shipped out Tuesday night and got back Sunday morning, a casual driver would tip and reload it on Monday and Tuesday ready for me to do it all again. It was a good system for the bloke that owned the lorry as it meant he got a trip a week out of it and it worked for me too as I was on trip money, it was quite good trip money to be fair, but I needed a trip a week to keep her indoors in the manner that she wanted to become accustomed to.

Then it all changed, in hindsight it done me a right favour, as time went on I did a few loads for a company that I ended up getting a very well paid job with, but at the time it was a bloody nightmare. In his wisdom the bloke that owned the lorry decided he wanted to get into the fridge game, only it was to become all too clear that he hadn’t done much research into the fridge game as you will see as you read on, assuming that you don’t lose the will to live before then.

The trip started out as normal, I went to the lorry and loaded my gear into it, the boss man turned up with my running money. (No cards on this firm) The lorry was full of fuel and it had twin tanks so I could get right down the bottom of France before topping off the tanks, if I was just doing a quick Como and going Swiss I could nip into Italy and get back into France on the diesel I carried, but this was a heavy load so I would be going Frejus and would top off before I got into Italy as French fuel was cheaper, not as cheap as the fuel in the larger of my two tanks, but that is a whole different story.

For the first time I actually had a proper fridge load, potatoes for a crisp factory in Novara, this meant a trip to the “vet” before getting the all clear on the paperwork at the Italian border, this meant that Frejus was out of the question as getting the vet out to the Italian customs which was in Modane on the French side of the tunnel was a hit and miss affair, I believe there was an arrangement with the customs in Susa for certain products like empty cows (skins) to go there for the all important stamp, but I had no idea how any of that worked, so Mont Blanc it was.

Now I know I’m getting ahead of myself here, I hadn’t even left London yet and we’re already at the Italian border, but it’s all part of the story, as going Mont Blanc meant lots of tolls and my running money didn’t reflect that, I mentioned this to the boss and he said I would have enough as I was loading near Turin with chocolate so everything would be ok.

So I set off down the A2 to Dover, did the usual standing on the steps stuff and got on the ferry, I planned to get a few hours done when I got off at Calais and was aiming for Peronne. And that’s what I did, switching my fuel tank supply and return pipes over to the tank full of “special” diesel after giving the lovely Douanes Francais his FF10 fee for not making my life a misery.

The next day was uneventful, it made a pleasant change to go down to the Blanc, my usual preferred route was, as I said before, through Frejus. I topped off the tanks at the services at the bottom of the Ski Slope (some call it the stilts, but they’re wrong!) went up the hill, through the tunnel, down the other side and down to Aosta were I camped out for the night.

Next morning I did my customs and the vet and made my way down to Novara, I was clearing customs on site, which meant my having to wait at Aosta for all the necessary drama there hadn’t lost me any time. Italy had a strange system where they cleared imports in the morning and exports in the afternoon, so if I had to clear this load in Novara it would’ve cost me an extra day, unless someone got a good drink.

The delivery itself was a bit out of the ordinary, I backed onto a ramp, dropped the trailer, opened the back doors and the ramp lifted the trailer up to about 60deg and the potatoes came out in about 30secs, they were in those big ton bags and the whole lot went into a hopper and onto a conveyor belt into the plant itself, I would’ve liked to have a wander around, but hygiene regulations meant that scruffy oiks like me had to stay out.

Standard operating procedures meant that in those pre cell phone days I had to find a phone box and call in for my reloading instructions, so I went to a bar and phoned mission control. That was typically Italian as they had those weird gettones for the phones, for those of you that don’t know what they are, they’re a little token with slots in them that fitted into the coin slot on the payphones, they could be used as currency and they were worth 200lira, about 10p, so a phone call to Britain meant you needed quite a few. Fortunately you could pre load the phones with them so you didn’t have to keep feeding them in as you made the call, which was useful if you had to write stuff down, but they made an awful racket as they dropped and the phrase ‘say that again” was probably the most commonly used English in Italy at that time.

There was no news for me, he was waiting for confirmation on the chocolates out of Turin, so there was only one thing to do now, head to Carisio to get on the piss and that is exactly what I did. I can’t go into details of that night, not because I did anything I’m ashamed of, but as anyone who has spent a night on the Vino Frizzante will tell you, I couldn’t remember a thing. I did find a very strange looking carved corkscrew in my cab, so if anybody lost one of those in Carisio around 1990, you left it in my lorry.

As you’ve probably worked out, the day was now Friday and I’m sat in Carisio with no load, things need to start happening sooner rather than later or I’m going to be weekended and although that could be a lot of fun, I would rather be heading for a reload home. Around lunchtime I made another phone call and the boss had a reload address for me, not the promised chocolate from Turin, but a load of fridges from Pordenone.

This was not what I wanted to hear, firstly it was about nine hours away which meant I was not getting that on until Monday and secondly it would stretch my running money a lot further than I wanted and I would need to get a draw somewhere. It also meant that this would end up being a two week trip, but my money would only go up by a little bit to take into account the extra distance involved.

I decided on a change of surroundings, I liked Carisio, but it could be dangerous on a Friday night, if any of my mates turned up it was likely that I would still be there on Sunday and with the driving ban I would have to drive through the night to get to my reload for Monday morning, then turn around and do it all again to stay on schedule, so I pulled out and headed for Peschiera del Garda, which as the name suggests is on Lake Garda.

It was another place where us Brits used to hang out, but I was less likely to bump into any of my mates and get into trouble. I spent Friday night there and left after a good lie in on Saturday. My plan was to get up to Pordenone and hang out there on Sunday, I was going to give it large portions once loaded and try and make up a bit of lost time, maybe shipping back out again Friday. I was prepared to tip and load my trailer too, rather than have the casual driver do it as I (or rather the mars) would need the extra money now that this was a two week adventure.

I picked up a nice bottle of Valpolicello whilst in Peschiera and made good use of my newly acquired corkscrew as I dossed around in a services near to my reload, spending the day having a tidy up and reading a book. I actually remember the book, it was the first Jason Bourne book by Robert Ludlum and if you like the films and haven’t read the book I recommend that you get a copy, it is one of the best books that I’ve ever read.

Well now it’s Monday and I went off to get loaded, this is where things took a turn for the worse. The fridges I was loading were not regular fridges that go in your kitchen, but big display fridges that were for a supermarket, they wanted to chock them in and that meant nailing blocks of wood to the floor of the trailer, now you remember that I told you it was a fridge trailer? Fridge trailers don’t have wooden floors do they, so you know what happened next, yep, they turned me away!

They kindly let me use the phone and I relayed the good news to the boss, who obviously was not too happy. He told me to hang on and he would sort it out, I told him they weren’t having none of it, but he said he would sort it. I went back to the lorry and picked up my book and waited. An hour or so later they came out and told me there was a phone call for me, so I went in and the boss told me that they weren’t going to load me, which I had already worked out. I was told to go and find somewhere to park up and call back in a couple of hours for further instructions.

I went back to the services I had spent the night at and changed up some notes into a big pile of gettones and made the call for what I hoped was another reload, but there was no good news for me, so I spent the night in the services. It wasn’t an area I knew well, I had passed through a few times on my way down from Austria on my previous job, but I was always heading somewhere, so I didn’t know if there were any decent restaurants about. The food in the services was ok anyway, so I had the default meal of Spaghetti Pomodoro and a main course of cooked ham and mashed potatoes, with a little carafe of Vino Rosso and settled down for the night with my mate Jason Bourne.

I waited until mid morning to make the phone call to the man, I was hoping it would take a while to get through as he should be busy looking around for my load, but I got through immediately, which wasn’t a good sign, however he had come up trumps and gave me a loading address in Verona, I was picking up 22tons of Batteries, not exactly a fridge load, but beggars can’t be choosers, it wasn’t loading until the next afternoon, but by then I didn’t care, I had a load and I was going home, so with a spring in my step I fired up the Big Henry and pointed her towards Verona.

That night Mr. Bourne and I parked outside the factory gates, I didn’t have time to mess around and the extra time I’d been out had eaten into my personal funds, so another night on the Vino was out of the question, I was going to have to knock the Italian tolls to make it home and would probably end up paying the unknockable St Omer toll out of my own money, I also had to go back through the Blanc as I bought a cheaper return ticket on the way down, I was planning on going Swiss with the light load of fridges, it would’ve been tight, but I would just about manage to get home on my running money, now I had 22tons of batteries that was no longer an option.

Bright and early the next morning I was backing on to a ramp and 22plts of batteries went in my trailer, I got the invoices and the name of the agent and went up to Sommacampagna customs (I think that’s what it was called) for clearance. The agent started typing up my T form and said Ventimiglia? I said no Monte Bianco, he asked me again, so I told him again and he asked me why I would go that way as it was much longer and far more expensive, I gave him a strange look and asked WTF he was talking about.

His response made me go cold as he traced out my journey on the map on the wall, his finger went to Ventimiglia then followed the Mediterranean coastline down to Alicante, bbbbut I’m going to England I stuttered, only I wasn’t, not with this load anyway. He must’ve realized that I was about to go over the cam as he passed me the phone and said call my boss.

Again the call was answered straight away, almost as if he was expecting my call. I told him the idiots had put the wrong load on me and I was going off on one saying it would be another day now and I was getting the pox of it all. He waited until I finished and then said “Sorry, I thought I’d told you it was going to Alicante” I replied that he obviously hadn’t as I would’ve told him to poke it up his arse!

Now I had two options, drop the trailer and come home, or take the load to Alicante, option one was not going to happen, so it looked like I was going to sunny Spain, but first I would need some more money and not just for the lorry, my own funds needed a top up too. The agent was going to give me money, but he wanted to know how much. I had never been to Spain on anything other than a plane, so I didn’t have a clue, the boss had never sent a lorry from Italy to Spain, so he was no help either. In the end the agent gave me 500,000lira and the boss said he would sort more out in Spain so I could get home.

Pulling out of customs I looked down at my blue EEC book and wished I set the [zb]ing thing on fire, but as I got used to the idea I was quite excited, I had as I said, never been to Spain in a lorry and this was in fact what proper continental driving was all about, here I was in a Ford Transcontinental heading off to Spain from Italy, I had dreamt of this kind of thing as a kid.

I made my way back to Milan, then headed down to the Italian Riviera, I had done enough by the time I got to Savona and spent the night in the services there, dinner was courtesy of the Pavesi Autogrille again and I was back on the vino as my mood had lightened. I had made the phone call home and told her the good news that I wouldn’t be back home for another week or so, she wasn’t happy, so normal service had been resumed.

Down to the border the next day, I had been down through the Vent before, some stuff I took down on my last firm had to go that way for reasons unknown to me, I didn’t care as it meant that I could run down the Route Napoleon to get there and that is one of the best driving roads in the world, this time I would be keeping the sea to my left all the way to the French/Spanish border and the roads would all be new to me. I was like a dog with two dicks, all the messing around so far was forgotten, I had a load on my back and a pocket full of cash, the big Cummins was making mincemeat of the hills and the scenery was spectacular, I was living the dream.

That day was over way too soon, I was in tourist mode seeing signs for places I had heard of but never been to, the views continued to impress and I was disappointed as the sun went down and darkness fell. Not too disappointed though as this was the time of day when you could make up for lost time, the Gendarmerie were solar powered for the most part and you rarely saw them at night, so it was time for the left lane express. I stopped for the night somewhere near Perpignan.

When I woke up in the morning and put the kettle on for a cuppa I noticed another English lorry parked alongside me, I got chatting to the driver and he said he was going to the hotel across the street for breakfast and a swim, so my day started with a plate of ham and eggs and a swim in an outdoor pool, there are far worse ways to start a day’s work. From there it was down to the border, I didn’t have a clue, but it wasn’t rocket science and any problems that I may encounter would be solved with a few Francs. That was the attitude in those days, nobody got stressed out when things went boss eyed, which they often did when dealing with bureaucracy, you kept cool, dealt with it or left it for an agent or whatever to deal with and went on the piss.

This time it all went according to plan, even though I didn’t have a plan and I sailed through the border and over the hill down into the infamous La Jonquera, I spotted a laundry and decided to get some washing done, I was used to doing a week away, so I brought enough clothes for that, my extended stay on the road meant that I was fast running out of clean clothes. I needed some 200ptas coins for the washing machine and as this was my first trip there I didn’t have any, luckily the launderette was also a bureau de change, I needed to change up my Italian sub into Spanish anyway, but the rate seemed very poor, so I dug into my wallet and found some Belgian Francs as I only needed enough to do my washing, I would shop around for a better rate for my running money.

I passed the Belgian notes over to the old boy behind the counter and he started jibber jabbering away saying something along the lines of extra commission, I thought yeah right ya thieving old git, but when I got my Pesetas I realized he had mistaken Belgian Francs for French Francs and I had five times what I was expecting, well four times as he had tried to have me over. Well right or wrong I thought the best option was to keep quiet, but then the little devil in my head came up with a better plan and I slipped out to the next bureau de change and changed every penny I had into Belgian Francs and went back to the launderette and cashed the lot in!

Now I had enough money not to have to worry about scrimping and scraping, I didn’t have a clue how much things were going to cost me, but I knew that now I had four times what I had started the day with that I was in a far better position. I aborted the laundry as I thought it was best to get out of there before they realized their mistake. Before leaving I popped in a café bar place right at the bottom end of town for a bite to eat, having only been to Magaluf before I had no idea what was what as everything on the menus there was in English. I liked the look of the Bocadillio de Lomo con Patatas and pointed at that, it turned out to be a pork chop sandwich with chips and it was very nice, I felt it needed some red sauce and I reached over for the bottle, it was one of those Libby’s tomato ketchup bottles with a huge neck and I did the usual turn the bottle upside down and slap the end trick, in hindsight this was not a good idea as the whole bottle of sauce ended up on my plate…

I ran down the motorway to Barcelona, it wasn’t as exciting as I was expecting, in fact the only memorable part was the disgusting smell around Girona, but Barcelona livened things up a little as only a big European city can, it was very much like driving in Italy except the FIATs were SEATs. I stopped in a services somewhere south of the big city and settled down for the night.

Next morning I thought it would be a good idea to look around for another English lorry so I could find out a few things about the place, I knew the motorways were expensive, so I was hoping to use the nationals if possible, but having experienced the Italian SS roads I wasn’t going to chance the Spanish roads without knowing if it was worth it. There were a couple of familiar lorries in the parking area, but no sign of the drivers. Not a problem as Brit drivers were pretty easy to spot, so I set off inside and sure enough on the table in front of a couple of blokes were the give away signs, a pack of B&H and a P&O lighter.

I said hello and joined them at the table, something which may seem odd to newer drivers, but that’s how it was in those days. The lads were a great help and told me the N340 down the coast was a good road and also put me on to a few good places to stop to eat. They also told me about customs down in Alicante and some other useful tips, they also insisted I stop at a club and go in for a few beers when I had time, they recommended one just outside of Castellon.

I pulled out of the services and followed the Autopista down to the exit they told me to come off at to join the N340, the weather was glorious and I was loving every minute of it. On one section I went past a cement works and the heat from the huge spinning dryer things that remove all the moisture from the rocks they use to make cement nearly scorched my face as I passed by. As promised the roads were good and I was soon coming into Castellon and the recommended club.

I saw the flashing sign and pulled into the parking area, I wasn’t planning on getting on it there as I still had some work to do, but thought it was worth a look. I made my way inside the club, it was very dark inside and unsurprisingly at that early hour it was almost empty, so I went to the bar and ordered a coke. I was still not used to the money, but the drink did seem a little expensive, but that’s clubs for you I thought. I hadn’t taken a swig of my drink when I noticed a girl sitting a couple of seats along from me out of the corner of my eye, I turned round for a better look and got the shock of my life, she was only wearing a bra and knickers! OMFG!

I soon realized what the smirking between the two Brit drivers was all about, so this was a baghouse then. I had heard lots of stories about them and here I was sat in one surrounded by scantily clad crumpet. It’s days like this that really make the job worthwhile. Although being spoken for and also young enough to be the son of the crumpet meant that I wasn’t interested in leaving a little bit of myself behind, it was still a pleasant experience, I guess the birds in there would be called MILFs today, but back then they were just tidy older birds and when they’re sat there all tackled up there are far worse places to take a 45min break.

I left the club and carried on down to where I had to clear customs, the directions the lads had given me were spot on and even though I went through some proper rough looking areas, I had no trouble finding the place and parking for the night. I went off in search of a place to get some dinner and ended up in a place full of pinball machines and kids on scooters where I had another Bocadillio de Lomo, this time without so much ketchup.

Customs was similar to Italy, except the beverage of choice was a café con leche instead of a cappuccino, I was amazed to see the customers chucking their sugar packets on the floor though, it seemed a dirty practice to me. I have been told that it’s done so that the flies stay on the floor and don’t land on your food, but I’m not convinced, maybe they need to throw more sugar down as eating in Spain without swatting flies is impossible, I had another Bocadillio de Lomo for breakfast and I was fast becoming an expert with the Libby’s ketchup in just a few short days.

I went and tipped the batteries and called into the man to see what was next, he told me to head up to Valencia and call back later as he had a few irons in the fire, so remembering one of the places the Brit lads had told me about I head up to El Puig and wait to see what delights he has in store for me. I mentioned that I was running short of money as I didn’t feel the need to share my unexpected La Jonquera bonus with him. My reasoning being that I never got more money if he got a better rate, so if it’s good for the Goose…

I arrived at Tillys and found it was similar to most British driver hangouts, food at the lower end of the gastronomique scale and cheap beer and wine, what more could a driver ask for! I phoned in and got the expected “call back in the morning” message from the boss’s wife, so I did what any driver worth his salt does in such a situation, I drunk my own body weight in San Miguel.

The next morning the phone call to base was made after breakfast, no point rushing things. There was no news for me, so I had a wander down to the beach for a look at the “scenery” I was losing track of time and it suddenly occurred to me that it was Friday again and I needed some instructions soon or I was going to be weekended yet again, I had a sinking feeling in my stomach, hardly surprising with the amount of beer I had consumed the night before, I went beyond getting pissed and was in more danger of drowning, but I had plenty of experience of that, being weekended was not something I wanted experience of, especially not on trip money.

I spent the afternoon making phone calls on the hour and as the place started to fill with customers I accepted the inevitable, I was here for the weekend, oh well, I was ok for money and I was near the beach, it could be a whole lot worse. A couple of drivers I knew from the Italian Job turned up on Saturday afternoon and it turned out to be a good weekend. On Monday morning I awoke and the parking area was almost deserted, except for a couple of us, the rest had all departed to get their deliveries off.

Despite numerous phone calls, I never got the news I was waiting for, so as the day wore on I resigned myself to another night at Tilly’s, my mates came back after tipping their loads and they were in the same boat as me, no loads yet, the night in Tilly’s was a bit more subdued than the weekend, it wasn’t all gloom and doom, but for the first time since I arrived I can actually remember walking back to my lorry when I left.

Another morning of frustration awaited me the next day, but in the afternoon I got good news, my mates were not so lucky and I left them behind and went off for my reload, I had a full load of oranges and an envelope full of running money to collect from a packhouse somewhere between Valencia and Alicante, I can’t remember where exactly, but I can remember that is wasn’t far from Benidorm. Loading was as I would discover later as I did more Spanish work, a typically Spanish affair, which meant nothing happened until late evening, by which time I was too late to do revision locally (Silla or Sagunto, but I never knew of them at that point) and I had to do it at Villamaya (spelling)

I ran through the night and parked at the huge inspection center, the next morning I put my papers in and backed onto the dock so they could inspect the fruit, this was when the excrement and the fan reacquainted themselves as when I dipped the clutch to gently bump the dock it had no effect on my speed, I floored it and still nothing changed and hit the dock with an almighty crash, luckily I never shot the load out the back doors as I hit it that hard. The engine stalled and there I was jammed up against the loading dock with the engine off, the gearbox stuck in reverse and a non working clutch pedal. This was not good at all.

I managed to get it out of gear by a combination of brute force and trying to start the engine. As this was taking place I also got the magic stamp on my paperwork, so I now had to get off the dock, I managed to get it to slip into 1st gear as I started the engine and I bunny hopped away from the bay and out into the parking lanes. I put on my overalls and had a crawl around underneath, not quite sure what I was looking for, but I had to see if there was anything obvious causing the problem.

While I was laying there looking up at things somebody grabbed my leg and I nearly jumped out of my skin, luckily it was one of my mates, an owner driver with many year’s experience of running old crap, so he was just what I needed, however his diagnosis was that it was fatal, the clutch springs had rusted out and broken up, jamming the clutch in the engaged position. It was a big problem, but not an insurmountable one as with any Fuller box, the clutch wasn’t necessary once you were moving. I could start it in gear and get it rolling and then go up and down the box with no clutch, which apart from the starting it in gear part was how I drove it anyway.

So my mate and I set off, we went through the border at Irun, so another box ticked for me, I assume we went over Pamplona too, but I was following a set of back doors and concentrating on not missing gears, so I’m not sure. We got to Bordeaux that night, which I do know and stopped just north of there at a lovely little Routiers. For the first time in a week I didn’t have a pork chop sandwich for dinner, I can’t remember for sure what I had and I’m having a brain fart over the name of the place, but I stopped there often over the years as I did more and more trips to Spain.

Apart from an introduction to the fantastic restaurant at Vivonne the run up to Paris, we were shipping Calais-Dover, was uneventful, we ran up the RN10 until Poitiers then took the peage up to Paris, in theory it was late enough that traffic and my clutchless lorry would not be a problem, but this was Paris and of course, it was stop/start traffic all the way through, I managed ok and only had to resort to the starting in gear trick a couple of times.

From there it was a quiet run up to the boat, we got off back in Dover and parked for the night at the dock while customs did their thing, it was quite late, but a decent cup of tea and a plate of cheese on toast was in order before sleep could even be considered, it was also a good idea to monitor the board for a while before turning in, just in case the customs wanted a look at the load. They didn’t so I went to bed with a copy of the Sun instead of Jason Bourne to keep me company.

The next day was Saturday, my load was delivering into Covent Garden and Western International markets on Sunday night, so I only had to run the hour and a bit to the yard, I phoned the boss to let him know when I would be back so he could meet me with my wages and I headed off up the A2 to the yard.

Now I had been out for almost three weeks by this time, I had done a fair bit of extra work over a quick Milan round trip too, so I was expecting a decent wedge when I got back, I know trip money meant weekends were free, but I’d had a week of hanging around with no load and I wanted paying for that. To say I was a little disappointed when I got my wages was an understatement, I had been paid 525quid, it was explained to me that I had “only” done one and a half trips really. I mentioned the running up to Pordenone part and that Alicante was further than Milan and the week I had sat around waiting for loads and was told to take it or leave it, so I took it.

Now it may seem as if I had bent over and allowed myself to be shafted, but I had a plan, I had said I would tip the trailer as I needed the extra money and he smirked as he gave me another 50quid. This had got my back up a bit and I decided that I wasn’t taking this, I wanted paying properly for all the time I had sat due to his incompetence in finding me a load, it wasn’t like it was quiet in Italy, unless you had a poxy fridge trailer and no contacts for that kind of work. I didn’t expect everything to go my way all the time, but I had done my bit and I wanted more money for what I had done, nothing more than a fair wage for a job I’d done without causing any problems, despite all the hassle. The lorry was booked in for the clutch to be sorted on Monday, so I would be lucky to get a trip that week, which would mean that I would be on not much more than 100quid a week for that month and I’d probably spent most of that doing the job.

I now had the lorry keys and all the paperwork, so after the boss left, I did to, straight to a mate of mine’s yard. I then went home and explained the situation to my boss on the phone, I told him he had until the next afternoon to come up with a bit more money or the load wouldn’t be going to market. As you can imagine he didn’t react very well. I had an idea of what would happen next, so I had a few friends pop round to mine.

Sure enough a car pulled up outside my place a couple of hours later, four big middle aged blokes got out looking all mean and came up to my front door, I answered and the story went something like give the bloke his lorry back or we’ll kick your head in, I said that they were welcome to try as with my three mates and myself the numbers were even, but we were a bit younger and we had them more than matched in size too, they went away without the lorry keys.

Next up was the police, now this part is quite amusing as the owner of the lorry and the one that made the call to the law was running under somebody else’s O license, which meant the log book, insurance and permits were all under the other blokes name, I showed the police all the documents and denied all knowledge of the bloke that had called them and they went away happy. The next phone call I received from the boss confirmed my suspicions that he hadn’t seen the funny side of that little episode, some people…

In the end he agreed to give me a little bit more money, as I said, I wasn’t asking for hourly pay or anything like that, but I wanted my money to reflect what I had done, we ended up in the pub having a few beers as we started throwing numbers back and forth between us, I ended up with a bit more money and the promise that he would give me a bit more each trip for a while to make up for all the hanging around I’d done, I understood that there was only so much money in the job and that he wanted to keep some for himself, so I was more than happy with the end result and I stayed with him for another six months or so until I managed to get a start with Solstor.

The reloads got a little bit better, the chocolate job that he’d promised finally took off and it ran like clockwork for a bit, but it was still only a stop gap for me and we parted on good terms, he never did see the funny side of the holding the lorry hostage situation, especially the part where the police turned up at his house and gave him an almighty bollocking for wasting their time chasing a stolen lorry that didn’t exist.

 

By Wheel Nut on trucknet

The beginning of my downfall

After several years of dodging about, sailing close to the wind with the law and customs of various East European countries. I decided to have a clean break and go legal, as we had some decent contracts with blue chip companies.

I had run my old Saviem, and a 141 to destruction, I did one trip in a F10 which used more oil then fuel and My Transcontinental had been repossessed by the finance company. Crying or Very sad

I managed to blag my way into the bank managers good books and put a deposit down on a DAF 2800 FTG.

Part of the early learning curve of transiting the commie bloc was learning all the fiddles and twists that made things easier & cheaper.

Apart from the diesel checks in France and Germany, life was fairly straightforward until you got to the Czech border, here you were met by frightened looking boy soldiers as border guards, savage looking women in customs uniform and vicious dogs it was forbidden to feed. There was a rather pointless TIR diversion around Bratislava which took you over one of the hardest twisty climbs in Bohemia, It took 45 minutes to drive through the city, but it could take you 2 or 3 hours to "go over the mountain". :?

In Hungary they had a 10 tonne axle weight limit, whether that was the front axle, trailer axle or drive axle. (remember this) Romania had a strict 4.0 metre height limit as you left the country. Bulgaria made you drive through some disinfectant as you left, then Turkey would try and charge you for washing the wheels.

Anyway, I digress.
This trip was one I had done many times, Load in Perkins in Peterborough for BMC trucks in Izmit. This was at the start of Just in Time deliveries and Perkins would want to know when you would arrive, so they could plan the next load. I loaded my trailer and shipped out to Belgium where I had to fill my tanks with Red Diesel, it was even cheaper than the UK. That saw me over to Geiselwynd for the last full meal before attempting the Czech border the next morning. This was Thursday night, I was planning to be tipping Izmit on the following Wednesday allowing for any delays at the borders.

Friday saw me through the border at Waidhaus, a steady ride through Czech into Hungary and parked at Gyor for the evening. Now another history lesson,,,,,,, when I first started going through Hungary, I got caught out very badly with the availability of Fuel. foreigners were not allowed to buy fuel without government vouchers which were charged at the same price per litre as German Fuel, no vouchers no fuel, or you could risk getting yourself and the garage owner locked up for buying black market diesel.

I had found a couple of places willing to take the risk, and even when the voucher scheme was lifted, I continued to use them.

So on Saturday morning I woke up after a good Goulash meal and loads too much beer in the evening. I went to see my favourite garage owner and filled the tank, In Hungary there were 2 grades of fuel, one was red diesel for agriculture and machinery, the other was poor quality road fuel. I opted for the cheap fuel, even though I had been warned it knackered engines. I had used it for 6 months and even that morning there was a brand new 480 Turbostar filling up with it.

From there it took me about 3 to 4 hours to the Romanian border, the way things were going, I may even tip Tuesday at this rate. After a couple of hours, the sun was shining, I was listening to the many repeats of how to speak English, on Voice of America.

DISASTER

As I drove towards the border, I heard a noise I hadn't heard before, a slight knock or ticking, not loud but continuous, I drove a bit further getting slightly worried. the noise didn't seem to get any worse, but I couldn't make it disappear either. About 3 or 4 kilometres from the border I pulled into a layby to investigate, it was actually a bus stop. I could get this noise whenever I let the engine die after revving it, it did it on start up and it did it when I pushed the exhauster to stop the engine.

Well as I had been using these routes long enough to know that a breakdown in Romania was not really an option, I was still in relative civilised countryside. I decided to investigate further. oil ok, water ok, nothing lose or hanging off, still running on 6 cylinders and actually pulling quite well, but an annoying knock.

So as you do in these circumstances, I got my toolbox out and drained the oil, nothing untoward in the oil, so I removed the sump. well it was a sunny Saturday afternoon, still nothing obvious.

I continued a little deeper and firstly removed one big end cap, furthest from the oil pump, no wear, there, I checked another couple of big ends, no serious wear, so i rebuilt the engine refitted the sump and changed the oil filter. About 2 kilometres further back I had passed a small garage, so I walked back and bought 25 litres of new engine oil, I had a couple of gallon spare with me so I had enough. Just an oil change in a bus stop, nothing unusual there then.

I walked back with the can on my shoulder and refilled the engine, I started it up and the noise was still there, no surprise really, but I was happy there was no damage found within the engine, the oil pressure was good, especially for a DAF.

As the engine was ticking over the noise was there, as I took off my oily clothes and put on some other oily clothes...

Suddenly there was such a loud crack, the cab tilted over and the engine stopped with a dull thud. I walked around, to find my last 2 hours labour, the walk to garage and my fresh oil running into the gutter.

As I looked underneath there was a horrible sight, there was a hole the size of my head in the engine block, the starter motor was laid on the front axle and the bell housing was broken..




Camaraderie starts here, first a couple of cockanese drivers turn up and put the kettle on, various suggestions are dismissed, but swan vestas were the main ingredient of the best one, I cannot remember who these drivers were but Im sure they were working for Roy Bradford, the trucks seemed a little new though, a couple of newish SK Mercs.

Shortly afterwards another truck pulled up, and after leaving me with a supply of fresh water and teabags, we decided there is nothing they can do. Someone suggested I get the truck recovered to a local workshop, so I got a lift towards the border and was taken into a RABA / DAF dealer.

We managed to explain that the truck was not going anywhere and pointed at the RABA wrecker in the yard. I waved goodbye to my new found friends as they wanted to get through the border before it was too dark.

I then went back to my truck with a Hungarian mechanic who spoke no English, when he saw the engine, his German became quite good, he kept saying "das ist kaput"

Maybe because of the drugs,(joke) I didn't seem to be worrying much, it was my truck paid for on a bank loan, with a blown up engine, in Hungary with no one in the world to help me. All I could do was laugh with the mechanic as he coupled his wrecker to my truck and then towed me to his garage.

When we got back, all the mechanics came out and joined in the chorus, "das ist Kaput" The foreman came out and wondered who was going to pay for the recovery and the new engine!!!!

I gave him the address of my agent in Budapest and got through to him that he could speak to her on Monday, this made him happier and he showed me the showers and washrooms.

That evening after a decent shower and some muddy coffee, the foreman said HOTEL? I was happy in the truck, but he said no because he wanted to put the truck and trailer in the compound. I had to agree, but was worried about the cost of a hotel, even in Hungary. I had left home with my running money of £600 and filled my trailer tank and running tanks already.

I need not have worried though as the foreman took me in his own car into the town, and drove into a beautiful tree lined avenue and pulled up outside this huge stone building. This hotel was a girls school run by nuns or something, the girls were on holiday because it was some religious festival, and I was to stay there till Monday, they told me that there would be breakfast in the morning , but tonight I would have to find something to eat in the town.

I had managed to retrieve a couple of bits of clean clothing and got changed when i was at the garage, so i went out to explore the sights. not really, just looking for a PTT (telephone office) I managed to get hold of my mate who told me to fire the truck in the garage and fly home before Monday. I didn't, although i didn't know what to do by then. I eventually managed to contact the office of my boss in England, he was on holiday but a driver picked the phone up. He told me that Joe was coming in to get him sone running money and that I had to ring back in an hour.

Within an hour and a half, the cavalry were on their way, Jogger John Roberts had just returned to the yard, he was almost living in the truck in those days, and he volunteered to come and rescue, if not me, at least the load of Perkins engines and the trailer. He would leave Birmingham before 9 pm and would get to Dover in the early hours.

John who is a well respected ex middle eastern driver drove almost non stop, or I believe he did because by Tuesday evening he was coupled up to my trailer and as an after though, asked if I wanted to come along for the ride. I hardly had a choice, did I?

Monday had been spent with the foreman on the phone to Budapest, and payment for recovery and the nuns hotel was settled by them, on account of course. The word had got round from various drivers that there was a brit stuck in the RABA garage and I got several food parcels and Cigs during the Monday and Tuesday. I was even famous for 15 minutes with the Hungarian drivers coming to look at my engine. The border crossing I was planning to use was Nadilac which is to the south, most of the trucks in those days were using Varsand but this was my favourite route.

We were on our way and with 2 drivers in a 111 cab with our worldly goods there isnt a lot of room. a couple of hours later saw us through the Romanian border to run down the Eastern side, every driver had his favourite routes, and mine would have been through Ruse into Bulgaria. John preferred using the Calafat ferry so after some discussion we decided that I was along for the ride, he was now in charge. the next thing that happened after stopping for some meat and bread was the clutch was playing up with the Scania. as always you have to fend for yourself and we discovered a leaking pipe to the slave cylinder. soon after we managed to repair the leaking pipe with a couple of copper washers, but we had no brake fluid. John disappeared on foot and within half an hour he was back in a Dacia car driven by one of the locals. In Romania they have absolutely nothing, except John had managed to find someone with a car and a gallon of brake fluid. It could have been olive oil, but it worked and we were soon on our way again.

Remember the height and weight limits? In Hungary there is a 10tonne axle limit and in Romania there is a strict 4.0 height limit which is only variable by paying vast amounts of money to someone. I had loaded my trailer with my 3 axle tractor, John had appeared in a 2 axle unit on leaf springs. He was too heavy for Hungary and over height for Romania, but here we were heading south. There are two well used crossings of the Danube here, the Calafat ferry into Bulgaria or the Dam across into Serbia. we had heard that due to a lack of water in the river the ferry was not running or that the ramp was too steep to board the ferry!

We opted for the Dam but the problem with our then over height trailer was discovered, after a lot of arguments and shouting from the Romanians, we had 3 choices, Go to Ruse, where there was a low canopy, no good, use the ferry or go back to Hungary, either of these solutions would have cost more money than we both had with us, Hungary would weigh the axle as we entered the border and charge us more money, it was in the wrong direction anyway, We had to opt for the cheapest easiest option, which saw John being whisked off into a private room and being relieved of some money in exchange for our passports.

We then had to drive over the Dam into Yugoslavia and then cross back into Bulgaria if we had any chance of delivering these engines to BMC. Eventually we were on our way again and decided that the last 2 days had taken their toll on JR and we needed a decent meal and a good sleep before the next days drive across Bulgaria and to the border with Turkey at Kapikule.

We found a brilliant little restaurant bar in a nice village, this was before any of the fighting between Serbs and Muslims etc. the people were very friendly and we managed to have a laugh over a few beers and beef steak.

So the next morning bright eyed and bushy tailed we set off and made it into Bulgaria where we met the main route for drivers who had come the long way round in Yugo and we stopped for a coffee and some breakfast with 3 or 4 other British drivers. swapping tales takes ages and we had lunch there too, in the afternoon we then all left and within about an hour another disaster. as we turned around a corner on the TIR route, there was a lady pushing a pram, suddenly in slow motion a wheel with a tyre passed us, followed by another, we had stopped as a Scania with 2 wheels missing soon comes to a halt. Incredibly these wheels bounced and went away from the lady and child, the strain of the heavy trailer had been too much for this fairly tired old 111.

The lady was comforted and sent on her way after a few kind words and a few spare Deutschemarks and we set about jacking the truck up and trying to fix the wheel studs. one of the British drivers was running a 112 with a tag axle so we nicked a couple of wheel studs from each side, and managed to nick a couple from our other hub to fit the wheels back on. Tony who was driving the Scania suggested swapping trailers, at least until the border as he was only running light.

Before the Turkish border we swapped the trailers back as the TIR Carnets were made out and any invoices with one number change was bad enough, trying to get through Turkish customs with the wrong paperwork was just silly. Kapikule or Kapik could take anything from 5 hours to 5 days to cross depending on the attitude of the driver, the chef, the staff and the amount of Marlboro baksheesh you gave as presents. I hated giving bribes unless it was absolutely necessary, john was in the same mind, and without much problem we were through the border in about 4 hours along with our new found friends.

That evening was spent at the border hotel which is also called Londra Kamping and we met a few drivers going home, some who were still there after cancelling a day. some needed spare parts, some needed a mechanic, most just needed money.

In the morning we made our way down into Istanbul, parking at Oktay which had a bar /restaurant, showers, truckshop and mechanics working there, Even Oktay makes our truckstops and service areas look as inadequate as they are. John arranged to have a towing hitch made for the trailer and a tow bar made up for the return leg when we would collect my truck from Hungary. He had the wheel studs replaced and he also helped Tony repair his truck where he had broken some small studs in the lift axle pulling my loaded trailer with the tag up. Normally I would have taken a taxi to the agent and started the customs clearance, instead as BMC had their own customs we could just drive their after having our carnet checked by the agent who came to the truckstop to meet us.

After tipping the trailer the next day we returned to Oktay and had a couple of days on the beer before heading back to Hungary with our tow bar. We had a guaranteed load which was very light, actually light bulbs for Ring Lamp in Gildersome. This time we returned through Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and into Hungary after stopping in the Hotel National in Belgrade, a famous stopping place for middle east trucks.

The reload was about 250 km from where my truck had expired so we decided to drop the trailer at the factory and go and recover the Daf unit and park it at our agents in Budapest before reloading. on the high speed ride towards Budapest with me in my own truck for the first time in over a week, I was not in control and could only follow JR. on the way into Budapest the bar John had got made decided that it had had enough and broke in two, the final 2 or 3 miles being towed on a chain with no brakes.

John went to reload and I stayed with my truck as we were beginning to hate the sight and smell of one another. I stayed in the agents office and she managed to sort me out with a proper tow bar, the kind you see fitted to all Belgian trucks. John came back and as we had been apart for a day, everything was fine again.

The next 4 days were horrendous, I was on a bar within 6 feet of the rear of my own trailer, no heater when it was cold, no cooling when it was hot. I had to stop when John stopped or if I could attract his attention as we went round a corner, he checked to see if i was still there.

We drove back through Hungary, the Czech Republik and Eastern Germany before hitting civilisation in the West, we never had any problems at all except stiff aching arms with no power steering and one awkward Polizei man who decided we were illegal with our push me pull you type of truck. This was within 3 km of the Dutch border at Heerlen (Aachen) and he asked how far we had travelled like that. John said from Hungary and he replied that maybe we had enough problems without giving us a fine. Razz

I last saw JR as he dropped my unit and me off at North Sea Ferries in Zeebrugge for its last journey home to Hull, He went P & O Dover and delivered the load for me, and I had to pay his wages and fuel bill to his boss, everyone was almost happy.

My DAF was back on the road within 6 weeks as I managed to borrow an engine from a mate who owed me 1000 quid, the block was porous though, and I could not keep water in the engine. I scrapped the truck and sold it for bits and pieces although most of it went to rebuild a pals truck who had had an accident. Shocked

After sending bits of my old engine away for analysis, it was decided that DAF were not at fault and the poor quality fuel I had been using caused the problems. The fuel had probably got too much paraffin in it which has less lubrication, It detonates with a bigger bang and actually split the conrod from the little end right down the oilway. It then split like a banana skin. unfortunate, yes, unavoidable, not really, who knows what quality cheap diesel has, and a risk anyone buying fuel from strangers at the road side had to put up with

 

Teheran after the Shah was disposed


.I did 2 trips to Teheran after the Shah was disposed this was the second and last,as you read on you will understand why.
While working for Funstons I was offered loads of money to do a quick trip,loaded up and an uneventful trip down to Teheran, as I had been previously I knew what to expect at the border.

Not many trucks about kept a low profile dont make eye contact with anyone,yes Sir no Sir paper work done off to teheran.Hard drive down but with a thermos full of hot water for in cab refreshments and cassette playing I was flying.
Pushed as far as the eyes would let me until I saw some Turks parked up,had a chat with them they were sleeping and then on to customs in Teheran so I stayed with them, safety in numbers.Next morning we all had cay together and I said I would see them in the parking at customs.
Arrived customs paperwork done tipped no problem.Now it gets interesting,from my previous trip I knew that diesel was a problem to buy,and also to get it out of Iran,the border guards were not to keen seeing 400 gallons leaving but a bit of bribery and you never know,the worst that could happen is thay would empty your tanks.
I had been driving M/E for a few years and had been to Iran several times and I had met a man who owned a filling station and the last time I was there filled me up for hard currency, so off I went to see him.

Yes he says I will fill you up tonight when its dark, price was negotiated,terrific.Come into the office for a drink so we chatted and drank the Irani version of Coke,the real stuff was banned.

Darkness fell I drew up to the pump and he sends out his man to creep under the trailer and fill the belly tank up and then the two road tanks,job done the price for the diesel had been in £ sterling so I very happily paid him.

We had another coke and he tells me he has a son who owns a hotel in London thats nice I said,he says to me could I take a small gift to him.
Oh,oh I hear you say DRUGS,no a simple tea set tea glasses and silver plated holders you would find anywhere and a book of the Koran,it all seemed ok and having taken his diesel I felt obliged and it would only be a bit out of my way home,and of course the price that I had paid for the diesel wouldn't be what was on the expense sheet

Back to the border now to get through with the fuel.
I had travelled back alone and was hoping not to draw to much attention to myself, cleared the customs at the bottom of the hill now for passport control at the top of the hill, final control and out into Turkey.

Arrive at the top of the hill lots of Turkish trucks as usual not any European trucks I try and mingle in with the Turks nip across and get my passport signed out.
Every thing is done, free to go no body has shown any interest in diesel I think I have cracked it.
As usual its a bit chaotic with trucks pushing and shoving I'm sitting there waiting for a gap to shoot through when I spot a group of militia coming my way and by the way everybody is jumping to attention they aren't the normal squaddies.

I pretend I haven't seen them I try shunting forward but this nasty man indicates with his rifle which is pointing at me to stop.
Control meester! I try to explain all finished,Bos(turkish for empty) no Meester control,ball cocks I thought nearly got away with the diesel,no its not the diesel they want to check but a cab control,not a problem have a look.

They rummage around the cab lose interest and just about to go when one of them spots the trailer boxes Open.
I'm told,Ok again I have no reason to worry nothing in there except tins of food dented with no labels gas stove usual drivers stuff all except a box containing a tea set for a bloke who has a hotel in London.
I hadn't tried to hide it as I hadn't considered it to be an issue,well these guys who were from the Revolutionary Guard certainly were making it an issue.
Greed is a funny thing, I was still worrying about the diesel that would have been nothing compared to what was about to happen.

I still had my passport from earlier and my wallet, and being a smoker a packet of ***s in my pocket.
This was going nowhere fast lots of raised voices and looking at me lots of guns when one who seemed to be in charge leads me off to a block of buildings by the pI still had my passport from earlier and my wallet, and being a smoker a packet of ***s in it.

Another bloke in army uniform speaks some English and tells me they are sending teaset to Tabriz to be valued, and meanwhile I would stay in a room next door.
He is not to keen to talk with me and keeps looking at the other man and appeared to be scared of him.
Anyway best keep quiet and let them decide what's going to happen I decided against offering any form of bribe in case I made the situation worse.

They put me into a room (cell) where to my surprise were several Asian looking men teens and older both of us wary of each other.
Time for a *** and review the situation, I offered the ***s round but only one person took one the rest looked like I had offered them a poison pill.
The one who had taken my *** introduced himself and said he was a student Doctor he spoke good English I asked him why he was there and he explained he wanted to go to England but he didn’t have a passport, so why are you here and how do you expect to get to England I asked.

I had met for the first time illegal immigrants going to Europe,20 dollars bung the Irani guards would put them on a bus for Turkey no passport the Turks would send them on to Bulgaria and so on.
He also informed me that the British embassy was closed in Teheran but the Swiss embassy would help any British passport holder,how he knew all this I have either forgotten or it didn’t sink in with what was going on.

We chatted off and on its getting to afternoon and he says to me that if I gave him my name and address he would notify the Swiss embassy when he got to Turkey,I thought about this and gave him my name and address but the wrong house number,
I thought that might be giving him too much information as I really didn’t think he would do what he said.

It was sometime after I got home that I discovered that my wife had a strange call from the Board of Trade asking her if she knew my where abouts, I can only assume that the Asian guy did what he said he would do and that was a lesson that I have carried with me ever since.

They came for me a little later and took me to a Revolutionary Guard HQ in Tabriz no talking just a shove and a little aggression and I was in a proper cell on my own with just an old mattress on the floor and some large cardboard boxes.
Here I stayed for several days no contact with anyone but the guards who used to come in shout at me in Farsi show me their guns I would tell them to f….k off and that’s how it continued.

I was getting a touch scared but the only thing they would say in English was who had given me the stuff to take to England and if I told them they would let me go.
I thought that if I told who it was I could well be up against the firing squad as well as him so I said I didn't, know it was just a man in the Customs in Teheran.
I had been round the cell looking for a camera but I couldn’t see one and after a couple of hours decided that there wasn’t one.I was getting bored so I decided to have a look in the cardboard boxes so I moved the mattress over and leant against them so if they looked in they would see I was using them as a back rest I very carefully opened up the boxes to have a look and you would never guess,they were full of Condoms,Durex.

To be precise,this was before aids was really known about so they could only be used to prevent little Iranis.
I sat there with a smile on my face it seemed to have a touch of irony about it.
I sat there for a while playing with a staple I had removed from one of the boxes when I realised it had a sharp point to it


I sat there for several hours jabbing the sharp staple into the foil packets and then resealing the boxes, hoping I wasn't going to be around when there was a population explosion.

No worries there the next day I was taken to court and accused of smuggling antiquities from Iran, no defence I was fined 10,000 US dollars ,you pay.
No I cant I said well that will be 5 years then. I knew that eventually I could get the money so I could get out but I hung on to see what would happen.
I had been adopted by some Turkish drivers who were in for bringing in watches, gold, any thing that could be sold.

They couldn't speak English but a bit of German they asked the guards for a blackboard and I wrote words in English and they put the Turkish word so after a while we were able to make sense of each other.
They were absolute diamonds they would never let me pay for anything like food, Turks are very fussy they will only eat fresh food so a trustee was used to go to a local restaurant and get a takeaway 3 square meals a day all the chai I could drink and all the Marlboro I could smoke.

They used to tease me that today I would be taken to the barber and hair shaved off to be ready for my prison photo, this happened every morning and sure enough the guard appeared one morning and called me out my mates were all cheering and laughing I said I will see you later.

The guards took me right out of the prison which I thought was strange one of them spoke really good English he said to me today you go home when I asked him where we were going, I was staggered, as we walked towards the court there in front of me was an old pal from Pan Express.
Dave Telford and a the little fat guy who worked for The Company up on the border as a helper through Customs for drivers. He said when Judge says you pay you say yes.

I looked at Dave through tears he's saying its ok just say yes I have the money.
I am straight into court and its done I am free, outside court the guards are shaking my hand these were just regular guys doing a job and wishing me well. I spoke to the one who could speak English to say to my Turkish friends goodbye and thanks.

Dave and the fat Irani get me in the car and we make back to the border.
Dave explains that if you work the fine into Irani Rials the exchange rate on the black market was only something like £300 and that there were several drivers from Pans up at the border who had chipped in to make the money.
I was absolutely gutted with love for those guys

The End.

 

.


In the early 90s he worked for a Dutch firm bringing veg and fruit back and forth to the UK markets fairly mundane at the time, However on one occasion I had to load apples in Zwindrecht Holland for the Western fruit market.

The only thing that was unusual was they were from Iran, They had been transported to Holland by an Iranian Company and transhipped into my fridge.
The exporter I was told will meet me at the collection point and accompany me to London in the truck.

He was a nice chap Iranian by birth and I think tried to convert me religiously by the time we made Zeebrugge for an early evening crossing.

Had a few hours sleep on the boat and in dover for 10pm ish, on waking this guy was sweating profusely and I asked him if he was ok, He said he felt a bit rough from the crossing, so I didn't think any more of it till we came off the ferry and parked waiting for customs.

By this time he was shaking and sweating I thought he was having a heart attack, and at this point he undid his briefcase and took a cocktail of tablets.
He locked up his case and said he needed fresh air and said he would walk it off round the terminal.

He had been gone 10 mins when the pager went off to report to customs, on doing this they told me they wanted me on the bay and were was my passenger? I told them he felt rough and was walking round the compound they said they would find him I had to go on the bay now and before I knew what was happening the rummage squad was in the trailer.

I thought christ this is looking serious ( drugs or what ) they put the dog in and it went bloody loopy, I am then thinking goodbye freedom, Hello jail.

The senior customs man asked me to open the cab so they could check his contents as he hadn't been found still and broke into his briefcase which had a wad of cash in and tablets galore, Hmmm said customs man not looking good is it son.

I had to go round to the back of the fridge and watch this dog wag its tail off climbing all over the boxes of apples, they then sent for the port police to track my passenger who was hanging over a wall and arrested him, They give him the full monty on the strip search and went were no man wants to go if you know what I mean.

After what seemed like hours they established the dog was going mad due to what I understand was DDT or similar, the chemical they spray on the fruit which its use is banned in europe, and they all calmed down and said no further action was to be taking it was all now fine.

We cleared customs and arrived in Western late, after what seemed like days with this guy going on about ringing the Embassy the Queen and Maggie Thatcher about his disgust with the way he was violated in our country.
The Importer was waiting to unload his chemical laden apples, and then the importer and exporter went at each other because we were late, I was peed off by now and wanted some sleep.

So I thought I would speed things up by saying it was just one of those things at customs it happens all the time its not unusual for them to release dogs on the cargo, He climbed on the top of the pallets and saw oily foot prints from the dog's and prompty rejected the whole load.

Funny isn't it the things you learn about peoples religions after you put your foot in it.

They dont mind chemicals on the apple but wont tolerate a dog on the box !!