sandway:
What is a reprobate? Promotor driver John Preece was one. I have just Googled the word to be sure and looked up synonyms for reprobate. Tramp, scoundrel, wastrel, miscreant, wretch, rascal, cad, rogue. That just about summed up my view of John Preece after only six days of the trip I am about to relate to you. That man landed me in the mire and other places I never want to go to again.
We loaded between us, 3 x JCB tractors and a large consignment of spares from Rocester around the 13th August 1980. We were bound for Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq. We shipped over, I think on Friday 15th Dover to Calais knowing we would be weekended somewhere in the Alps. It turned out to be Cluses. The French customs depot just off the auto-route leading up to the Blanc.
We arrived there Saturday afternoon. Not much happened Saturday evening or most of Sunday. We met up with other British drivers, did the usual, had a chin-wag, had a brew up and got bored. About 5pm John came over to me to say a couple of the other drivers were going to a bar and restaurant in a village that one of them had been to before. He reckoned the food was ok and it was a good crack. They were going down in one of their units and would we like to join them. Good idea, thought I so we all piled in to their lorry and set off. I hadnât a clue where we were going but it didnât matter as we had a lift there and back or so I thought! The evening started off ok. It seemed we were all drinking Vin dâ Alsace, a white wine, and a bottle or two or three were quickly consumed. A few more were ordered and the evening started to warm up. Music was blaring out and a frenchman had by this time joined our group. I remember he was singing and John kept laughing, pointing at him and shouting âJohnny Haliday, Johnny Halidayâ Later we adjourned to the restaurant and I remember eating spaghetti bolonaise. After the meal it was back to the bar where the wine kept flowing. Johnny Haliday kept singing and John kept trying to tell his Australian jokes but by this time he was too drunk to finish them.
The rest of the evening passed by in a blur although some things I do remember clearly. I remember John saying that one of the other drivers was bit too mouthy and we were going to walk back to where the lorries were parked. As I said earlier I hadnât a clue where we were so decided to stick close to John. A little later I remember climbing out of this ditch, John was standing there with his donkey jacket on and woolly hat pulled hard down on his head. He was quite irate and shouted at me to get a move on. The next thing I remember is a flash of lights and a bit of commotion. I looked around for John and heâs not there. Then Johnâs climbing out of the ditch and holding his hand. It seems a passing car got a bit close to him, hit his hand and caused him to fall into the ditch.
As he got back onto the road I turned round and saw one of those blue Citreon corrugated vans used by the Gendarmes, stopped on the other side of the road. âCome on Johnâ I said " Lets get going, they are watching us". Next thing I remember is John sitting in the back of the van shouting out to me âCome on Holmsy, theyâre giving us a liftâ. I then remember sitting alongside John and he said angrily âshut the door thenâ. There were two Gendarmes sitting in the front and I thought , âwhy canât they do itâ. Anyway, it was a sliding door and so I leant over to grab the handle to push it to close. The door was sliding nicely and almost closed when the spaghetti bolonaise in my stomach saw this as the ideal time to make a break for freedom. I remember trying to aim it through the almost closed door but without success. Most of it hit the inside of the door and slid into the footwell. By this time the two Gendarmes in the front were not best pleased and I had the feeling they wished they had left us in the ditch. I then remember standing in the doorway of a cell. To my left was a bed with a dirty mattress and blanket on it, to my right was I think, a french styled toilet. A Gendarme indicated to me to go in and lie down which I did. I pulled the blanket to one side and as I went to lay down I vomited again as the rest of the spaghetti bolonaise made its break for freedom and ended up on the floor.
I shall continue this little story later.
John Preece: Driving down to Portugal with John behind as he was a faster and more aggressive driver than myself⌠The entire trip I had him bobbing out behind me to check if the road ahead of me was safe to overtake and then flashing me to overtake, pushing me to drive faster which, after a while, began to irritate so I decided to have some sportâŚ
With a slowish lorry in front and John swinging out wildly behind and flashing me to overtake I moved out to block him hesitated a while and then⌠didnât overtake. In my wing mirror I could see John raging and shouting with anger⌠When later we stopped for a cuppa he asked with great annoyance why I hadnât overtaken when it was perfectly safe and easy to do so and I told him it was merely to enjoy seeing his face going purple with anger⌠He had the good grace to appreciate the joke.
Travels with John were mostly very entertaining indeed.
Yes Efes and VCC, as you say travels with John could be very entertaining. I remember one trip driving across the Syrian desert with him behind me. Now amongst the M/E fraternity OHS were always good for a laugh as far as running money, or lack of it was concerned.
As I was saying, we were crossing the Syrian desert heading for Baghdad. We were hundreds of km from any civilisation and very little traffic about when I saw in the distance a lorry parked on the side of the road. As we got closer I could see it was a British reg OHS rig. So thinking he may have a problem I stopped opposite him but before I had chance to get out of the cab John had jumped down from his, ran across the road and shouted to the driver âhello drive, you waiting for money thenâ. I donât think the driver had much of a sense of humour as we didnât stay long.
The things youâll read whilst waiting for Micky Tâs book to arrive. Only another 10 days till it arrives but my Spanish will still not have improved one iota in that time.
Following the spag bols incident in France the remainder of our trip to Sulaymaniyah, Northern Iraq, went smoothly. Thats if experiencing some of the worst, wettest and muddiest conditions at our destination can be looked upon as âsmoothlyâ.
We had shipped over from Koper in Yugo, which is just round the corner from Trieste in Italy, to Tartous in Syria. Transit time was about three and a half days. Plenty of time to chill out, enjoy yourself on the sun deck and become bored. Once back on dry land we pushed off asap. First stop was the bit of the Lebanon that the road from Tartous to Homs crossed. Although it was only a few kilometres long hundreds of Lebanese shopkeepers had set themselves up selling everything from washing machines and radios to cigarettes and Johny Walker whisky. John of course had to stop for some essential supplies. Once you reached Syria again the police would be waiting for you to search the lorry and fine you if you had over done things. We didnât get stopped and so John didnât get fined.
Once you got down the road north of Damascus a new section of road had been built to bypass a bad hill. Of course, as most Syrian lorries had very bad brakes or none at all, the authorities didnât want them causing accidents on the new road so they, and the rest of us, were condemned to using the old, rough and dangerous road that the new one was meant to bypass. As we had JCB tractors on board we had to go very carefully as they werenât the most secure of loads. All went well though and just north of Damascuss we turned left towards Baghdad.
The Syrian border post was along this stretch of road. Not on the actual border as that was in the middle of nowhere. Before you got to the border post, which was very small and never busy there was a Syrian Army training ground on the right. On an earlier trip, as I passed I saw tanks and soldiers and army lorries all playing at being big boys (that only applies to the Arabs Micky T. Not yourselves). The customs shed at the border was very small, held maybe twenty people, and had a tin roof. Now on that occasion after passing the boys playing soldiers I was in the packed shed when I looked out of the little window and just caught a glimpse of a Mig jet fighter hurtling towards us only a couple of metres off the ground. I was lucky as I knew what to expect. None of the others in the shed knew it was coming. It flew straight over the top of us. The place shook and the noise was unbelievably loud. Everyone ended up on the floor, some screaming, some crying and Iâm sure some dying. Glad I saw it coming as Iâd hate to have shared the floor with that lot. Anyway, back to the trip John and I were on. We had no probs there and so pushed on. After a few hundred kilometres we met the OHS lorry which I referred to in an earlier post. After passing through the Syrian desert we crossed into Iraq and a while later entered the customs post at Rutba. The town, home to about twenty thousand people, is one of the remotest towns in Iraq. It was not very busy except for the articulated buses that ran between Baghdad and Amman and possibly Damascus. We had a name for them but canât remember it now?
After Rutba it was on to Fallujah to register, clear customs and deposit our passports. We then headed north via Kirkuk to Sulaymaniyah. We were told later we should have been in an army convoy after Kirkuk but we had no problems. Here the weather changed for the worst. We stopped for a few hours sleep on the hill overlooking the town but next morning we were in trouble. See the attached photos. But we soon extricated ourselves and headed into town.
What a great read Mick! 10 of 10!
And you got some free advertising in Swedens bigges vintage truck magasin. As a good in the winter cold Klassiska lastbilar.
Dirty Dan:
What a great read Mick! 10 of 10!
And you got some free advertising in Swedens bigges vintage truck magasin. As a good in the winter cold Klassiska lastbilar.
Danne
Thanks Dan. Glad that you enjoyed it. The advertisement is interesting. Thank you for putting that on the thread.
Wishing you and your family a Very Happy New Year.
Just practicing how to add an attachment. Hopefully I wonât have another stutter Brian. B-b-b-but you never know. Ha ha ha
I wonder whether any of you who have read the book would do me a favour and write a review on Amazon U.K. Be as honest as you like!
If you go Google - Vodka Cola Cowboy - then go into the Amazon U.K. site it will bring you to the book and you can slag me off as much as you like. I would not ask but there have been two low reviews of which one has nothing to do with the book and the other is by someone who I have upset. There are three possible candidates for who that is and I will leave it up to you to decide who you think it is.
I do not want to turn this thread into a Russian one and I am therefore going to start a separate thread about Russia. I think that I will call it âRussian Rouletteâ. Hopefully some of you will follow it and get involved.
Hope that all of you have a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year, whether readers or contributors to this thread. All the best to everyone.
Hope you like my review Mick. Iâve also requested the removal of one of the reviews and you might do the same as they are both personal, biased and nothing to do with the book.
Jazzandy:
Hope you like my review Mick. Iâve also requested the removal of one of the reviews and you might do the same as they are both personal, biased and nothing to do with the book.
Micky Twemlow aka Vodka Cola Cowboy, VCC or Micky T. I read last night your latest posting in which you mention you are starting your own thread here on the TNUK forum, possibly called Russian Roulette. I wish you the very best and hope it succeeds. With the stories and personal anecdotes you have amassed whilst working in Russia as well as the characters you will have come across it will be a success. But, and theres always a but, for how long? There have been many attempts over the years to start new threads. Very few of them succeed. Most just drift off into oblivion. You will have to drive it hard just like you did your lorry years ago. You will be the main contributor and the link man to keep it going. You need a good supply of old photos. You will need to keep posting to keep it in almost daily view. Look at the threads and postings that appear on our front page every day. Just a handful of contributors, and I include myself here, go out of their way to keep their favourite topic on top knowing that if they donât it could be lost for ever.
When Stephen Roy Lacy aka flyingflash007 on July 28th 2016 posted the âany old promotor drivers aroundâ thread did he know what was involved in servicing it? Luckily I saw it and have been able to keep the thread alive with anecdotes from whats left of my âlittle grey cellsâ and photos from my small collection. I will run out of ideas sometime. I hope others will be able to keep the thread going.
From my own personnel (selfish) perspective I would like to see you using this Promotor thread for your Russian Ramblings as I would also like to hear more from Nottsnortherner with Motorvation stories and anecdotes. The title is âany old promotor drivers aroundâ. To me that does not mean the stories have to be about Promotor. Its about ex Promotor men and women and what they did before or after being employed by the company.
However, whatever you decide, âI wish you Success and a Prosperous New Yearâ. I would also like to send the same message to everyone else on this forum.
Micky T. Should have opened my eyes before trying to put my âlittle grey cellsâ in gear this morning. I see you started your new thread late last night. All the very best with it but please keep posting on this thread also.
sandway:
Micky T. Should have opened my eyes before trying to put my âlittle grey cellsâ in gear this morning. I see you started your new thread late last night. All the very best with it but please keep posting on this thread also.
Thanks Brian. I will keep posting on here as well. Happy New Year to you and everyone on here.
John Preece and I, after extricating ourselves from the mud on the hill overlooking Sulaymaniyah in kurdistan drove down into the town first thing in the morning to find the Indian company who we had to deliver the JCBâs to.
They were not difficult to find as they seemed to be digging the whole town up. It seems they were putting in new sewers, main drainage, storm drains and building new roads. All at the same time. The place was just one huge building site and with all the rain it had turned the town into a quagmire. Late on in the morning after the Indians had bulldozed a ramp they unloaded the machine from my trailer and most of the spare parts. Johns trailer was left to the afternoon. We were invited back to their camp for lunch by one of the top guys. And what did we have for lunch? Well it was all boiling hot. Lots of vegetables and meat but of course, being Indian all lightly curried. It was fantastic and John really earned browny points from the Indians by naming many of the dishes. In the afternoon his trailer was unloaded and at the end of the day we were again invited back to the camp to get cleaned up and to enjoy another meal. Yes curried again!.
We spent the night parked up near the camp ready for an early start in the morning and yes, it was still raining.
Thank you bullitt for those encouraging words. Iâm sure I speak for all ex Promotor men and women. I say women as there have been at least two women drivers that I know of.
After reading mushroomman and jazzandyâs posts recently of War and Peace dimensions a feeling of inadequacy has come over me. But I will proceed with this post to a hopeful conclusion. What with their posts and my failing âlittle grey cellsâ Iâm finding it difficult to finish this story but here goes!
John Preece and I had shipped out mid August loaded with three JCB Tractors and spare parts to be delivered to an Indian company working in Sulaymaniyah in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq. After getting weekended in Cluses in the Alps and subsequently ending up in police cells we made it across Italy and into Yugo to the port of Koper to catch the ferry to Tartous. Unless you had used this route it may be difficult to comprehend how easy it made M/E trips. You could go on from Tartous to all destinations except Iran. Transit time was three and a half days, they were new ferries and the food was good. Also, if the weather was on your side you could top up the tan on the sun deck and enjoy a few beers kindly supplied by the Lebanese shopkeepers on the way back. Our journey to Sulaymaniyah went off smoothly. However, the weather was atrocious but we were well looked after by the Indians. After unloading we put my trailer back together but decided to leave Johnâs stripped down till we found better weather.
We parked up for the night and it was still raining but we were both pleased to have empty trailers and full stomachs both thanks to the Indians who had looked after us well. The weather had not improved in the morning. In fact it was worse as it had snowed during the night. But the snow quickly disappeared leaving just more rain and mud. We both had had enough and got going as soon as possible. This time we decided to take the road down to Baghdad that ran nearer to to the Iranian border rather than go back via Kirkuk as there was still talk of having to go with the army convoy. We had no problems and arrived back at Fallujah in time to pick up our passports and run to our destination for the next couple of nights, Lake Habbaniyah.
We spent a very enjoyable day there. We rebuilt Johns trailer. Did some basic maintenance. Had a good clean up and washed out some clothes in the lake. No we didnât wash the lorries down and glad we didnât as the weather back at Tartous was abysmal. We left the next day making our way back into Syria and on to the ferry port of Tartous. We had a day or so to wait and most of us went across the road to a cafe for a drink or a meal. One thing I always did was have a trim up and a shave there. A guy used to come around on his bike. He was a teacher but could earn a lot more money as a barber. It was heaven leaning back in the chair letting him shave you. The only thing that played on my mind was the fact that he used an open cut throat razor but it didnât show if he had fell out with his wife the night before as I always survived.
Once on board it was another three and a half day crossing but the weather wasnât great so no sunbathing was done. I posted the photo of John and Ned Kelly a few weeks back. The photo was taken on this trip and you can see it wasnât sunbathing weather but those two he men had to show how tough they were by posing outside in the wind and cold. Once back in Yugo we went our separate ways. I went up to Zagreb to pick up a load of zinc sheets. Donât know where John reloaded but we didnât meet up again till weeks later.
I still have a few more photos to post. Will do that a little later.
Another brilliant post Brian, keep it up.
You would be surprised how many of your âlittle grey cellsâ, posts and pictures have revived the memories of lots of other Trucknet members like myself. If you hadnât mentioned a couple of times about Yugoslavia then that incident that I wrote about with the lamp post would of gone untold.
And those two brand new Coles cranes that I saw lying on their side in Eastern Turkey some 36 years ago, well you finally solved that mystery for me. So please keep sharing your memories with us all, I am sure that just the mention of the word âmudâ on your last post will remind a lot of people of what Kapikule was like in the winter.
The last of my photos (I think) from the trip John Preece and I did to Sulaymaniyah Iraq in 1980. Note the Arab writing on the bumpers in the 2nd photo. That was removed by Tom Miles in the workshop as soon as we got home. âDonât want that kind of thing on Promotor lorriesâ.
sandway:
The last of my photos (I think) from the trip John Preece and I did to Sulaymaniyah Iraq in 1980. Note the Arab writing on the bumpers in the 2nd photo. That was removed by Tom Miles in the workshop as soon as we got home. âDonât want that kind of thing on Promotor lorriesâ.
Shame on him! . Seriously, though, we have to look at it in the context of the day. A lot of things that were frowned on only forty or fifty years ago are now thought to be great; and vice versa of course. Cheers, Robert.
Klassiska lastbilar.
. Seriously, though, we have to look at it in the context of the day. A lot of things that were frowned on only forty or fifty years ago are now thought to be great; and vice versa of course. Cheers, Robert.