budgiesmith:
sir aydin the best man in turkey alot of us owed a lot thanks to this man from mending your truck to getting you to a doctor to getting you out of jail god bless him
How did you you guys find this man, sir aydin, in the first place? I assume good news travels fast. What was his job - mechanic? Did he have his own business?
Aydin was well established and a friend to anyone English when I did my first trip in '75.
He was a mechanic par exelante,what he couldn’t fix couldn’t be fixed.
I flew out to Stanley Bull to recover a Volvo F89,(One of Jeff’s as it happens),that had ben sabotaged by the driver.
He’d chucked some nuts and bolts down the air inlet pipe and drove around until the engine went with a bang.
I got the unit towed up to Aydin’s and he took the heads off and found that luckily only one pot was affected,a couple of bolts stuck in the top of the piston and bent valves.
The damage to the piston had caused it to swell and sieze in the liner.
At home one would just replace the piston,liner and cylinder head,but Aydin said to me that you couldn’t afford these parts in Turkey.
He managed to get the piston out,put it in his old lathe and trued it up,fitted new rings.Cleaned the liner up,new valves in the head and had it running in two days,apart from a little puff of smoke,it ran perfectly.
I forget what it cost now,but it was ridiculously cheap,not much over a hundred quid I think.
The truck went on to Baghdad and got home again,no bother.
Aydin was a legend to English drivers,there are so many tales about repairs he has done.
getting colin off the mountain got dozer from dogy biscuit lot of money came up on a lowloader govner of the restuarant lent it to me , paid him on way back another good turk
I always got on well with the Turks;they always stopped for me & I always stopped for them. In Romania you parked where the Turks parked. Many times in Germany parked next to them always shared tchai. The drivers are mostly good guys.
kr79:
Don’t know if anyone saw it but there is an article in this weeks commercial motor by truckerash about the life and times of bob Paul. Well worth a read if you see a copy.
Thanks for comments KR79. Front cover looks really good! But to be quite honest, I’m dissappointed that the editor “cut” out a lot of my words! Nevertheless, a great bloke fondly remembered by many. RIP Bob Paul.
I missed the Elvis party as I was on my way home when The King croaked and first knew of it when I got on the boat and there were front page pics of the funeral the previous day. But do remember the trailer bar you ran at the ‘farm’. Sorry to hear Colin is another who’s passed along. Just so many who could not have been that old at all, but it was hardly a healthy lifestyle was it?
And AIDS and Herpes and not even been invented, thank the Lord or there may not have been any survivors.
I spent 10 days in The American Clinic one trip with kidney stones, I’d been in agony all the way out, but hadn’t fancied Agri General Hospital, Peter Sprigings Davies Turners manager in Tehran sorted it out for me and paid the bill at the time.
An Iranian in the bed opposite sent his daughter who spoke a bit of English to have a word with me, and as she left she looked at me very seriously and said ‘May God help you Mr. John’ I thought oh S**** what does she know that I don’t. It was a really luxurous hospital and they sent me off with all the X-rays and reports for my own Doc. It might not be so great now though!!
I also got spare parts for Danny’s at The Mocamp ( I had forgotten his name) Triumph TR something sportscar, rang him up with the price and he was happy, I just doubled the cost and included free carriage!! Made £350 (big money then) on the bits and ended up doing the same for a Caterpillar agent near The PTT for nearly 2 years, stuff like injectors, pipes, piston/ liners, filters did really well out of it and so I was always happy to do Tehran unlike most.
By the way do you remember an
Ernie ■■ from South London, was on White Trux about that time, about my age so he’d have been late 20’s then?
Anyway good to hear from you and I’ll dig some photos out of the store next time I’m over home
josh
harry:
I always got on well with the Turks;they always stopped for me & I always stopped for them. In Romania you parked where the Turks parked. Many times in Germany parked next to them always shared tchai. The drivers are mostly good guys.
I did the same Harry, there were always a few Turks parked up in Ludwigshafen, those who didnt have family in Mannheim. But on a Sunday morning I would wander across and chat to them, my Turkish is non existant but I could get by in German or they would try english. Within a few minutes of arriving, the pot was on and a stool offered to take three glasses of Cay with them. I love it and drank lots of Ataya in Africa.
My experience of Turkish hospitality and friendship started in Saudi in the 70’s with Rynart transport and I remained good friends with many of the drivers for many years after ,especially Salih Inan.
Once in Iran about 20km from Bazargan there was a Turk truck broken down and the driver was stood at the back of his truck holding a tow rope. I pulled in and towed him to a safe parking area.
He was far more knowledgeable about his problem than I was and he insisted that he would be ok. I made sure he was good for gas and basic essentials and off I went to Tehran.
Many years later at Kapicule I was having major problems with a Customs officer because he objected to me waking him at 02.00hrs. He told me that he was going to strip the load out and I would stay at Kapicule for ever.
Out of know where a little Turk started ripping into the Customs officer without mercy and within minutes my Carnet was stamped, trailer sealed and I was ready to go.
I thanked the Turk for his intervention and he just smiled and said “you don’t remember me do you Arbi, you were the only one who stopped in Iran when I was broken down” .
Clearly,It is not only Elephant’s that never forget.
dont know anyone remembers a lad called john drove a green atki i heard he had a fatel poor bugger, any way we ran to saudi together one trip and he picked up a bulgerian lady called hump back marie , when he caught up later i asked how he got on, ay he said she were a good un, but i had to wedge breifcase under her shoulder to stop her rolling around if you can imagine that. well i still have a chuckle when i think of him he liked the girls but he got through a lot of pennicilen!
chazzer:
is there any chance of someone putting a pic of the commercial motor front cover on here and scanning the article, we can’t get it over here. Ta
Here you go mate; And for all those who didnt manage to see it/buy it.
I missed the Elvis party as I was on my way home when The King croaked and first knew of it when I got on the boat and there were front page pics of the funeral the previous day. But do remember the trailer bar you ran at the ‘farm’. Sorry to hear Colin is another who’s passed along. Just so many who could not have been that old at all, but it was hardly a healthy lifestyle was it?
And AIDS and Herpes and not even been invented, thank the Lord or there may not have been any survivors.
I spent 10 days in The American Clinic one trip with kidney stones, I’d been in agony all the way out, but hadn’t fancied Agri General Hospital, Peter Sprigings Davies Turners manager in Tehran sorted it out for me and paid the bill at the time.
An Iranian in the bed opposite sent his daughter who spoke a bit of English to have a word with me, and as she left she looked at me very seriously and said ‘May God help you Mr. John’ I thought oh S**** what does she know that I don’t. It was a really luxurous hospital and they sent me off with all the X-rays and reports for my own Doc. It might not be so great now though!!
I also got spare parts for Danny’s at The Mocamp ( I had forgotten his name) Triumph TR something sportscar, rang him up with the price and he was happy, I just doubled the cost and included free carriage!! Made £350 (big money then) on the bits and ended up doing the same for a Caterpillar agent near The PTT for nearly 2 years, stuff like injectors, pipes, piston/ liners, filters did really well out of it and so I was always happy to do Tehran unlike most.
By the way do you remember an
Ernie ■■ from South London, was on White Trux about that time, about my age so he’d have been late 20’s then?
Anyway good to hear from you and I’ll dig some photos out of the store next time I’m over home
josh
Reddesertfox:
My experience of Turkish hospitality and friendship started in Saudi in the 70’s with Rynart transport and I remained good friends with many of the drivers for many years after ,especially Salih Inan.
Once in Iran about 20km from Bazargan there was a Turk truck broken down and the driver was stood at the back of his truck holding a tow rope. I pulled in and towed him to a safe parking area.
He was far more knowledgeable about his problem than I was and he insisted that he would be ok. I made sure he was good for gas and basic essentials and off I went to Tehran.
Many years later at Kapicule I was having major problems with a Customs officer because he objected to me waking him at 02.00hrs. He told me that he was going to strip the load out and I would stay at Kapicule for ever.
Out of know where a little Turk started ripping into the Customs officer without mercy and within minutes my Carnet was stamped, trailer sealed and I was ready to go.
I thanked the Turk for his intervention and he just smiled and said “you don’t remember me do you Arbi, you were the only one who stopped in Iran when I was broken down” .
Clearly,It is not only Elephant’s that never forget.
Hi Guys
I just went down the “memory lane” set off from Ipsala and did the old road to Zakho !! I pulled in at Silivri for a stamp and onto Oktay parking in Istanbul because the Londra is a Go-Kart track, then over the Bosporus Bridge and got my police paper stamped at Tuzla and Duzce and on the top before Ankara, Can anyone remember the name of that polis kontrol ■■ Then stopped at the Telex to see if there were any telex’s and on to Aksaray. Got my Polis Paper stamped and made it to the tank farm. Then over Tarsus, stopping for some grilled mountain lamb and a glass of Ayran up on top, then I went to Osmaniye via Adana TIR Kontrol. Pulled in at Oryx’s and left a deposit for one of those nice wooden chests, to be picked up on my way home!! Stopped at Osmaniye to pump out my deisel for the homeward leg and drop my belly tank. Had a bite and a showerand cracked on to Urfa Polis Kontrol for another stamp and straight through to Habur via Kiziltepe and Silopi and into the border and through to Zakho…If only it had been that easy eh!! Thank Allah for Google Earth.
Hi Gavin, Polis Kontrol on the top?, my memory must be rotting as well, was it on the left going down? I have a mental image of one, I just can not place it.
What I do remember is that no matter how many hours you had on the tacho, the Polis at Duzce would say too much driving and tell you to park, did they own the restuarant at the Polis Kontrol?
Hi Dave
I meant the last kontrol before Ankara on top,close to the big Dam project. I seem to remember that at Duzce, the restaurant was owned by the brother of the Polis !! maybe just driver speak though !!
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