When they did a gros Kontrol they had to offload and reload themselves. We never touched our loads throughout Europe and on the odd occasions when we came to UK we had quite a few altercations with warehouses trying to insist we offloaded. The company always backed us however and told said warehouses that the trucks would sit there at their expense until they offloaded them or we were to take them back to our Essex warehouse feom where the customer could collect their load themselves.
Jazzandy:
When they did a gros Kontrol they had to offload and reload themselves. We never touched our loads throughout Europe and on the odd occasions when we came to UK we had quite a few altercations with warehouses trying to insist we offloaded. The company always backed us however and told said warehouses that the trucks would sit there at their expense until they offloaded them or we were to take them back to our Essex warehouse feom where the customer could collect their load themselves.
Yes. I think that was normal for container transportation wasn’t it? I do remember though, before I ever did European transport being told that drivers never load or unload in Europe and ‘that’s the way it should be’. However, apart from my first foreign delivery, in Belgium, I found that that was not always the case and indeed much later when I came to work for a French company on fridge work we were nearly always required to do the work.
I do remember though on the one occasion when I was pulled onto the bank at Dover for a full check the warehouse staff both unloaded and reloaded my tilt when nothing was found. What would happen if they did (find something) I don’t know.
Hello Jazzandy, this is a great thread, what I’d like to know is how you came by the job in the first place,was it a case of being in the right place at the right time?
There was an advert in the sits vac in the Evening Standard, I went for an interview at the ICC office near Leicester Square, they sent me for a test drive in a Mack with a driver called Fagin, and within 48 hours I was on the Transport Ferry Service, Cerdic Ferry to Europoort where a brand spanking new Mack was waiting.
Simples!
Jazzandy:
This is Bob Hadkinson our dapper yard boss. Great guy who really looked after the drivers like a mother hen.
I love this photo! 
The car is even painted ICC blue and has the sticker on the door. Quality!
Sifting through my Mid/East “bit and bobs”, I’ve come across this lovely business card. No idea who gave it to me though 
Great memorabilia.
What comes through strongly looking at the pics. Of the Macks is that the company owners rated the drivers quite low on their list of priorities! they could easily have bought sleeper cabs. It was the Ifainians I felt sorry for. They had the longest and most difficult and coldest part of the route and we could always bivvy down in b and b’s when it got really cold.
ICC packed up a year or so after I left. The shareholders fell out with each other.
Is there anyone around who was on the company at that time?
Anyone remember sleeping on top of a tilt and waking up in a dew pool?
Jazzandy:
Anyone remember sleeping on top of a tilt and waking up in a dew pool?
Oh yes, now you’re talking.
I used to sleep on the roof of my tilt regular, under the stars… after giving it big licks to get across and out of Saudi and park outside Abu Samra, ready for the 6 o’clock morning convoy to Doha Customs. What a great place to sleep. tucked in between the roof poles, like being in a cot, no mozzies or heat from the engine ! Then you get that funny oozy feeling, time to get up anyway !!
GS
You used to expect a pool of water in Europe but everyone forgot the dew also forms in the desert!
Such tales, brilliant.
This is what we had to do when carrying two 20ft. ctrs. back to back in order to offload/reload the front one. i.e. drop the trailer!
This was taken at St. Fins near Lyons France.
This one was taken outside Avignon in June 1973.
Our foreman Des Coombes on the left and Pete Betts on the right loading steel in Berlaimont France June 1973.
It was a hard life - Pete Betts heavily involved offloading timber from Iran in Cerciers, France June 1973.
One more from Cerciers
Thanks ADR - That looks like one of the Iranian drivers - Great guys who’d do anything for you.
I take it from your name that you used to work with hazardous cargoes?
Jazzandy:
Thanks ADR - That looks like one of the Iranian drivers - Great guys who’d do anything for you.I take it from your name that you used to work with hazardous cargoes?
Been driving heavies 30 years now, 20 years of them on ADR tanker work, 16 of those on Cryogenic Liquids which I am on now, grew up riding with my dad on petrol tankers, he drove wagons all his working life with last 23 yrs on Mobil, so you could say tankers are in the blood!
Regards Chris