Never in Caerphilly, but Bedwas
dai wat part bedwas did you ever go in bridgend im 58
rward:
dai wat part bedwas did you ever go in bridgend im 58
Let’s try and stick to transport and particularly driver’s experiences in France. Try “Friends Reunited” for childhood memories.
I have just found some interesting 'photos of French fire engines during the late seventies, when I first came here to live. I will post them soon.
Keep your elbows in!
Here are a few photos of fire engines when I first arrived in France. The first was the machine we used in Caerphilly. I remember that it was an ERF, with a 3 speed automatic box, but little other technical data.
The second shows a typical engine used in Paris. They were small, thin, metal bodied Berlioz, or Saviems manned by 4 “pompiers” and with minimal equipment. The French relied on sheer numbers - as they did in Agincourt and Crecy - and it was not unusual for firemen to die. I arrived just after one station lost 14 men in one fire! The firemen wore metal helmets, ideal for conducting electricity straight into the brain! Thick leather coats, you had to be fit to carry the weight! Leather boots completed the kit. They implemented no BA procedures and drilling was 4 hours of PT every morning, followed by 3 hours lunchtime drinking and eating and 3 hours PT in the afternoon. One drill was pulling yourself up on to a platform using only your fingers. This was the first “drill” and a fireman could not start his service until he had done this! They used a hook ladder which was incredibly heavy and extremely dangerous. In short it was like a circus! The firemen were very, very fit and enthusiastic. They retired after 15 years service, if still alive!
The third picture shows some rapid intervention vans. These were petrol engined Citroens, also called “Tubes”. They had a top speed of 60 kms an hour, downhill with the wind behind!
To be fair today they are every bit as good and modern as any other country in the World. They have built new fire stations all over the country, modeled on UK stations, and their equipment, built in Saint Nazaire, is first class. firemen now retire after 42 years service and most live to collect!
I had some incredible times in Villejuif fire station (22 Div.) near Paris, including once when after drinking there all afternoon and evening I drove my truck into the entrance to a Metro station, the police, once finding out where I had came from sent me on my way telling me to “be careful in future”. The truck, a Fiat 10 tonner, was a write off, I had 3 broken ribs, and I was sacked! (Not fair was it?)
In all Paris fire stations, beer was 1 franc a bottle, cigarettes were 1 Franc for 20 (Gaulloise) and wine was free!
1 Franc was around 2 bob.
Newbie me, be kind 
An interesting read daidog, unfortunately, with my job here in the Vendee it would be hard to produce one post as eloquently as yours!! I go to my quarry, I load my lorry with a 23 tonne Volvo excavator, I drive back to the factory and tip my load - voila 28Kms 8 times a day. Have you fallen asleep yet 
I am a disgrace to the lorry driver world, I drive an actros as for the numbers on the side of it I ain’t got a clue. I go in, put my card in the mouchard (sp?), have a slurp from my coffee flask and off I go, 28 Kms, 8 Times a day, Zzzzzzzzz!
Sounds a nice life, if it suits you who cares what the ‘real truck drivers’ think? If I learnt one thing from my ol’ man back in Cornwall (typical tipper operator), it’s that if you’re on day work the fewer miles the better . . . and you’re probably a lot less tired than us who are driving around with fridge trailers at silly o’clock five nights a week.
Anyway, bienvenue à bord. How long have you been over this side of the great divide (the Channel) ?
Craig
Craig 111:
Sounds a nice life, if it suits you who cares what the ‘real truck drivers’ think? If I learnt one thing from my ol’ man back in Cornwall (typical tipper operator), it’s that if you’re on day work the fewer miles the better . . . and you’re probably a lot less tired than us who are driving around with fridge trailers at silly o’clock five nights a week.Anyway, bienvenue à bord. How long have you been over this side of the great divide (the Channel) ?
Craig
Thanks for the welcome, been here 14 years, current job is for a brick and tile factory and have been there nearly 4 years now (I only went there for 2 weeks to fill in for a driver off sick!) I never thought I would like the job so had resisted going in there to ask for the job (my mate kept nagging me to go in, he has worked there for nearly 20 years) and I was happy doing what I was doing, working for myself.
I used to do proper driving in the late 90’s early 2000, UK national for Massey-Wilcox in Somerset, various agencies, Langons Taunton/Bridgewater, Wavin Chippenham (waste water and drainage supplies for construction industry), business post night driver to the hub in Birmingham (hated nights!hacked it for about 3 months) got the urge to spread my wings a bit and try a bit of continental, did a small time with Muppets soon told them where to go as I was never home and her indoors was getting a bit miffed! then a very small outfit in Gloucester shipping JCB’s to spain and a bit of fridge-work shipping oranges, from spain and Walls (milka) ice cream.
That worked well for a year or so as I was living in France by then and I would go to Cherbourg and swap trailers with my colleague and get home for the weekend then off to Spain on Monday. Then things got a bit quiet and found myself having to do the UK drops too. I was happy doing it but she who must obeyed was starting to get stroppy
Finally decided enough was enough and packed it in and headed home to France. Getting a drivers job in France was not possible I did not have the dreaded FIMO/FCOS. I was a couple of months the wrong side of being able to just do the FCOS so it was the 4 week FIMO or nothing. ANPE had assistance packages for driver training but they wouldn’t send me on one as they considered my French to be insufficient, so they offered me a job artificially inseminating ducks 
fortunately, they also offered up a job in a furniture Transport company, loading and unloading the wagons, I chose that one!!
That lasted about 5 years, then they closed the depot and we were all made redundant, back to square one. Her indoors had her little company gite services changeovers and the like ( I was already doing the swimming pool maintenance and gardening) so just took that over and got a very handy sum of money from my old company as a business start up 
I could go on but no doubt you are all thinking no don’t! so I will shut up! I can’t compete with Diadog s nice pictures!
Tim
Sounds good to me! I ran around for nearly 40 years before realising that real life was at home with wife and kids, by the time I realised it, they were gone! I worked for a while for Vinci at Chassé, Petit Mars and loved it. Tip 8 to 10 times a day, back and forth to the quarry, but in the house by 6! I finish Friday in the best job I have ever had. Terrena, agricultural CO-OP. Today started at 6, truck at home, finished at 4. I would stay, but start another new job 8/9 driving a desk. Craig, when you are at STEF, Nantes, I will be 100 metres to your left, POMONA - Passion Froid. Give me a shout!
Welcome! Everyone in this job has stories to tell, they are not always strictly true, but never boring!!! Everytime we talk about past times we tend to remember only the good times and forget the grind and heartbreak.
As to letters and numbers on sides of trucks - I can work out the ones likes Vovlo, Mercedes, Renault, etc. The numbers confuse me, as I remember when a ■■■■■■■ 230 hp was enourmous and a driver would sell his wife for a 360 Daf! I don’t seem to remember feeling a lack of power back then?
Check out this picture - was this a 1,017 hp Volvo? I drove a very similar dustbin, maybe this one, all over Europe, armed with a DKV card, large wedge of cash and absolutely no back up, for this very company, for a number of years. I earned lot’s of cash, lost all family life!
Craig 111:
and you’re probably a lot less tired than us who are driving around with fridge trailers at silly o’clock five nights a week.Craig
Had a bit of re-read in all honesty Craig I think I am more tired than I ever was tripping/tramping, My hours are 5h00 - 13h00 other shift 13h00 - 21h00, you are going to laugh at that, but, I am driving on roads all day where two lorries can pass but care is needed, some of them (ok a short distance) where you have to almost stop to pass another lorry. I tend to find I am exhausted at the end of the shift, way more than 7-800kms of auto route. Perhaps I am just getting older!
Daidog, had I been single it would not have bothered me, I was however in a big dilemma when ‘madame chez moi’ started to put her foot down! I wanted to continue but had to think of my family (in a strange country, if, they had been in the uk I could have gone the other way!)
As an aside, I have known a couple of drivers where their marriages have gone bust because they have retired! suddenly wifey at home has to cope with hubby at home all day every day, not just at the weekend. It is a hard life driving with many unforeseen problems, but when it is in your veins …?
Tim85:
Had a bit of re-read in all honesty Craig I think I am more tired than I ever was tripping/tramping, My hours are 5h00 - 13h00 other shift 13h00 - 21h00, you are going to laugh at that, but, I am driving on roads all day where two lorries can pass but care is needed, some of them (ok a short distance) where you have to almost stop to pass another lorry. I tend to find I am exhausted at the end of the shift, way more than 7-800kms of auto route. Perhaps I am just getting older!
I know exactly what you mean Tim, it’s the jobs where you’re having to concentrate constantly that tire you out, unlike a nice international run when you’re pretty much on auto pilot for most of the time. At this time of year I’m constantly knackered as we usually start in the late afternoon and run through 'til the morning, 10-12 hours later they way things are at present (when we’re tipping at Bordeaux on the way back home we can often wait two or three hours to tip). It’s not so much the hours, it’s the heat that gets me, after six or so years of living in the southern half of France I’m still not acclimatised to higher temps and so by the weekend I’m ready for bed at 9pm on Saturday night. Can’t complain about the job however, I’m treated like one of the lads, no distinction made for being a foreigner, and the camaraderie within the firm is excellent . . . probably the best firm I’ve worked for, although considering some of the chysters I drove for back in Cornwall that may not be too high a recommendation! That FIMO nonsense was a pain a few years back wasn’t it - many good drivers came over looking for work and had to give up as they didn’t have the necessary ticket. Sounds like you’re a patient man Tim doing what was needed until the right opportunity finally came along. I first tried to work here in '99 but could only get a start with cowboys who didn’t care about FIMO or FCOS, and so went back to blighty again.
daidog:
Craig, when you are at STEF, Nantes, I will be 100 metres to your left, POMONA - Passion Froid. Give me a shout!
We don’t go any farther than Niort at present as the trucks have to be back home in the yard for the ‘distri’ drivers to do their day job in. I mentioned me changing depots in a previous post: supposedly I’ve got an interview at Vire, Normandy, in mid September, for a job based out of Agen but doing distance work on the west side of the country, so may get to see you Daidog in the near-ish future Working for Pomona will be quite a change from what you’re doing now, that’s for certain. Don’t know much about them. Is it frozen stuff similar to the products handled by Thiriet and Picard Surgelees?
~ Craig
Tim85:
Craig 111:
and you’re probably a lot less tired than us who are driving around with fridge trailers at silly o’clock five nights a week.Craig
Had a bit of re-read in all honesty Craig I think I am more tired than I ever was tripping/tramping, My hours are 5h00 - 13h00 other shift 13h00 - 21h00, you are going to laugh at that, but, I am driving on roads all day where two lorries can pass but care is needed, some of them (ok a short distance) where you have to almost stop to pass another lorry. I tend to find I am exhausted at the end of the shift, way more than 7-800kms of auto route. Perhaps I am just getting older!
I don’t know where you are in the Vendee, but there are some good companies there.
Why not try LUMINO in Mortagne? They have good work and the chap responsible for recruitment is a good 'un. Michel Baron. They do local and long distance, or a mix of both. I worked for them for a year, or so (Lumineau / LTS or LoveFrance)). I left because they pulled out of Nantes. Stay away from Antoine, in Cholet, they “steal” from your wages! Another good company always expanding is Leroys in Saint Hermine, I have tipped there quite often and they seem regular.
The problem today is that the youngsters don’t want to get up the road, they want to be “Routiers” without ever doing the job. They complain about the money, but what they get paid they spend on “Wallpaper” for their cabsSo less jobs for us.
As an aside, I have known a couple of drivers where their marriages have gone bust because they have retired! suddenly wifey at home has to cope with hubby at home all day every day, not just at the weekend. It is a hard life driving with many unforeseen problems, but when it is in your veins …?
I know of one chap that stopped very long distance and his postman got divorced as his wife couldn’t cope with the extra demands for ■■■!
POMONA is similar to Picard except that it only delivers to Restos, hospitals, prisons, etc. It is an upper market operation, very clean. I am looking forward to getting stuck in.
Do you remember Michel Hurel from VIRE? He went bottom up a number of years ago, owed me a bit.
Lumino/Lovefrance have 2 lorries permanently based at the factory as well as 2 or 3 Blanchard-Coutand, St Proutant (near Chantonnay) They do all the localish deliveries and loads of other contractors from Brittany and Normandy as well as down south Bordeaux and further on. With fifty odd loads going out a day too numerous to remember all of them.
Not sure who you mean in St Hermine though I am only about 15 mins from there but I know there are a couple of big estates south of there on the N137 and I very rarely need to use that road as from here I would cut across to Luçon.
I doubt I will be changing jobs anytime soon, the salary is not fantastic but there are other benefits and dividends being a co-op (SCOP) and it is only 5 mins from home. Though, you never know what those pesky bosses have up their sleeves! 
Nice to know that I am not alone here. For years I have never known any body but French drivers. I go through the gates and think in French all day, and I think that makes it extra tiring. The boys in the cold store laugh when they know I have had a siesta at lunchtime. I would never go back to beating it on International, and driving in the UK is awful.
I like starting at 8 and in theory having 2 hours for lunch and finishing at 5,but the reality, as ever in transport ,doesn’t always match up.The point in being here was more family time and more time for me.Once you are in with a firm and get the benefits,and in the social system,wages are not everything.Quality of life is valued highly here and i appreciate that.
Owen
OwenMoney:
Nice to know that I am not alone here. For years I have never known any body but French drivers. I go through the gates and think in French all day, and I think that makes it extra tiring. The boys in the cold store laugh when they know I have had a siesta at lunchtime. I would never go back to beating it on International, and driving in the UK is awful.
I like starting at 8 and in theory having 2 hours for lunch and finishing at 5,but the reality, as ever in transport ,doesn’t always match up.The point in being here was more family time and more time for me.Once you are in with a firm and get the benefits,and in the social system,wages are not everything.Quality of life is valued highly here and i appreciate that.
Owen
Well Owen you are definitely not on your own!! I work with my colleagues every day as you do, and have to say I find your comment about a siesta a bit bizarre, not one of my work mates would say anything like that, moreover it would be more likely me to say they are woosies needing a sleep at lunchtime For me wages are everything if I didn’t them I would be in big doggie do do land
I take a 10/15 mins. siesta everyday. Have done for years, I always feel completely knackered after and wish I could give up the habit I’ll tell you a little story about wages this weekend. Last day with Terrena tomorrow, I feel a little sad 
I really want to give this new job a go 
I start the 8/9.
As to the FIMO - this is what protects us from Polish drivers and whilst it is a menace it keeps us all in work - French solution to European law!
All the best with the new job - bon courage! As for FIMO it no longer protects us from anyone, those days have gone. Anyone with a FIMO/FCO equivalent can legally work here (such as I with the British DCPC when I first started driving here)
Wonder if you’ll miss driving?
My firm weren’t interested in me having a uk dcpc and paid for,the Fimo,a month away doing the stupid thing,all the lunches,and gave me a company car for the month.
But very boring and tedious,especially the driving.It was just putting in the time.
Whilst french firms only employ people with a french qualification,we are still in work;wether we want to be or not !
OwenMoney:
My firm weren’t interested in me having a uk dcpc and paid for,the Fimo,a month away doing the stupid thing,all the lunches,and gave me a company car for the month.
But very boring and tedious,especially the driving.It was just putting in the time.
Whilst french firms only employ people with a french qualification,we are still in work;wether we want to be or not !
What a waste of money, if you had done a UK DCPC (not acquired rights)there was no need for you to do that I am trying to reply to craigs comment earlier (keep getting distracted) I am sure I read somewhere that when changing country you only need to do a very short course in your host country, how long ago was this Owen?
daidog:
I take a 10/15 mins. siesta everyday. Have done for years, I always feel completely knackered after and wish I could give up the habit
As to the FIMO - this is what protects us from Polish drivers and whilst it is a menace it keeps us all in work - French solution to European law!
Dai, I don’t think it does now does it? I thought at the last change everything was regularised (post crossed with Craig) but I also thought that you had to do a day course if you change your country??
Siesta, I always used to have 15/20 mins at he first services/garage south of Bordeaux grande café croisante and a snooze, always woke up woozy but after 5mins or so ready to go.
Good luck with the new post Dai hope it goes well for you
There’s no need to do any additional courses, as long as you have a driver qualification card from a valid EU country.
Interestingly I passed my FCO earlier this year and changed my tacho card for a French one and both carry my British driving licence number… No need to change that till it expires or I get a PV where points need to be subtracted.