Hi boys
A couple of years ago I wrote an account of my life history for my children to read. I thought you lads might like to see a part of it, just bare in mind it was wrote for someone that had no idea of our industry 
Sorry it’s long
The Middle East
Father worked from 1971 to 1976 with his J reg Scania 110 Super for Irish Sea Ferries hauling containers out of Garston docks Liverpool. A friend he worked with, Freddy Brown from Wigan contacted a firm called Chapman and Ball from Stoke on Trent and got them both work to The Middle East pulling their trailers. The units had to be painted in their colours, Orange and black with C and B paying half and us paying the other half, we latter found out we had payed the full amount. Due to a delay getting fathers unit painted Freddy set of on his own in his Daf 2200, the plan being to go out again together on his return. After two months he still had not returned from a one month trip so we decided to set off. My father and myself two up in a J reg non sleeper Scania with a piece of wood to go across the seats to make a bunk. We took enough food for three meals a day for four weeks most of which went in an old ammunition box on a roof rack along with two five gallon plastic water drums. We strapped a long fuel tank to the rear of the cab, and had another one made to fit across the chassis. We took a few spare parts, filters etc along with some tools. We pop riveted a TIR plate to the front and off we went to C and B”s yard to pick up a trailer. The first thing we were told to do was to remove the afore mentioned TIR plate as apparently if it had been sealed by customs and there was any problems with the trailer or it load we would not be able to detach the unit and continue so a plate was attached to the front and rear of the trailer instead. Having collected the paperwork and trailer loaded with GM car parts we headed for Dover to get a ferry to Ostend.
Off the ferry, the first time abroad, we made our way to catch the train in Germany that took us out of our way but was the only way of obtaining transit permits for this country While waiting to put the truck on the train at Koln a group of three or four drivers approached us and greeted us in what we thought was a foreign language. I held my arms out and said “sorry I don’t understand we are English” To which one replied “so are we, were from Newcastle upon Tyne you cheeky b++++”. We all had a good laugh and shared a cup of tea. The train trip was a nice brake going down the Rhine and then a few hours sleep in the carriage. On disembarking at Ludwigsburg we joined up with two other British drivers, both out for the first time. One had a D series Ford four wheeler, the other a Guy Big J artic. We set off following them but soon realised we were going the wrong way, we stopped and got them to turn around and we decided to lead. The pace was very slow, having to wait for them at the top of every hill. After half an hour we were fed up with this so decided to press on leaving our convoy to catch up later. We were never to see them again. Finally we arrived at Waidhous the German Checolovac boarder .After going through the German customs, into no man’s land, then into the Chec side what an eye opener.
After crossing the channel we had seen police and guards with guns but now at the boarder they were pointed at us. In fact the first thing you saw was a bridge overlooking the border post with a man with a machine gun trained on us, one false move and I’m sure he would not have hesitated on firing. For miles it seemed every tree had a man with a gun behind it just watching us. The state of the roads was poor and it was difficult to keep going at speed. There was loud speakers on posts in the villages with music playing, then every so often it would stop and the people would come out of their homes, stand to attention in the street and listen to their ruler speak. You got the impression that if they did not, then they would be carried off to prison. On through to Hungry, similar conditions, roads getting poorer and into Romania. All communist countries, the people were very poor, just surviving. We could not work out who was better off, the man with the Oxon doing the ploughing or the man with the horse. Occasionally we would see a large state run farm with one or two old tractors. At the time back home there were adverts on TV to try and encourage tourism in Rumania, and they would say “drive through miles of unspoilt countryside”. That was exactly right, no roads just countryside. At all these border crossings the affor mentioned ammunition box was becoming a real pain. The guards eyes used to light up and we had to empty its contents every time. No one wanted their own money only German marks, and the whole world revolved around backhanders. Next came Bulgaria, this seemed a little more civilised but still not up to western standards. And on to Kapicula the Bulgarian Turkey boarder, which was renowned for its queues to clear customs. We were told to contact our agent “young Turk” in fact his runners found us. Unfortunately we were the first C+B truck to cross the border since the Turks had imposed a transit tax so it took all our running money to pay it and we had to send a telex back home to get some more transferred to us so we could carried on.
Turkey and over the newly opened Bossforus bridge we are now International truckers. On into Istanbul and park up next to the ferry to spend a night at the Harem hotel. We struck a deal with young boy to look after the truck until we returned the next day, then jumped onto the ferry into town to explore the bizarre and the famus Pudding shop cafe. I brought a very nice wrist watch of a trader on the ferry back to the hotel, it was nice to get a shower and a comfy bed for the night. Next day, up bright and early, paid the young boy and away we went again. Well driving was a little different in Turkey there did not seem to be any rules or if there was, no one obeyed them. People drove where they liked sometimes on the other side of the road and never signalled, in fact the only common light seemed to be a red light mounted under the sump facing forward, which made driving at night very interesting. There was a constant thought in the back of your mind that if we were to have an accident, we would be deemed to be at fault because if we had not been there then the accident would not have happened. Also our truck details were put on our passport so we could not leave without the truck and the truck could not leave without us. This was to make you more careful and to stop you selling the truck to locals. Life also had no value. If you were to run over a man’s wife that was no cause for concern, but if you ran over any of his animals you would have to pay him compensation. This was brought home to us when on our second trip we saw a man lying dead on the side of the road outside The Mo Camp near Istanbull. Someone had put a newspaper over his head, he was still there when we passed on our next trip three weeks later. Their trucks were manly Ford D series four wheelers with an extra axle behind the drive with single tyres. There seemed to be no limits to what they could carry, if it would go on it would. Just before Bolue we saw one with a six wheel road grader in it. He had the twin axle in his body, the blade across the back outside the body, and the two steering wheels running on the ground behind. They didn’t carry spare wheels just spare tyres and made them up on site. Nor did they carry jacks, they used to drive the trucks onto timber props. On the side of the road repairs were common, we even witness two men fire welding an axle casing that had split through the diff housing, obviously after it had been over loaded.
The road condition was not to bad until we turned on headed towards the legendry Tahir. After a few miles the tarmac ended and the road turned to a dirt track. This would not have been so bad but the track started to climb so steep that there was horse shoe bends to negocate. Passing anything coming the other way was difficult because of the width and the steep drops off the edge. There were constant reminders of danger with trucks overturned all along the track. The snow was higher than the truck at the sides, yet the track had been cleared and was dusty. We came across two young lads, one older than the other but no older than about ten. They had in their charge a donkey loaded down with snow chains, and beckoned us to buy them off them. We stopped and tried to ask how much. We could not understand so the eldest brought out his wallet to show us how much they wanted, it was full of money. The people in this area seemed so poor and yet he had all this in his wallet. We settled on less than half of what they wanted and the eldest helped me lift the chains onto the chassis of the unit. As he swung back he hit his head on the side of the trailer. His brother came to him, rubbed and kissed his wound and everything was ok again. And off we went everyone happy. It was not until later that we discovered that a small piece of chain was missing. What the lads had done was to chisel the links of the chain off a truck that had gone off the road and had been abandoned leaving a piece under the wheel. It must have taken them ages. We seemed to climb for miles then down the other side. We were told that Turkey only maintained their internal roads as looking after roads that went to borders did not make any money for their economy. Eventually we arrived at the Turk/Iran border.
The Iranian customs were very friendly and invited us into the office where drivers of other nationalities were made to wait outside. The Kurdish region was very mountainous but then cleared to flat semi desert type land with very good roads. There was an increasing amount of dead animals on the road including a very smelly camel. The price of Diesel was 2 pence a litre but was dirty looking obvesley it was not refined to the same standard as ours, but the truck run on it ok all-be-it a little bit smokey. Then eventually we arrived at our destination Tabriz. To get to our contact in the centre of town we parked up the truck and took a taxi, what an experience. The driver kept picking up people on route, about ten of us squashed in this car. The drivers’ door had no window init. The door its self was ■■■■■■■ with rope. No boot, no front wing. What a state, but all the vehicles seemed to be in the same state. Where ever the drivers’ hands or feet were he had a horn button, and used them all the time. When we could not get anyone else on board he started to drop people off, all in turn even if this involved going past one persons stop to get to the one he wanted. While we were in this taxi we noted a small “Leyland” sign in the window of one of the many small bodge up and repair garages, this was one of the many so called Agents that had been set up for the up and coming Middle East transport. Leyland had just introduced the new Marathon with extra long chassis and cooking, washing fercillaties on board. They did a large promotion in trade papers and made a big thing of having an agent in every major town. These vehicles proved to be unreliable and got themselves a bad name. We finely arrived at our agents’ office and arranged tipping for the next morning. This was undertaken swiftly by putting a strap around the crates and pulling them off with a 4x4. Bang on the floor, do not worry were paying, was the reply to our concerns. After all our care to get the load there in one peace we were a little disappointed at their actions.
While we were at the agent’s office we got our details for our return load. This involved running empty back to Rumania so as soon as we had tipped we set off. We went none stop, day and night through Turkey and Bulgaria to our loading point. We loaded and then went to the local customs to await the paperwork. We said we would get our heads down and please wake us up when it was ready, this they did, 24hrs later. We were that tired that we had slept right through. With paperwork in hand and all refreshed off we set for home. All went well until we tried to find the train station. We had driven around for ages in the middle of the night to no avail, and decided to pluck up courage to ask someone. This I did by making hand gestures of train movements and making the noise of a steam train. The man and woman started to smile and said are you looking for the station? We had managed to pick proberly the only English couple in town walking out in the early hours. After a few brief words they pointed us in the right direction and finally we heading for the train. Eventually off the train at Koln, again refreshed and onward to Ostend and over to England clear customs and return to Stoke. Our first trip over.
For our next two trips to Bagdad we had the use of a new Lubian tilt trailer.
Regards Keith,told you it was long.
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now that Ron as you will probably remember was bizarre.
I wish that I would of kept them all now.