mr sun worshipper:
my mate did mention a couple of other drivers…Mick Maunders…& Jeff Ruggins so does anyone know these guys?
I was on SCA with Mickey. The last I heard he went into partnership with another guy in the West Country.
harry:
mr sun worshipper:
my mate did mention a couple of other drivers…Mick Maunders…& Jeff Ruggins so does anyone know these guys?I was on SCA with Mickey. The last I heard he went into partnership with another guy in the West Country.
Mickey did mention his time on SCA when we worked at C & B.
When C & B packed up Mickey left and started up with a former C & B subbie by the name of John Wischusson,(His driver was Derrick Garrard).I almost went working for them but something didn’t seem right.I think they parted company after a short while.
truckyboy:
Mike Prior…is he still as fat as he was…did he do turkey with one of charlies motors…ask him if he was happy for my wife to sew his trousers…scruffy git…(his zip had broke, never had a spare pair)
surely there can’t be 2 mike priors but the one i know is very thin, but i’ll ask him anyway trucky
done a bit more digging and graham allcorn worked for “charlie ward” along with another agency driver who i forgot about…Kelvin Adams someone must know him, he’s a character…and kelvin mentioned something about regular runs to Turkey, so you must be right there trucky 
who was in the DOW freight trucks then i thought that there work was either tilts or box vans.
mike prior did m/e for WHN Judd? out of spencers wood reading… then worked for alf meade? hanging meat out of reading abbatoire i think…then worked for swallows? bought out by DFDS i think…ALSO another guy on agency, there all coming out now 
dan fischer not sure if he did m/e. might have done but i know he was on JOHN MANN for years running down to morroco o/d i think
dan was on alf meade’s aswell
markgilly:
who was in the DOW freight trucks then i thought that there work was either tilts or box vans.
Sorry for the delay Mark, the last photo taken in Bulgaria was myself at the front, with Stevie Pinter ( Stevie Goulash) in the middle and Billy Fuller. In the top photo, if you can make out that the first truck is a Foden, then that would be Stan Warmbold.
At the Stockport depot Dow had about 20 tilts, several box vans for hanging garments, a couple of flats and a couple of step frames or supercubes. They would some times hire trombone trailers for abnormal loads and hire the occasonal fridge. I hope this answer your questions.
Regards Steve.
STAN WARMBOLD Part 2
Buillit asked me if I had any more memories of old Stan Warmbold and my brother has reminded me of a story that Stan told us the first time that we ever met him.
In May 1980 I took my brother and my nephew with me on a trip to Vienna, after we tipped, we were heading towards Salzberg and decided to stay the night at a small place called Saint Valentine, where there was a small hotel with a large parking area at the front. It was a favourite stopping place for foreign truck drivers as they made the truck drivers very welcome. You would always see a British or a Dutch truck parked there every night and it was a great place if you were weekended.
We parked up at about 6 p.m. and just as we were about to go for a wash Stan parked along side us in his Foden 290, which was in Dow Freights colours. I had heard many stories of Stan although this was the first time I had actually met him, I recognised him by his flat cap and the small gold earring that he wore.
After having a wash and ordering a meal, Stan started telling us about a few of the old companies he had worked for. As I was in my twenties and Stan was in his fifties he seemed to get on with my older brother really well. As my brother was also a driver in the Manchester area they were doing a lot of reminiscing.
Stan told us a story of one of the companies that he drove for in the sixties from the Gorton area of Manchester. The boss was a real tight ■■■■■■■■ he made you work for your money but it was good money and he would cut corners when ever he could.
At 8 a.m. on a Monday morning, Stan would take his I.I.R.C. 8 wheel Mammoth Major, which had a trailer coupling, around to Crossley Motors in Gorton where he would attach a trolley bus onto an A frame towbar. He would then take it back to his companies yard, uncouple the bus and then go to the I.C.I. works at Blackley, north Manchester. When he got there he would then load 40 drums which were not on pallets and then rope and sheet the load. After that it was back to the yard, where the trolley bus by this time had been loaded with parcels, upstairs and down. The lorry and the bus were then re coupled and along with a lorry boy they would leave the yard just after lunch time.
Following the A6 out of Manchester they carried on until they came to the Preston by pass, after crossing the River Ribble near Salmonsbury it was a real slog up the hill before picking up the A6 again. They would always stop at the Jungle Café he said by the time you got there you were gagging for a brew. I always tried to make Carlisle on the first night where I would park at the cattle market, you could walk to the cafe and the boozer said Stan. It was great sleeping in the bus, there was plenty of space and you could keep your night out money.
On Tuesday morning they got up early and set off towards Glasgow. Just before Glasgow they used to park up in a large lay-by and uncouple the trolley bus. Stan would then go and deliver the load of drums somewhere in the Glasgow area and leave the lorry boy to look after the bus. After delivering the drums it was back to the lay-by where they would load the parcels off the bus on to the lorry. He would then take it to I.I.R.C. a company called Highland Haulage who were a parcel delivery company and covered the whole of Scotland. Then it was back to the lay-by, to load whatever parcels were left on to the lorry. After that they would both leave the bus and drive round to get a fish supper. Then it was back to the lay-by where they both slept in the bus again.
The next morning, with the trolley bus in tow they would be outside the Glasgow Corporation bus depot before 8 a.m. This was where they left the bus and after lifting the tow bar onto the back of the lorry, it was back to Highland Haulage to deliver the rest of the parcels. After telephoning the boss he would always have us loading on Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night was always spent in digs.
This job apparently only lasted for six weeks in the summer as his boss only had the contract to deliver six buses.
Do any Trucknet senior members know if this story is true, or was Stan pulling our legs, we have always believed it to be true.
Can anybody ever remember seeing lorries towing buses ?.
Did Glasgow Corporation have Crossley trolley buses ?.
Would it be feasible to tow a bus from Manchester to Glasgow over Shap ?.
How did they deliver trolley buses to Scotland ?.
I wrote this a couple of months ago and since then I have been over to the U.K where I met up with ten of the old Dow drivers from the Stockport depot, they still are a great bunch of guys. Out of about 30 drivers who I worked with, I was sorry to hear that 14 of them have now passed away. One of the drivers that I did meet up with was Ken Corrigan, who was also an owner driver for Dow and knew Stan a lot longer than I did. When I showed this story to Ken he said he had heard it before but seemed to remember a company called Kaye-Goodfellow towing buses over Shap.
Ken told me that when he went to Jimmy Bagents funeral he was talking to Stan who said he might not be around for long as the doctors had found a brain tumour or something and it didn’t look too good. Ken said “ don’t be daft Stanley, you will always be around”. Sadly that was the last time that Ken ever spoke to Stan.
If you ever get to heaven, you will probably see loads of people playing harps, but look out for the man playing the spoons and the mouth organ wearing a flat cap, that will be Stan. No doubt there will be a few drivers sat around enjoying his company, I certainly did.
Now you mention it,I too remember Stan.With his dead pan expression when telling a tale,you would believe every word.
I remember a couple of tines being in the “National” with him.On one occasion we were ready to leave one morning when I noticed Stan had blood down one side of his face and he hadn’t realised it.
When I cleaned it up for him,he had quite a gash on his cheek and he couldn’t think how it happened until he thought about when he had his shave in the bog at the “National”.He could only asume that when he had picked up his soap to wash his face after the shave that a disused blade must have got stock to his bar of soap.
Another time,again at the “National”,he was asking if anyone had ever loaded at Sighetu in Northern Romania,no one could help,so off he went to find it.
Next time I saw him,he said he had found Sighetu and there was no way he’d go there again.
I went to Sighetu on a regular basis some time after that,OK in summer,but oh boy,another story in the winter.
Here’s why:
Ian, as you mentioned Stan had a dead pan expression when telling a tale you never knew when he was being serious.
One I will always remember was when Stan was tipping at Liverpool Docks in the 60s. If you weren’t tipped by the end of the shift you would have to park up outside the dock gates for the night.
Stan told me that the Ganger used to come along and put a chalk mark on your tyre to see if your lorry had moved over night. Stan would walk to the pub and when he came back he would have to sleep sitting in the seat. The next morning he woke up to find that the dock policeman was waving the queue in. Stan was bursting for a pee but there was no way he was going to lose his place now. When he got into the dock he couldn’t find a toilet so he flagged down a lorry coming towards him.
“Excuse me mate, do you know where the urinal is” asked Stan ?.
Sorry Pal said the other driver, it’s my first time to these docks, I have been driving round for the last 20 minutes looking for the New Zealand Star. 
It was the first time that I heard that one but Stan caught me, hook, line and sinker.
Mushroomman
Do you know or remember Micky Cosgrove?
He worked for Dow Freight sometime during the early 80’s when I drove for Fred Archer,but I know him from working at Goodway Transport on container’s,he at the Trafford Park depot and me in Felixstowe.
Micky is a scouser.
Just wondering what he’s up to nowaday’s?
Another name that someone may remember is Tim Smith,he drove for Trans UK in the 70’s doing Pakistan & Afghanistan.
At a Trans UK reunion a few years ago someone recounted to me the tale of how Tim used to travel light,in fact he never carried any clothes with him at all.
He used to buy a new leather jacket and a pair of jeans in Istanbul on the way home,and not change again until he was coming home on his next trip!
I was even told that he used to check the oil on the truck,and wipe the dipstick on his jacket.
I do vaguely remember him,he always had a guitar with him which he used to play every night.
Yes Keith, I remember Mick Cosgrove very well, he was a great bloke although I can’t remember shipping out with him very often but I always seemed to meet up with him running back to the U.K. or we would see each other going in the opposite direction. I am not sure that in the seventies he worked for Don Gibson who had a company called Bryce Boyd doing Middle East.
The last few times that I saw Mick was when he was on for Goodways loading out of I.C.I. Heywood I saw him there about five times but that was about 1998.
There was about eight Scoucers who worked for Dow in Stockport.
Billy Jones, who I did my first trip with along with Frank Andrews who was sadly killed in France while driving a tanker for Dentressangle.
Davey Faraday who was an owner driver and then went on Falcongate.
Don Gibson, I think owned Bryce Boyd and then pulled for Dow as a subbie.
Bob Matthews who I think worked for Norseman Freight or Lucus from Birkenhead, I am not sure if Micky Cosgrove also worked for Norseman.
Ronnie Royle and Terry Smith, Terry used to work in the clubs as a comedian
but then again aren’t all scoucers comedians?.
All were great blokes to work with and I never saw one Shell Suit.
Hi Steve and Ian, thanks for those stories about Stan. My missus read them both with interest. She doesnt recall him saying anything about delivering trolley buses to Scotland though but, she says that knowing the way stan was, it wouldnt surprise her!! 
Sounds incredible doesnt it, to tow a bus all the way up to Glasgow filled with multi drop parcels to be delivered on route!! Different world and a different way of life then. She remembers the 2 trucks he had as an O/D for dow frieght, more so a blue (volvo??) possibly with some name written on the head board.
She has dug out a pick of Stan taken shortly before he died and which im sussing out how to post up, im also hoping her relatives can dig out some of his own pics taken on his journeys east!!
Cheers once again for taking the time to post and, steve, I hope you enjoyed your visit to the UK.
Cheers, bullitt.
bullitt, please check your p.m. box.
ZACHO
Hi Gavin, I should of thought that every one who went to Iraq through Zacho had at least a couple of memories to share.
Going through some borders in the 80s was a bit like having ■■■, you never forget the first time and some times after you had finished all you wanted to do was sleep. I always said to myself when ever I went through Kapicule into Turkey “ if the world had piles this is where they would be”. But after going through Zacho I thought, if the world needed a hysterectomy this is where they would start because I.M.H.O. Zacho was a c _ _ t of a place. I must admit that I only ever went through Zacho once on the way to Iraq but I had two very bad experiences, one going in and one going out.
It was in December 1983 and as I was single the boss asked me if I wanted to go to Baghdad. As I had never been there before I jumped at the chance but Catch 22 was that I would be away over Christmas and the New Year and there was no way I would be flying home for the festive season.
A week before Christmas Roy Kershaw ( a.k.a. Roy the Boy) and myself were sent up to Scotland to load at a bonded warehouse. We both drove a M.A.N. 16.280 and we both were pulling 40ft tandem axle step frame box trailers. Roy loaded a full load of beer, there were 24 tins in each carton and I forget how many hundreds of cartons there were. My load was all whiskey and after we had finished loading the custom men sealed the trailers and started the carnet.
I had run with Roy on many occasions and I can never remember having a bad trip whenever we met up together. You were always assured of having a good laugh with Roy, it always made the job that bit easier. If you wanted somebody to run with you couldn’t get much better than Roy Kershaw.
We went back to Dow Freights depot in Stockport, where we backed up tight against the wall, we didn’t want to lose anything before we had shipped out. We went home for the night and when we came back in the morning, we collected all our paper work and about 800 pounds running money. We were told if we needed any more money to call in to see our agent in Istanbul, Tachi Kochman.
Before we left we rechecked all our paper work, passport, make sure its still valid and it wont run out on the way, U.K. driving licence, international driving licence, green card for insurance, G.V.60 for the trailer, all the permits for the different countries, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Turkey and Iraq all issued in Newcastle. Then it was down to Dover and on to Brussels where we were to get our Iraqi visas and our manifest translated into Arabic.
Five days later, we had managed to get through Kapicule and into Turkey at 8pm on the 24th of December. From the customs it was straight round to the new Mocamp that had just opened about a mile down the road. We met up with another British driver who was on his way home from Doha. For a Christmas Eve miles away from home it turned out to be a good one, apart from having the mother of all hangovers the next morning. On Christmas Day after the three of us had all surfaced at about 11am, we walked over to the shops and bought a cooked chicken. Then it was back to the trailer box where we opened a tin of new potatoes, a tin of carrots, a tin of peas and made an Oxo gravy. I boiled the tinned Christmas pudding that I had brought along and Roy went and added his culinary skills to the meal by pouring half a bottle of Asbach brandy over the pud and setting it alight, which also cremated it at the same time.
We had already decided to park up for the day and as we were sat in my cab having another Efes, I remember seeing a very strange site.
On the road leading up to the border, an orange Volkswagen Beetle was being pulled along on a rope by about five women, all dressed in long Turkish national dress. We wondered if it was some kind of a charity sponsored fund raiser but just as the car passed us it stopped. There was a lot of shouting and waving of arms about, there was certainly a big argument going on with a couple of them pointing at the car. From out of the driving seat a huge over weight Turk emerged wearing a long flowing Turkish gown. After arguing with the women for a few minutes, he lifted up the bonnet of the Volkswagen and took out a one gallon petrol can, he then put on a red fez and set off walking towards the petrol station. We all thought this was very funny as they must of pulled him for at least half a mile.
It seemed at the time one of those Efes moments and well worth a picture.
Boxing day only got us as far as Istanbul and as we were the only British drivers at the Londra Camping we decided to do some washing and make an early start to Ankara the following morning.
By the 29th we pulled on to the Oryx Garage at Adana, there had been quite a bit of snow around but we had not had to use the snow chains at any time. Frank Brandon was there on his way home from Saudi in his Volvo F88 with another English driver who’s name I think was Keith.
Keith was an owner driver from Burnley, who also had a Volvo F88 pulling a load for Whittle International from Preston on his way to Kuwait It was the only time that I ever met him but he was one of the really nice guys that now and again you would meet up with.
The next morning, after a cup of tea and a fried egg and spam sandwich we said good bye to Frank and set off on our journey southwards. At 8am it was still very cold and we realized that the road was like a river of ice. After a couple of hours driving from Adana the traffic in front had come to a standstill. We heard later that there had been a landslide and we had to wait for it to be cleared. This delay lost us about three hours and as it had been sleeting for most of the day, we decided to try and make it to the garage at Gaziantepe, where Keith had decided to have two of his trailer tyres recut.
We left Gaziantepe at about 6am the following morning as we had a long drive in front of us. The weather was now getting a lot warmer and by midday we were driving in tee shirts, it was a big change from the previous two days. In the afternoon I can remember that we were fording a river, I think it might have been the Tigress River and some women were washing their clothes in the river. There were lots of bulrushes along the river bank and an old man and a young boy were sat in a donkey cart staring at us as we went past. I hope I will never forget that scene, it reminded of a picture that I saw in a Sunday school picture book when I was a kid many years ago, it was like something out of the bible that has not changed in over 2000 years. ( Apart from the donkey cart having a nice set of Dunlop’s ).
About six miles from the border we were following a high wired fence on our left where there appeared to be soldiers positioned every few hundred yards. As I was following Keith I noticed that two of his trailer wheels were wobbling. I started to flash my lights and sound my horn to attract his attention. after a couple of minutes he noticed me and started to slow down. When we looked at his back trailer wheels it was obvious that his wheel nuts had come loose. We jacked up the trailer and took off the wheels, the holes were a lot bigger than they should have been. I always carried a set of wheel collars in my toolbox so we put Keith’s spare wheel on the outside, then the collars and tightened the nuts up. Just before we had finished two soldiers appeared on the other side of the fence shouting “ nix parking, nix parking ’’. They were pointing their rifles towards us as though they were about to shoot and I thought there is no way that they will shoot us for changing a wheel. As we didn’t want to chance it and as we had nearly finished, we threw the jack and the wheel brace into Keith’s trailer box and without washing our dirty hands we very quickly got on our way towards the border.
By now it was about 2 o’ clock in the afternoon and Keith was really pleased that the queue was only about three miles long. By 7pm we were in the Turkish compound as we were prepared to pay the Turkish overtime rate and after a few baksheesh we moved into the Iraqi compound about three hours later.
From what I can remember, the Iraqi customs building appeared to be a scene of confusion, chaos and disorganisation. It was filled with cigarette smoke, it was dirty, dimly lit, hot and stank of sweat. There was litter all over the place in fact it was bedlam. They say that first impressions count and I thought to myself, what an effin hole.
Instead of doing one lot of paperwork and then moving along to the next table to do the next lot, you had to do it the Arab way, the way in which I think, only they understand how it makes sense.
It seemed to me to be a case of, queue ( queue ? Is there an Arab word meaning queue ? ) queue in that corner and push, shove or fight your way to the front, get your passport stamped, and then go to the opposite corner ,queue and when the official comes back from his chai break pay the overtime. Go into the room next door and queue, when you get to the front show him your manifest translation, he will probably want en pakky Marlboro and maybe no problema.
Go back into the other room queue and have your Iraqi permit stamped.
At each table sat an Arab in a white robe with a red and white chequered tea towel on his head. A few of them were well over weight, stamping a piece of paper was about all the exercise they ever did. Each one or the Chief ( The Chef as every body called him) was wearing an expensive looking gold watch, three or four gold rings on his fingers and had three or four gold teeth. Sat by his side was his assistant, or the fixer as I liked to call them. It was his job to find any little mistake, if the I’s had not been dotted or the T’s had not been crossed then he would find it. With he’s help he would tell you how you could overcome such a major problem with the help of a baksheesh, a carton of Marlboro, a jar of decent coffee or a large donation to the Chef’s retirement fund. Next to the fixer at a couple of the tables stood a young boy of about twelve, he would take the paperwork off the driver at the front of the queue, open it up at the right page and place in front of the fixer.
We were in the queue waiting to have our Iraqi permits stamped and had been there for over twenty minutes by the time we got to the front. Keith handed over his permit and the fixer studied it very carefully, he passed it over to the Chef who stamped it and gave it back to his assistant, who then looked at it again before giving it back to Keith. I then gave him my Iraqi permit which he spent a long time looking at and then had a discussion with the Chef. After about five minutes the Chef stamped it and gave it back to the fixer, who handed it back to me. Roy then gave him his permit, the fixer looked at it and said something to the Chef, the Chef looked at the gold watch on his right hand, he then pulled up his left sleeve and looked at the gold watch on his left hand and said “ chai time ” and got up out of his chair to leave the room.
The fixer gave Roy his permit back “ zuruck ” ( return) he said, zuruck in ten minutes, chai time and he got up to leave. Why can’t you just stamp the bleeding thing shouted Roy. Zuruck, ten minutes zuruck, shouted the assistant chai time chai time as he moved away from the table. Well said Keith we might as well stay here now as we are at the front of the queue, the time was 11.20 pm.
Expecting them to return at 11.30, nobody came back, ah well I thought, maybe they will be back at 11.45 pm as Keith said “ it’s much to early for them to go for their meal break. By this time we were all feeling very tired and starting to get a bit p–s-d off.
Midnight came, the three of us shook hands and wished each other a happy new year and we all hoped that we would all be at home, this time next year.
Just then, the two Iraqi officials, (the Chef and his assistant, the fixer ) reappeared at last, I thought now we can get moving. Roy gave the assistant his permit who looked at it carefully and then passed it to the Chef, the Chef looked at it, shook his head and passed it back to his assistant. He passed it back to Roy and said “ nix good ” . Roy looked at Keith and said “ this c–ts winding me up ” . What do you mean nix good, he shouted at the fixer, why is this permit nix good. The fixer said this permit nix good big, big problema.
Roy said “ I am going to snot this ■■■■■■■ ” , ( that was Roys way of saying, I would like to punch him on the nose ). Roy placed the permit on the desk in front of the fixer, where is the problem he asked. This permit nix good is 1983 permit now is 1984 for permit, big, big problema, said the fixer, I looked at my watch the time now was five minutes past midnight.
Roy looked at me and said “ now he is really winding me up , I am gonna snot this ■■■■■■■ ” . Look said the fixer it say’s here, he pointed to the stamp on the permit, issued at Newcastle valid from 1st January to 31st December 1983, now is 1984. Roy was really going now, Keith and I tried to calm him down but Roy was at the end of his tether.
Keith asked the fixer how much will it cost to make the permit O.K. The fixer spoke to the Chef and after a couple of minutes discussion he said 300 Deutschmarks. What said Keith, that’s about 75 quid. Roy moved forward shouting let me snot him, let me snot the ■■■■■■■■ Keith grabbed hold of Roy and we both pushed him away from the table. Keith said, look if you don’t calm down non of us will be going anywhere. The Chef got up and left the table, walked over to a corner and started talking to some other officials, now and again he would glance over in our direction. We all walked back to the fixer and started pleading with him on how we didn’t have that much money, he knew and we knew, he had got us by the balls.
For us to try and get a new permit from the U.K. could take nearly a week, to try and contact the British Embassy in Baghdad because of the holiday would take at least two days. We knew that the only option we had was to start haggling but we also knew that there was only going to be one winner and it was not going to be the away team. After about 20 minutes of trying to put our point across, trying to explain that there was nothing wrong with the permit, calling him my friend and giving him three packets of Marlboro, we had him down to 100 Deutschmarks, about 25 quid. He didn’t look very happy and said he really sympathised with us but it was up to the Chef, only he had the power to make the decision. In the end he said he would talk to the Chef who was now talking to another official and drinking tea. When the Chef sat at the table he sat there shaking his head from side to side before taking the 100 Deutschmark note, he then very slowly stamped the permit and gave it back to Roy. We moved away from the table and as I turned around to look at the Chef, he sat there with a big smile showing all his gold teeth and put the 100 marks into his pocket.
The next formality was to get the carnet stamped and when we got to the front of the queue the official asked me had I got a diary. I said yes as I kept a diary as a journal and as a record of all my expenses. Give it to me he said, but it’s in the truck I told him. Go and get it now, I want to see it he demanded. I walked over to the truck and by the time I got back another 15 minutes had passed. When I showed it him he went mad, what’s this he shouted, what is this ?. A diary I shouted back, I was now getting really ■■■■■■ off , you asked for my diary, this is my diary. I want a new diary, I want a 1984 diary he shouted, well I haven’t got a new diary was my reply. Have you got any ■■■■■ books, he asked, no I have not got any ■■■■■ books was my reply. Have you got a Littlewood’s catalogue he asked, I thought why on earth would you want a Littlewoods catalogue in a place like this. Littlewoods catalogue has very nice pictures of English girls wearing no clothes, he smiled. He looked at the manifest and said you have lots of whiskey on your load, I said yes and thought I bet he takes a lot of samples.
We all walked out to the three trucks, I took the big padlock off the back door and the official snapped off the Turkish seal. He shone a torch inside the van for a couple of seconds and said O.K., he then fixed an Iraqi seal onto the door handle. The same thing happened to Roy and within five minutes we had both been sealed. Keith had to open up his tilt and an Iraqi soldier climbed in the back and shone a torch around for about 10 minutes before climbing out and asking for a packet of Marlboro. We relaced Keith’s tilt, they resealed him and we all went back inside to have the paper work stamped.
It was now 4.30 am and we had queued everywhere, we had given out lots of cigarettes, payed our overtime charge, had our paperwork all stamped and met Ali Baba who had conned Roy out of 100 Deutschmarks. After being on the go for over 22 hours with only a couple of cat naps while we were waiting in the queue on the Turkish side, we were all ready for bed.
Keith suggested that we should all get a couple of hours sleep while we were still in the compound as it would be safer. All we had to do in the morning was a cabin control and a seal check by the army and we could be on our way to Baghdad.
I walked over to my truck and did what most drivers did every night, I peed against the back wheel, got into the cab and washed my hands and face. I locked the door, kicked my shoes off and turned the night heater on. I climbed onto the top bunk while I was still dressed and lay there listening to the click, click ,click of the Eberspacher night heater. It always felt reassuring whenever it fired up and in a couple of minutes I was fast asleep.
Gavin, I can’t remember seeing a fish tank full of blood but after the Iraqi customs men had screwed the drivers of every penny they had, maybe they tried to squeeze every drop of blood out of them.
P.S. If anybody is interested in what happened on the way back, let me know.
The Volkswagen Photo.
Tarsus, Turkey.
Tarsus Again.
Turk Scammell’s, Southern Turkey.
Breakfast, Southern Turkey.
Parked up in the Iraqi Desert.
1 Like
crack on on with it mm rest of the story and some more pics as well please
Is anybody interested 
Does a bear crap in the woods
Dont be daft MM, of course we are interested, stories like these are great to hear.
Cheers for taking the time to post it.
Bullitt.
I had a similar experience regarding borders and dates back in the early 90’s. I had shipped out to Croatia between chrismas and the new year. After clearing customs in Osijek and tipping Belisce I was told that my reload was in Curtici, Romania. I looked at my map and what looked like the best route was back to Osijek and take the road north to Hungary up through Mohacs then turn right at Bataszek for Szeged then the Romanian border at Nadlac.
Now this was when there was still alot of troubles going on in that part of Croatia. As you head north out of Osijek you have to cross a river, but when I got to the bridge it had been bombed so they had made the rail bridge into a makeshift road bridge with a guy at either side. His job was to flash a light over to the guy on the other side to say that a vehicle was coming over. I went over and had only gone about 2 miles up the road when I came accross a group of soldiers ( British I think ). I was asked were the hell I was going and told them, they told me no way as there was a lot of fighting going on up the road, all of a sudden there was a massive explosion a couple of kms up the road, I didnt need to be told twice and quickly did a U turn. I had to make my way back through the town I had tipped in and head towards the border at Donji-Miholac and Dravaszabolcs, upto Pecs cut accross to Mohacs and then follow my intended route. I eventually parked up on the road between Baja and Szeged in Hungary about 2am, I was absolutely knackered and couldn’t see more than 20 yards in front because of thick fog. When I woke the next morning around 10.30am I found myself surrounded by small stalls, I had only gone and parked on the market square.I am sure we passed the place last year when I did the humanitarian aid to Kosovo as we regularly use the border at Tompa into Serbia.
Luckly for me they had left an escape route for me so after an unexpected breakfast at the market and a little shopping for fresh products, I left when my 9 hrs rest was over and made my way to Rumo. After the usual border controls I eventually got to my reload that day but to late to load so it was camion stew that night a few beers in the cab and an early night. Next day I loaded with bales of mohair all the way from Mongolia, that had I was told had been stored in the warehouse for about 3 years , to say it stank was an understatement ( another Chris Brearley job Wheelnut). Anyway loaded cleared on site and upto the border at Varsand ( if memory serves me right) up through Hungary to the Austrian border and thats where the real problems started. I had cleared the Hungarian side no problems but the Austrians ( Germans with their sense of humour removed) totally different. As I said at the beggining I had shipped out just after xmas and was coming back into Austria the next year ( although only by a few days). In Austria in those days as many a old timer will remember you had to have was what called ECU Points to transit Austria. They looked like a postage stamp and depending on the emissions of your vehicle depended how many points ( stamps) you needed. Now these stamps were issued from Newcastle and as a company you were only issued so many each year and they were colour coded for each year. You guessed it , I had last years ( by a few days) and they werent about to budge, no ECU points= no entry. Well after 24 hrs at there side and the smell off the load even though it was middle of winter, they soon changed their minds and without a single Marlboro exchanging hands, I was aloud to continue my journey.
I eventually tipped in Bradford and I am sure that we scrapped the trailer afterwards as it was fit for nothing.
Below is my truck and trailer with yours truly used on that trip although the pic is not actually from that trip
Dafdave , hope this brings back some memories of our times at Harvey’s, see you on Sunday afternoon and I have a suprise visitor coming with me to see you.
ZACHO, THE RETURN JOURNEY.
The next morning at about 9 a.m. I was awoken by Roy banging on the door, saying my three favourite word’s, the kettle’s on. We woke Keith up and after having some breakfast we all pulled up to the gate. The Iraqi soldier climbed into the cab complete with his A.K.47 and started going through my cassette case. He asked if he could have every second cassette. I gave him one of Boney M that I had bought in Istanbul for about 50 pence. I had only played it once, I didn’t like it and it was a bad pirate copy anyway. “ O.K.” he said and then he tucked the cassette inside his tunic and the cabin control came to a sudden end. We walked round to the back of the trailer, he checked the seal and waved to his friend who lifted up the barrier. Within 15 minutes we were all on our way and I found out later that the guard had also cadged a cassette off Roy and packet of Marlboro off Keith.
We pushed on past Mosul with Keith leading the way and after about an hour we pulled into a filling station on the right hand side of the road. There were about four lanes in the filling station and I picked the end lane on the left so the pumps were on my right. Now if I remember correctly I had a 200 litre fuel tank on my right hand side and a 100 litre fuel tank on my left hand side. I.I.R.C. you were allowed 200 litres of diesel and they wrote it on your carnet. I also seem to think that it cost about 20 pence a gallon,( but I am not absolutely sure about this) and you paid for it in Iraqi Dinars before you got it. What I didn’t realise was that the hose on the pump was only about five foot long and I managed to put about 160 litres in my big tank before it was full. The hose was not long enough to stretch across the catwalk to reach the smaller tank, so I told the attendant that I would turn the truck around to put in the extra 40 litres. He went berserk, he started shouting and waving his arms about and then switched off the pump. Somebody came up who spoke a bit of English and said it was too late now, I had my diesel and it was my fault for parking the wrong way, he had turned the pump off and if we didn’t leave now, he was going to call the police. Keith advised me that I should count my loses because if he called the police, they would probably be related and I might be fined for one reason or another, so we left.
After about another three hours we pulled up outside the customs compound at Falluja and parked in the desert. We had lunch with Keith and said our goodbyes as he was carrying on to Kuwait that afternoon.
I never met Keith again, in fact I am not 100% sure if his name was Keith. I am certain that he was an owner driver from Burnley and was pulling a trailer for Whittles of Preston. I think he had a Volvo F88, but I am sure that you could not wish to meet a nicer bloke. He drove off in a cloud of dust before reaching the tarmac road and disappeared into the heat haze.
We had been told that we had to put our paperwork into the customs at 6 a.m. and as it closed at 2 p.m. there wasn’t much that we could do that day. It was past 2 p.m. anyway so we parked near a couple of Rumanians and a Hungarocamion, we thought it would be safer with a few trucks together.
Our Commie colleagues were all in bed by 9 p.m. and Roy and I sat in the dark, in the desert, looking up at the millions of stars in the clear night sky. You could see the lights of Falluja not to far away and the light’s of Baghdad way over in the distance. It wasn’t to cold and Roy and I sat outside drinking our fourth cup of tea when suddenly we heard the air raid warning sirens in the distance. The light’s of Falluja went out and in the distance you could see areas of Baghdad being plunged into darkness. Up till now there was no moon that night and apart from the millions of stars it was pitch black but over to the east we could see red dots shooting up from the ground, going into the sky and disappearing towards the horizon. The red dots against the jet black sky looked spectacular and I realised that they were tracer bullets or shells being fired either from Iran to Iraq or vice versa.
Iraq and Iran had been at war for a couple of years by now, in fact it wasn’t all that long ago that Iraq had built a nuclear power station near Baghdad and just before it was commissioned, guess what, the Israeli’s bombed it. The red tracer bullets looked great shooting across the black sky but it never occurred to us to think about the death and destruction it was causing. The shooting was not continuous, just short bursts about every twenty minutes. At about 11 p.m. after our sixth cup of tea the shelling stopped and we went to bed.
The next morning it was up at 5.30 a.m. and after a cup of coffee we drove over to the customs compound, at 6a.m. they opened the gates and we drove in. We had been given a contact telephone number for our agent in Baghdad and we gave him a ring. He spoke good English and said that he was very pleased that we had arrived safely. He also told us that he had spoken to the importer the day before and that he was really looking forward to meeting us. He gave us the name of his friend who was also an agent at the Falluja customs and said that his friend would be sorting out the paperwork for us. He gave us directions to his friends office and said that he hoped to meet us at about midday.
The customs compound at Falluja seemed to be organised much better than the one at Zacho. The only thing that we did was to give the agent all our paperwork and he told us to wait by our trucks and he would come to see us in about four or five hours. At about 11.a.m. the customs entourage arrived at our trucks, some of them were dressed in long white gowns with tea towels on their heads and a couple were dressed in western clothes. It didn’t take long for them to take off the seal and have a quick look in the back. Then they all disappeared back inside for about half an hour. Eventually the agent came out with all our paperwork and said “finished”. Now this is what you must do, he said, this man will go with you in your truck and he will take you to the place where you are offloading.
The man was about thirty years old and was dressed in western clothes, he also spoke a bit of English. He pointed over to the tarmac and I set off following the signs for Baghdad. After about fifteen minutes he motioned me to slow down and pull over into the desert, when we were about 200 meters away from the road he told me to stop. I knew that Roy was following me but it was the first time that I had seen the grey Mercedes following him. The guy in my truck told me that the agent who I first spoke to that morning, had requested that the man in the Mercedes take four cases of whiskey to a place in Baghdad. This place was in a very small street and it would not be possible to get the truck into this street, so the four cases had to go by car. This to me seemed a little bit suspicious but I thought I would get him to sign the C.M.R. first. We walked round to the back of the trailer and I explained to Roy what was happening, I gave him the C.M.R. but he would not sign it saying it was not a problem. By this time the driver had got out of the Mercedes and had come over to see what the delay was. I was just going to take the padlock off the door, when I saw a black Mercedes speeding across the desert towards us, kicking up a huge dust cloud and I thought oh ■■■■ it’s a high jack.
The car skidded to a halt next to the trailer and a very large Iraqi fellow got out and started talking to the agent. The agent looked very sheepish and started backing away. Then the stranger said to me in English I am Mr ( what ever his name was ), what’s going on ? Why have you stopped here ?. I recognised the voice, it was the agent in Baghdad who I had spoken to first that morning. I explained what the young agent had told me about the four cases. The next thing I know is that the agent from Baghdad has got the young agent against the side of the trailer and starts beating him on his the head. When he stopped and let him go, the young agent and the driver jumped into the grey Merc and shot off across the desert at a hell of a speed. The agent from Baghdad said, “you must not stop for anybody, I was coming to Falluja to meet you and take you to the customer, I am sorry that I am late, that man is now in big trouble with the police” , he was fuming. “Lock your doors and follow me”, he said, so we made our way back to the tarmac road and once again headed towards Baghdad, but I wasn’t sure just what was going on.
In Baghdad there were new buildings going up all over the place, and every now and again there were huge posters of Saddam Hussian. Eventually, we arrived at a large construction site surrounded by a high wire fence. When we drove on to the site we were met by a group of Europeans, one of whom was Scottish. The Scotsman was the importer of the two loads and turned out to be a cracking guy. Another guy was the boss of the Yugoslavian construction company who were running the site, we asked what they were building and was told it was something for the government.
After backing up to what looked like a secure building with bars on the windows, we were told by the Yugoslav boss to get our things out of the cab and one of his men would take us to one of their guest bungalows where we could stay the night. He introduced us to a young Indian worker who spoke good English and looked after the guest bungalows that were on the site. The Indian guy asked us to bring all our dirty washing and said that he would have it washed and ironed by the morning. The bungalow was quite nice really, with four single beds a small kitchen and a television set that only seemed to have Arab programmes. After a shower we were invited to dinner with the Yugoslav boss. There was a big canteen on the site and we were defiantly in the managers section. The Scottish guy was organising the offloading of the trucks and had brought up a case of whiskey and six cartons of beer. The dinner turned out to be a promotion for the whisky and the beer and when the first case was finished, he went and got another one. I have never been a whiskey drinker but I had more than my fair share that night.
The next morning after waking up with a bit of a hangover at 8 a.m. the Indian worker brought us a cup of tea in bed. After he had made us a bit of breakfast and we had showered, he brought back all our clothes which had been washed and ironed. A little later the Scottish guy came to see us with the signed C.M.R. He was really pleased with how the job had been handled and as a token of his appreciation he gave Roy and I two bottles of whiskey and a carton of beer each.
We asked if we could use the phone but apparently all the phone lines were not working. Where we had parked the trucks there were a few old car tyres lying around and I threw one of them in the back of the trailer, I thought that it might come in handy later on.
We drove out of Baghdad and as we got to Falluja we could see one of Fred K. Archers blue Scania’s parked up in the desert, so we drove over to make sure that he was alright. It turned out to be Noddy Bob, who was having an afternoon siesta, before driving down to I.I.R.C, Basra in Southern Iraq. While we were talking to Bob a C.V.H. (Caerphilly Van Hire) D.A.F. pulled up driven by Ron Slater from Birmingham who we all affectionately called Depression Ron. Ron asked if we had seen another C.V.H. driver called Martin Mouldsworth who he said should of been tipping in Baghdad and after having a brew with us he set off to try and find Martin. We asked Bob if he knew where we could telephone from and he said he was going to walk over to the market to do some shopping and that he would show us where the main post office was. The Post and Telecommunication Office was one of the few places that you could make an international telephone call from but sometimes you had to book the call then wait for a couple of hours, which is what we had to do that day.
Eventually we got through to our imports manager Graham Walker, to let him know that we had tipped and that we were empty in Baghdad. Is everything O.K. asked Graham, have you got any problems ? . It was always reassuring to hear Grahams voice, if ever you did have a problem he would usually get it sorted out. There was no point now in mentioning about the Iraqi permit, we were more interested in finding a back load so we could get on our way home, so we told him that everything was fine. Right said Graham, I have nothing for you at the moment but I shall contact Tahji Kochman in Istanbul to see if he has anything in Turkey. If he has nothing, then I shall try and get you a load from Yugoslavia for the north of England. Make your way up to the Telex Hotel in Ankara and when I get something I shall send you the details there. We both said good bye and I payed the telephone bill in Iraqi Dinar. It was amazing really, quite often you would sit in a post office somewhere waiting for nearly two hours, just for a two minute phone call.
Roy, Bob and I walked around the market ( The Suak ) and bought a cooked chicken each off a stall at the side of the street and then walked back to the trucks. By this time Bob had decided that he would stay here for the night and wait for the Philipino or the Bulgarian who used to bring the diesel tanker from the refinery. The Bulgarian or the Bogyman as somebody once called him because he only came out at night, was always a welcome site for Western lorry drivers.
He and the Philipino who were drivers at the refinery would sell diesel at about I.I.R.C. 15 pence a gallon which you had to pay for in Deutschmarks. No sooner had it got dark then the lights of the big bull nosed double drive axle Mercedes, pulling his 20,000 litre tanker came across the desert towards us. With the words REFINERY written in big letters along the side of the tank, they were not going to miss a couple of hundred litres, were they. ( Hopefully somebody on TruckNet will be able to tell me the exact price of diesel in Iraq in 1984 ). It was by now very dark as the moon had not yet come out, so I took the old car tyre that I had picked up that morning out of the back of the trailer, poured a bit of diesel over it and set it alight. This gave us plenty of light as Roy, Bob and myself sat round the trailer box and opened a carton of beer that the Scotsman had given us. Needless to say we couldn’t go to bed until it was finished, and I think it was at about 11 p.m. that we decided to call it a day.
The next day at sparrow light we said goodbye to Bob and started heading north, Roy was leading the way. By 9 a.m. we reckoned that we were about six miles from Zacho when all the traffic in front of us stopped. Roy walked back to my cab and when I asked him what he thought the problem was he said “ I think this is the end of the queue” , he was right. It was quite a site really, as far as the eye could see on the right hand side of the road, the queue of trucks stretched into infinity. There was hundreds of them, 80% of them I would say were Turkish Tonkas carrying oil, petrol or diesel. A Tonka was usually a Turkish 6 wheeled ridged, often a Ford D series or a Turkish made Desoto. The majority of these trucks had between a 8,000 to 10,000 litre tank on the back and to me they always looked overloaded and never looked safe. We estimated that it would take us at least a day to reach the border, there was nothing else to do except put the kettle on and have some breakfast. We had been there for about an hour and had moved about 500 yards when a Fred K. Archer Scania pulled along side of us. He had overtaken at least 30 trucks that were parked behind us. What are you doing parked here the driver shouted ?, it was Mickey Chinnock. I had never met Mickey before but I had heard a lot about him. Most drivers liked a drink and a curry, but it was rumoured that Mickey preferred a drink and a punch up. Roy had run with him a couple of times and had enjoyed his company. You will be here all day he said, f#*k this lot, there is bound to be a gap nearer the front. “ Come on ” said Roy let’s go, I don’t think it’s a good idea I told him, I think we had better wait our turn. Orr come on said Roy let’s chance it, they can only turn us back. I thought Roy was getting carried away with the excitement of it all but my stomach was churning and my gut was saying don’t do it. Roy ran to his cab and started his engine, Mickey drove off and Roy pulled out of the queue and followed him, like an idiot I started my engine and followed Roy.
We were getting a load of abuse as we went past the other drivers and a couple of them threw stones at the back of my trailer as I went past, but after about a mile, the game was up.
Three Turk’s stood in the middle of the road each holding a large rock that they were about to aim at the windscreen. I had to stop or run them over and the thought of maybe having to drive all the way to Istanbul or even up to Germany without a windscreen did not appeal to me. I stopped and locked the drivers door, these guys looked like they meant business. One of them climbed on to the passenger step and started banging on the window and another one tried to open the drivers door. I held my hand’s up in the I surrender position when four other drivers appeared at the front of the truck and started banging on the cab. To say I was $hitting myself was an understatement, I thought I have to get away from here before I get lynched. I put it in reverse and started going backwards and after about 50 yards they all jumped off and ran back to their own trucks. With nobody hanging onto the mirrors I stopped. It was a stroke of luck, the queue was on the move again and everybody in the right hand lane had started to move up. I was just sat there in the middle of the road, after about a dozen trucks went past there was a large gap, somebody must have been having a doze. I pulled over to the right and followed the last truck, after moving several hundred yards the convoy once again came to a halt. I sat there thinking what’s going to happen now but it was about ten minutes before the long line of trucks pulled in behind me. Much to my surprise nobody came up to speak to me but I still sat there with the door’s locked and the crow bar that I always kept under the bunk was now next to me, resting on the engine cover.
I was still worried that the drivers behind me or the drivers in front of me still wanted to carry on the confrontation. My heart was still pounding, my stomach was still churning, I wanted to vomit and I kept saying to myself, you stupid ■■■■■■■■ why did you do it, over and over again. I knew that I shouldn’t of done it, I had never jumped the queue before apart from Kapicule where as every body knew once you had done the Bulgarian side it was a free for all. I had always been patient at borders, it was part of the job and I never liked it when somebody else did it. I really thought that I was going to get a good beating and it would of served me right, I deserved it, it was my own fault.
Roy and Mickey were long gone, after another hour or so we moved a couple of hundred yard’s again to where there was a small village which was set back away from the road, over to the right. I estimated that I was still about three miles from Zacho and as I looked over towards the village I noticed an Iraqi policeman walking over towards me. He stopped next to the cab and knocked on the drivers door, I unlocked it and opened it out towards him. He stood there, he was not very tall and looked very scruffy for a policeman, His hat was much too big for him, in fact it looked more like a helicopter landing pad. His uniform looked like it had never been ironed, it was ill fitting and his shoes had seen better years. Drooping down from a pair of aviator sunglasses was a large black moustache, he might of thought that he looked like Tom Cruise in Top Gun but to me he looked like a joke policeman from Mexico. Hanging down at his right hand side in a leather holster was what looked like an old service revolver.
Ingleese, he said, yes I replied. Spreken sie Deutsch, he asked. A little bit, was my answer, as over the years I had picked up a bit of German on my travels to get by. Have you got an English cigarette for me he asked, as I didn’t smoke and the company always allowed you to buy 200 for baksheesh purposes, I gave him a packet of 20 as I felt a bit sorry him. He asked me how long I had been in the queue and after I had told him he said, do you want to go to the front?. It seemed to me to be a really stupid question but from a character like this it probably seemed reasonable to him. Yes, I said but I think that I am going to have to wait a long time before I reach the front. I can take you to the front he said but it will cost you twenty Deutschmarks. If it saves me six hours waiting time twenty Marks, which was about a fiver, could be a good investment I thought. I gave him the twenty Marks, he climbed into the passenger seat and said O.K. go.
I started up the engine and pulled out of the queue, a couple of drivers up ahead had heard my engine and had run out to block the road. I pointed over to the cop who wound down the window and shouted something at them in, I presume Arabic, whatever he said, they all moved off the road. All along the queue drivers were coming out to see why I was overtaking but once they saw the cop in the passenger seat they just stood and watched me go by. After about a mile a group of Turks who were stood by some tankers saw me coming and blocked the road, they were armed with large rocks. I stopped and the cop told me to drive on but I knew that if I moved I was going to get a broken windscreen. I don’t think that the Turks had noticed the cop sat in the passenger seat and he shouted at me to carry on driving. I just sat there frozen, staring at the Turk in the middle who looked like at any second he was going to throw his rock straight through the windscreen into my face. I looked at the cop who was screaming at me and I thought is this going to be the worst day of my life?. The next thing I know is that he takes out his revolver and using both hands he takes off the safety catch. He then leapt out of the cab and went over to the Turk at the front who dropped his rock and put his hands up in the air. The cop pointed his gun about three foot from the Turks face, there were about four drivers there who all dropped their rocks, put their hands up and then stood mesmerised at what was happening.
I couldn’t believe what was happening, I had never seen anything like this before and everybody stood perfectly still. The cop was shouting like a madman and then he took a pace forward, still pointing the gun in the Turks face. The Turk stepped a pace backwards and the cop stepped forward again. After several paces the Turk was up against his tanker and the gun was only two foot away from his face.
The cop then started backing away still ranting and raving and climbed back into the cab, go he shouted go and I did. The Turks still stood there petrified and as we went past I noticed that not one of them moved. I had not seen him put the safety catch back on the gun which he was still holding and I was still shaking when we reached the front of the queue and he was still ranting and raving. When we got to the front two soldiers with A.K.47 rifles stopped us, it was obvious that they didn’t like queue jumpers. The cop got out of the cab and started talking to them and after a couple of minutes they opened the barrier and waved me in. Just past the sentry box was a police post and two Iraqi policemen came out to see why I had by passed the queue. The cop who was by now walking in front of me, waving me along behind him put his gun back in the holster and started talking to the other policemen. After a minute or so he came over to my door which I opened and put his hand up towards me. Good bye my friend he said, he shook my hand and pointed over towards a line of trucks.
I.I.R.C. the road split just past the police post with the buildings in the middle. The road behind the customs to the right was where all the tankers disappeared to. The road that beared left was where all the T.I.R. and the Tonkas went. I could see the back of Roy’s trailer about seven vehicles in front. I think Roy had seen me pull in and had come over to ask what had happened. Apparently when they got to the front the army guys had made them park up. It was only after a shift change and the help of a large baksheesh that they were allowed into the customs compound. They had only been there an hour or so and had started doing their paperwork when all the customs men had disappeared on shift change. so I wasn’t far behind them. I told Roy what had just happened and he said something like “ well you have to expect things like that in a place like this ”.
What about that cop, I thought to myself ? The bottom line thinking about it now is that he just wanted a lift to work.
After a couple of hours we had finished doing the Iraqi side, it was certainly easier going out empty than it had been going in. Then we moved into the Turkish side. I never thought I would ever say this but it felt really good to be doing Turkish custom’s. After another couple of hours we had all finished and Mickey suggested as there was about an hour before it got dark that we put our foot down and get as far as we could.
We set off from the border but before we were through Harbor which was the first Turkish town, my engine didn’t sound right and I could feel it wasn’t pulling very well. I couldn’t keep up with Roy and as he and Mickey faded into the distance I thought that I had better stop where it looked safe. I started feeling paranoid, had somebody sabotaged my truck while I was in the customs or was the diesel starting to freeze, it was cold but surely not that cold. It was obvious that I wasn’t getting full revs, so it looked like that I was going to have to tilt the cab. I had stopped in a small village that appeared to be made out of breeze block. I moved all my things off the bunks and put them on the floor. It would just be my bad luck if after everything that I had been through that day, a tin of beans or my briefcase would of fallen off the top bunk and gone through the windscreen. The cab had no hydraulic jack to lift it so after a bit of groaning I managed to tip it forward. I looked at the glass bowl and the diesel looked a bit murky, so I took the glass bowl off and gave it a clean. I started it up and it still didn’t sound right so I decided that as I always carry a spare fuel filter I might as well change it. By now it was dark and I was struggling with a torch, I was really pleased to see a pair of headlights on the horizon coming towards me and knew straight away that it was Roy. By now it was really dark and getting very cold as it was the 4th of January it was only to be expected. Roy parked in front of me so that we could use his headlights to see what we were doing a bit better. We changed the fuel filter, bled the system and fired her up but she still didn’t sound right.
That’s it, I shouted at Roy, I am ■■■■■■ off, I have had enough for one day. I am cold my fingers are freezing and I stink of diesel. We dropped the cab and I threw my tool box into the trailer box. Roy cooked dinner in his cab while I boiled some hot water and had a good cab wash, at least my night heater was still working. There was a knock on the door and when I pulled the curtains back there was Roy with a big grin on his face and my cup, nearly filled with tea and topped up with Roy’s milk, this time it was whiskey. Roy always knew whenever I was feeling down and always seemed to cheer me up. Dinner will be served in five minutes at my residence he said, bring yer plate. I looked out of the window and I could see hurricane oil lamps and Tilly gas lights scattered around the village. It wasn’t because they had a power cut, I think the village just didn’t have any electricity. After a good meal and a few after dinner drinks we decided to have an early night, getting out of Roy’s nice warm cab into the cold night air made me realise just how cold it was and it wasn’t even 10 p.m.
I lay on my bed before I dozed off thinking what the problem could be with the fuel. Roy had no problems and we had filled up at all the same places, it hadn’t started going waxy so it wasn’t starting to freeze. I had cleaned the glass bowl and changed the fuel filter, could it be a hole in the fuel line and it’s sucking air in. The worst case scenario would be if the fuel pump was goosed, now that would be a problem, it wasn’t long before I was asleep.
Another bang on the door woke me up with Roy stood there with a cup of coffee, it’s eight o’ clock he said and it’s efin freezing. I got dressed, put my overalls on and we tilted the cab. A Turk who had been watching us walked over and before we had even got the spanners out of the trailer box started peering under the cab. He was dressed in a pair of oil covered overalls and told me to turn the key which I did, ahh he said ,problem, I thought ahh plonker. He started speaking in German and said he had lived in Germany as a guest worker for four years. He was a diesel mechanic and had worked on many German trucks. After checking the glass fuel bowl and we had explained to him that we had changed the fuel filter he then started looking at the fuel pump.
I.I.R.C. he took off a small inspection cover on the fuel pump and removed a small nylon ( I think ) valve. He rubbed the side and the top of it against the side of a matchbox and then replaced it. He asked me to start it up which I did and I knew straight away it sounded better. He opened an injector, bled it and I gave it full revs, it sounded great to me and I knew he had cured it, the Turk looked at me, smiled and said “nix problem.”
It was by now 9.30 a.m. and still bloody cold and I thought, I hope this will get me to Istanbul where I will get Ayden to have a look at it but I didn’t need to. I am still not sure what he did but I never had any trouble with it again. I thanked him and gave him a bottle of whiskey that the Scotsman had given me in Baghdad, ah well easy come easy go, I could always replace it at the duty free shop at the Bulgarian border for about three quid, the Turk was very happy and so was I.
Roy and I set off once more, although we never did catch up with Mickey, in fact I never even saw him again. A few day’s later we were passing the big salt lake at Tuz Gala when we saw three Danes coming the other way. The Scandinavians all seemed to be a good bunch and most of them could speak good English. The drivers from Finnwheels from Finland were some of the hardest drinkers that I ever met, in fact somebody told me that he was running with a Finnwheels driver once and he saw him splash a dash of Vodka over his cornflakes one morning.
I flashed my lights and waved at the first Dane who was pulling a fridge, I was surprised when he showed me the finger. I waved across to the second driver who also was pulling a fridge but he just ignored me. I looked across at the third driver who was pulling a tilt and I was shocked when he gave me the V sign.
Somebody had upset them, I wondered if there was a police control not far away so I dropped my speed down a little bit.
A few hours later we arrived in Ankara and made straight for the Telex Motel. The Telex was one of those so called civilized rest stops on the way to the East, a place where you could get a decent meal, a cold beer or where you could use that vital piece of technology, the telex machine, as making a telephone call was not that easy in most of the countries that we passed through.
If you were coming from Istanbul the Telex Motel was situated on the left just before Ankara. Ankara was, as the old fellows used to say “ where the boys turned right and the men carried straight on ” but the road straight on ended at the border with Iran. Since the Ayatollah had taken over, it was now not possible for British trucks to go to Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan or India. So my thoughts of being able to drive to all these interesting places had been put on hold for the time being.
As we pulled onto the car park we could only see one western truck parked there, it was a D.A.F. 2800 belonging to Falcongate from Birkenhead so we parked up along side of him. The curtains were closed so we thought that the driver was having a nap or was in the restaurant. We walked up to the hotel and asked the receptionist if we could see the telex’s. There was a box where all the telex’s were kept and the receptionist handed it over to us, we looked for ours and there it was.
Graham Walker had come up trumps again, he had got us both a backload from the Tesla light bulb factory in Pancevo just east of Belgrade. It was a great backload for a box van, it wasn’t far off route, it never weighed more than ten tonne, you could get a shower and have a meal in their canteen. You could start getting loaded at 8 a.m. and be loaded by 10 a.m. Then you drove around to the customs at Pancevo docks on the River Danube. By midday you were always finished and the customs had sealed you and started the carnet.
As we were loading for Batley in West Yorkshire, Graham had suggested that we ship over from Europort to Hull on the overnight North Sea Ferry. I will never forget that telex because on the bottom it said, Regards WILSON, KEPPLE and BETTY. ( Does anybody out there remember this Middle East connection ? )
Roy suggested that as it was late afternoon we should have a Efes control. We sat down and had a beer as we were feeling very pleased with our selves. It was too late in the day to set off to Istanbul as it would of meant going over Bolu in the dark. In my book there were only to kinds of drivers who crossed Bolu in the dark, the stupid and the suicidal.
On the wall near the bar was a large notice board, it was covered with black and white passport photographs of drivers who had stopped at the Telex Motel. The first time that I had stopped here was in 1980 on my way to Diyerbakir in eastern Turkey. Tony Gibbons, ( a.k.a. Big T ) who I was travelling with at the time told me that it was something that nearly all the European drivers did, although it had been started off by the French drivers. By now there were about 150 photo’s, some of whom I recognised very quickly.
Errol Flynn from Scotland, Jim Bagent from London, Peter The Plater, Alfie Jones and the Hobbs brothers from South Wales. Jim Smethurst, Dave Chaimberlain and Davie Faraday from the North West, Nick Kelly from the North East and Dave Clark from Cornwall. All these lads along with many others were great people to have a night out with, you always knew that if you had a problem they would all help you the best that they could.
We walked back over to the trucks and saw the Falcongate driver struggling to get down from his cab. Are you all right asked Roy, I think so he replied but he didn’t look alright to me.
I.I.R.C. the driver was in his early thirties, I can’t remember his name but he did tell us, I had never seen him before and I never met him again. His lip was swollen and his eye was bruised, he was holding his side and said “I think I might of cracked a rib”. What happened asked Roy.
I pulled on here last night he said and there were three Danes already parked up and having a meal in the restaurant. I went in for a meal but as I couldn’t understand a word that they were saying I decided to sit at a table on my own. A bit later on one of Fred Archers drivers came in and joined me, I think his name was Mickey. After a couple of hours this Mickey kept looking at the Danes and said “they are talking about us”. I didn’t have a clue what he was on about. A bit later, he looked over at the Danes and said “they are laughing at us, we are not going to stand for that are we”. The next thing I know is that he has tipped over our table, he has leapt over to the Danes and started punching them all.
The waiters all jumped in trying to separate them , I go to try and drag Mickey away and the next thing somebody punches me in the head, pushes me down and then somebody starts kicking me. All the Turks separate all the drivers, then the police arrive and then all the drivers have to pay one hundred Deutschmarks each for the damage. *( I can’t remember if he said that they went to jail or not).
I woke up this morning and I am as sore as hell, I am that sore that I cannot drive and that Mickey left first thing this morning and I have ended up losing a day.
We felt really sorry for the guy and I knew then why the three Danes who we had seen that morning were feeling very upset. I don’t think that the Falcongate driver joined us for a meal that night but in the morning he looked a bit better and had decided that he had to continue on his journey, I think he was going to Damascus.
Not long after he had left Roy and I pulled off the car park at the Telex, we turned right and headed West, the clouds in the distance looked like they were full of snow and I wondered how long it would be before we would have to put the snow chains on. Then I started thinking about the journey ahead, over Bolu, through Istanbul and out of Turkey. The engine sounded fine, we had got our backloads, I was feeling very happy, we could be home in just over a week “ IN SHALAH ”, God willing. 
The Road To Baghdad.
The Desert Near Falluja.
Turk Tonka and Driver.
Breakdown at Harbor, Turkey/Iraq border.
Some where north of Zacho.
And a very late P.S., 1/1/09
I had an e-mail today from Roy The Boy wishing me a Happy New Year, it’s the first time that he has read that story and reckons that it was spot on.
Only one mistake though, Keith’s name was actually Ken and Roy met up with him on a couple of occasions after that, before Ken went ■■■■ up due to some bad payers.
So welcome to Trucknet Roy, I hope that you and Ken, where ever he is, have a brilliant, happy and prosperous 2009.
Best regards Steve.
Love it, love it…excellent stories MM, reminds me of some of the troubles and tribulations I had while running in Bosnia, brilliant mate.
So when is the book being published? Tales like this are fantastic, from a long gone era which, sadly, will never be repeated.
There are only so many of you guys around now with these tales to tell…you should get your collective heads together and get them published mate, honestly!!
So when`s the next chapter
Keep em coming lads…you know we love it!!!