Here’s some Pictures of Morroco
photobucket.com/morroc
Any Pond Life on this site■■?
This is Andy the Plank’s truck sadly no longer with us.
Little Legs:
This is Andy the Plank’s truck sadly no longer with us.
What the hell happened to The Plank? He could’nt have been any age 45 tops I’d have said. RIP to him anyhow.
He had a heart attack about a year ago!RIP.
My dad worked for the Popely’s at that time in Algieria, did you know him he was called Ivor Gillum? I have lots of photos similar to yours of those same lorries.
Hi J7VXY, are you refering to Johnnie and Ronnie Popely who ran out of Dartford in the mid 70’s
Yeah he first worked for alfa laval then worked for those two chaps seem to remember that he said they were colourful characters!!!
Colourful villans who would break your legs if you p****d them off would be a better description, last heard of on the Costa del Crime.
J7VXY:
My dad worked for the Popely’s at that time in Algieria, did you know him he was called Ivor Gillum? I have lots of photos similar to yours of those same lorries.
Yes i knew your dad well,he was the first driver to do the tamanrasset run.I think Ivor worked for Colsort adder (spelling may be wrong) before tentraco.When i got out to the base camp in mostagenham they only had a daf 2800 and a couple of old scania,s,Ivor drove the Daf.On one occasion i was passenger in your dads lorry travelling from base camp to oran docks,i had my feet up on the dash while we were going through arzue and a policeman stopped us thinking i was the driver with my feet up he opened the door and realised it was right hand drive.When the F10,s got shipped in your dad had one and i had one.Your dad will tell you some story,s about Ron and John plus the other driver,s Terry Murry, Joe Paul (both sadly passed away) Dennis Milard mechanic,he was Ron Popely,s brother inlaw.We had some great trips an times an we really earnt our mony,i expect your dad stayed to the end when things got buried like the fork truck etc and they were thrown out of algiers.I met Ron years later when him and John bought the golf course and hotel at hever castle,i did some runs to france for him.They were,nt the sort of blokes to mess with as some found out.Was your dad from leeds at that time 1983?
Sadly Ivor passed away 19 years ago now! He was only 44 at the time so the stories that he told us are slowly fading away. He did stay till the bitter end and each time he went back over he had to carry lorry parts in his luggage, the one time he actually carried a windscreen through as his hand baggage!! He was actually from Leominster, Herefordshire.
Sorry to hear Ivor passed away,i have only seen one driver from tentraco since my time there and that was Johnnie Forser.I see John around 1992 working for SAS driving an F12 with a fridge box.When your dad got back from tamanrasset on the first trip his lorry needed alot of repairs and parts had to be sent out so he stayed at mostagenham while five of us did the next trip.We had 2 army officers in a landrover as guides,there was a young driver called Les from hull who would just drive off on his own an would,nt listen to the army blokes,we had lots of breakdowns then when we got to tammy the crane had to come to lift the containers off an that took 4 days.We only had enough running mony for one night in a hotel to get a shower,drivers started argueing an things got worse on the return trip we had no guide,the gas bottle we had to cook on fell of the trailer somewhere an we got stuck a few times.The one DAF 2800 kept air locking an stopping so progress was realy slow.On getting back to camp after 5 or 6 long days with lorry,s falling to pieces we were told a ship had docked and we had to tip it through the night untill it was empty as they had to pay by the hour how long it was berthed on the quey.We were totally knackerd but we had to do it,the job was 24/7 and it was expected of you to do anything they wanted.I had to take a drawbar trailer to a site 200 miles from camp we did,nt have a coupling for the “A” frame so they put a chain through the eye on the trailer and round the rear cross member on the tractor unit,the trailer was about 10 ton.I had to take it dureing the night stopping ever so often to check the chain,i must have stopped every 20 mile to rechain it as it was wearing through the chain.Don,t get me wrong it was an experiance im glad i had an i would do it again as things now are boreing.If you have any photo,s could you post them on here,thanks.
Will try to mum had a fire at home and we lost some photos
Just to bump this up again…
I was travelling down the M5 towards Bristol on Wednesday and passed a DT box trailer with “Maroc Tanger” across the back doors being pulled by what I presume was an O/D with a black N reg Renault Magnum.
I know DT have a depot in Bristol, just wondered if this was an O/D known to anyone on here and did he run down to Maroc??
Cheers, bullitt.