Just reading in the ‘Mail’ magazine an article about Levison Wood ‘Walking the Nile’, a 4,200 mile trek through 6 countries -there’s a project for you Robert. One of the participants, an American reporter, died of heatstroke.
When a group of us were pulling for SeaLand, from Dammam to Riyadh, in about '77 or '78, Cartwright’s of Wolverhampton had a few trucks on the job.
A new lad flew out from England in the middle of Summer. He was keen as mustard to get going, although the lads told him to give himself a day or two to get acclimatised. No, having arrived the evening before, he set off in convoy with 2 brothers (the younger one was called Neil, can’t remember the older brother’s name).
Neil led, the new lad was in the middle and the older brother at the back. About 2 hours into the 6 hour journey, the new lad pulled over, so the older brother pulled in behind him. The lad got out of his cab and started walking off across the sand, then started to walk in circles and collapsed. By the time the older brother got to him he was already dead.
The Police of course hauled the brothers off to prison, then let them go a day or so later - it wasn’t their fault after all.
I was luckier. I was delivering trailers which were being shipped into Jeddah and Yanbu. My Douglas Volvo needed new tyres on the drive axle, so I decided to swap 4 from a rental tilt. I should have just taken them to one of the wooden ‘Lastic’ shacks, but I set to and started stripping down the tyres - the wheels on the Volvo and the trailer weren’t interchangeable, but the tyres were the same size.
I’d got the second tyre off when I just sort of seized up and fell forward onto the sand, spark out. Luckily there were a few other lads around and they took me to hospital and then back to Martin Wass’s flat. Martin worked for our agent Addasco.
It took me nearly a week to get over it - the first 3 days I thought I was going to die and the pain in my aching bones made me want to.
When I got back to the truck the two tyres I’d stripped had gone. I went to the tyre fitters this time and sent the rental trailer home with two tyres missing and 4 bald ones! I never heard any more about it.
John
Along with The Saint Sophia Mosque, The Bosporus Bridge had also been squeezed onto the picture but what really stuck out was the Turkish Airlines aeroplane which appeared to be the same size as the bridge.
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