There was a John Wise who double manned with (I think Charlie Neale) down to Saudi as a casual to collect a F89 plus trailer after Mickey (■■?)'s wife went into labour early .
I believe he was on for Alec Griffiths out of North farm at Loughton at the time working AMG interfreight
But after 20+ years I could be totally wrong 
What about Robin Pettit (Poison Dwarf) last time I saw him was about 20 odd years ago in Greece driving a Transcon for JL.
The poisoned dwarf got nicked when the balloon went up over the load of naughty stuff was pulled in Dover.
He got away with only being an accomplice and was moved up here to work as a dogsbody in our warehouse but had to report to the old bill every night,and was doing so until the time I left,this was in 1982.
Boy,could he talk some ■■■■?At one time I inherited the F12 he had used on internal work in Saudi.On my first trip out to Baghdad ,before I had got halfway across Germany it was pumping oil out of the exhaust and by the time I reached Graz I had a couple of days in Volvo’s while the engine was rebuilt.The pistons and rings were polished to a mirror finish,and the foreman at the Volvo workshop asked me who’d been running without an air filter.
When I got back and asked the dwarf about the air filter,oh he was quite proud,said when he was running in Saudi you were inevitably running heavy,and he found that if you took the air filter out you could get another 20 bhp out of the motor!When he talked,he sounded like some prim schoolmistress and really thought he was knowledgable about trucks.
You’ve heard the saying,“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!”
Haven’t seen him since then.
Boyzee…what about maltese joe and john the gob…all worked outta brick lane…i run with a couple of Simons drivers…and they ended up robbing me of my cooker etc after helping them out of ditches…and pulled one up Tahir…anyway when i got back i went to see Geoff Litman and he offered me a job (i was working for Astran Asian tpt ) and anyway he paid me out for a new cooker and pots and pans etc…
Most of his trucks were of every mark you can think of, due to the British Leyland Contract…and he also ran those horrible Spread axles…and always overweight…i got some photos somewhere if i can find them…
truckyboy:
Boyzee…what aboutmaltese joeand john the gob…all worked outta brick lane…i run with a couple of Simons drivers…and they ended up robbing me of my cooker etc after helping them out of ditches…and pulled one up Tahir…anyway when i got back i went to see Geoff Litman and he offered me a job (i was working for Astran Asian tpt ) and anyway he paid me out for a new cooker and pots and pans etc…
Most of his trucks were of every mark you can think of, due to the British Leyland Contract…and he also ran those horrible Spread axles…and always overweight…i got some photos somewhere if i can find them…
Hi truckyboy i did some traction for jeff litwin their yard was in hopetown street off of brick lane,if you could,nt get round the corner cause of the cars parked there they would lift them out of the way with the forklift! It was well tight to get in an out of there.Some times i would load at daventry fords come back to their yard tip stencil another number on the trailer an go back to daventry and load it again as they got paid as soon as the load was on wheels.Like you said they had all kinds of trucks MAN,volvo 89,s141,s an marathons some mauve ones and the white an blue ones with the si on the door.I liked jeff always treated me ok.At that time jim hayley and paul mickelafe were in the office
G’day
While I was at the testing station today I got talking to a fella how used to drive for Simon International. Not what I expected in Wellington NZ. His name is Mark,I guess ex Simon drivers would remember him as Kiwi Mark. He’s a top bloke and told me heaps of good yarns in the short time that I was talking to him. He has some photos that he took when driving to the M/E in the late seventies,which hopefully I’ll stick up soon.
Do any of you ex Simon International drivers remember him?
Cheers Jamie
hi jamie i worked at simons in the yard at mare st hackney after i left school i remember kiwi mark we was doing internals for jeff in saudi, if i remember rightly he had a big blond droopy mostache then, im pretty sure ive got some photos somewhere of him on the beach in saudi with the dhl boys who used to bring their party pop in! if you get the chance to see him again he would remember my best mate chris curtin who worked in the office then with fred topham, sadly chris was killed in a motor cycle accident about late 81, a great kid who was really missed im pretty sure bestbooties would remember him also, if you see mark again pls say hello to him for me, regards paul.
G’day Paul,
yeah mate I’m going to catch up with him again,I told him about this thread and he remembered nealy all the names on here. What was your last name mate?,so I can let him know you said G’day.
Cheers Jamie
hi jamie my name is paul knowles , mark would probably remember me as the young blond kid working in the yard with the other lads, bud the foreman,mick rodgers, terry cagin(both these lads did the occasional trip when they had to) fritz the welder and gingek the turkish sprayer, it was nearly 30 years ago now but im pretty sure that mark did quite a lot in the office in london with jeff he will defo remember young chris who was motor cycle barmey! some of the other drivers that were there then at the time were: terry cagin, mick rodgers, bill arnold, big john galland ,lee chase, john and peter barnett, taffy,robin petit,jeff ottway,some of the other names escape me at the mo, pls give my regards to mark regards paul.
germangeezer:
hi jamie my name is paul knowles , mark would probably remember me as the young blond kid working in the yard with the other lads, bud the foreman,mick rodgers, terry cagin(both these lads did the occasional trip when they had to) fritz the welder and gingek the turkish sprayer, it was nearly 30 years ago now but im pretty sure that mark did quite a lot in the office in london with jeff he will defo remember young chris who was motor cycle barmey! some of the other drivers that were there then at the time were: terry cagin, mick rodgers, bill arnold, big john galland ,lee chase, john and peter barnett, taffy,robin petit,jeff ottway,some of the other names escape me at the mo, pls give my regards to mark regards paul.
Hi germangeezer,Lee chase an Peter barnet (baracuda) came to work for SGH in wapping with Johnny Wise and Peter Henderson , Jim Hayley who was in the office at simons came with them.I last saw Pete Henderson in bethnal green,he had a maroon TM bedford doing uk an swiss work that must have been around 1998.Jim Hayley has his own buisness in barking doing factory removals.I remember one of the young lads that worked in the yard driveing the fork truck was on sca when i worked there.Maybe some of the ex drivers remember the little honda van which i beleive got sent to turkey with a lorry gearbox in the back to repair a truck that brokedown out there.
boyzee this is a true story about that little honda tn7 van there were 3 of the boys on their way to pakistan, one of them was definatley taffy in an f89 i think another lad called martin in a 2800 daf and someone else in a 89 which had done a diff going up the kyber pass, the daf had hit a building of some description in iran and needed a few bits to repair it, so jeff sends me to the pakistani air freight terminal at heathrow with the daf bits, the diff for the 89, two halfshafts and all the ancilleries, needless to say the honda,s front wheels were hardly touching the ground, im going round parliment square and who pulls up next to me, one of mavertons in a green and red f89 dont know who the driver was but he shouts down to me that greedy fat git could overload a wheelbarrow if he could! i think a lot of the boys who worked for him knew jeff’s loads were always heavy he thought nothing of transhipping 3 20 ton loads put on 2 spreadaxle trailers going anywhere! the chocalate to bagdad was one of his favorites 20 tons cocoa butter on the bottom 10 tons wrappers on the top (3 loads 2 trailers) all on 4 axles!!!
by the way boyzee the honda did go everywhere with bits and peices it defo went to austria with a radiator coz i took it there with a another lad called jimmy hill who was doing the repairs in the yard at the time with bud the foreman, jeff had bought 2 old atki borderers non sleepers from silver roadways in canning town, he picked them up got them loaded and sent them strait out with two mad jocks driving them who i swear to this day were ■■■■■■ when they got in them! but this was typical jeff he was told they were great motors and didnt check them properly befor they left, the atkis had never been to austria when it was snowing and probably minus 10 and they only had a weak anti freeze mixture needless to say they didnt get far! does anybody remember the two jocks only see them do one trip funnily enough.
Another story that one of jeffs drivers told me he was sent out to the middle east with a volvo F86 and another atkinson with a low loader with a heavy load.They got as far as antwerp an the trailer snapped,they got it welded up an got the two motors to the destination!How true this is i don,t know but knowing jeff an the driver who told me i would,nt dispute it.
On one occasion Jeff bought a load of ex military tyres,you know the trac grip type,for what he thought was a good price.had a trailer fitted with a full set,shipped out to somewhere in the m/e but by the time the driver got to Spielfeld the last tyre had blown off.Unfortunately,they were only fabric braced,not steel,and had a very low load rating.
boyzee and ian those two stories are both true, i went out to both of them, with the tyre trouble the the driver was big johnny galland it was his first trip back after a very bad accident in pakistan where he rolled the whole lot and his legs were really badly injured, anyway he was on his way to saudi (another heavy load) he only got this side of aachen and 3 of them had already blown out, so off i goes green as grass with sid the poles transit loaded with 8 wheels to change the lot! with the low loader incident the trailer was on hire from eurofleet, nice trailer but only a tandem axle, not built to carry a 25 ton catterpillar D8 neither was the f86, the whole lot came adrift on the motorway in belgium, im pretty sure it was one of the barnett brothers steering, so off we all go again with the transit and the honda loaded with everything we needed,jeff ended up getting another trailer out to put it on while fritz the welder sorted it out to get it home, if i remember rightly he made such a good job of it we took the trailer back and they didnt say a word!
Ian im pretty sure when john took that load out i sorted the tyre trouble out but he only got as far as istanbul and she spun a main bearing, the turks ended up taking the lump out and inline boring the block and if im not mistaken he sat in turkey for about 8 weeks getting that job done and i think it might have been your f12 WML 410T can you remember your reg number?
Germangeezer, do you remember when Black John got arrested in the 70’s in Riyadh for breaking into a supermarket and then got amnesty when the Queen visited Saudi.
I believe Fred Topham also had connections with Simons in the 70’s in addition to his work for Lloyds of London tracking down Carnet de Passage fraud for Lloyds of London and tracing finance default trucks.
johns antics in saudi were a bit before my time i started there in 1978 i knew all about it though, when john came back jeff gave him an ex radcliffs f12 roadtrain it was a cracking motor johhny soon had it the way he wanted it big red light in the cab regulation turkish rug, sheepskins all over the bed and a lot of hangars for his disco gear (black leather trousers and silk shirts)! i remember his first load 14 tons steel plate on the floor for austria 20 tons cocoa butter on the top for bagdad, as jeff said small load for a local delivery! as i remember fred was an ex scotland yard copper who had his fingers in a lot of pies a real nice bloke though,
germangeezer:
johns antics in saudi were a bit before my time i started there in 1978 i knew all about it though, when john came back jeff gave him an ex radcliffs f12 roadtrain it was a cracking motor johhny soon had it the way he wanted it big red light in the cab regulation turkish rug, sheepskins all over the bed and a lot of hangars for his disco gear (black leather trousers and silk shirts)! i remember his first load 14 tons steel plate on the floor for austria 20 tons cocoa butter on the top for bagdad, as jeff said small load for a local delivery! as i remember fred was an ex scotland yard copper who had his fingers in a lot of pies a real nice bloke though,
Hi Paul,
On one trip to Baghdad with cocoa butter for the Ice Cream factory,Black John ran out of Ferodo when dropping down the long drag into Damascus.It would have been OK but he was coming off the slip road at the bottom to go across the desert to the Iraq border.He could not lose enough speed on the slip road and the drag went over.He had to leave it and went on to Baghdad and I think he got the papers cleared for both loads.
He collected and topped the drag on his way home,the rig finished up here at Stoke and was auctioned off eventually.
If I remember correctly,we had a Greek driver named Hercules who took just the truck on a milk run of about 25 drops around the middle east.He was gone for a month or two.
Some time later when I was working for Expo freight,I was at the border crossing into Hungary when this huge guy grabbed me by the shoulders and shouted,“Ian,don’t you recognise me,it’s Hercules!”
You got it bang on regarding Black John flipping the Hanger at the bottom of Damscus hill and yes he did clear both loads and get clean CMR’s…