Impressive indeed, especially when added to all the other great Saramat pics you’ve kindly contributed on here!
For the record, by the way:
insha’allah = IF God wills it
masha’allah = AS God wills it
il-Hamdulillah = praise God (for this)
Robert
I use the phrase Bukrah Inshallah frequently Robert it seems to be habit another from memory (spelling ) was Kefhalic Sedik replying
Quoice Il hamdulalah !!..
all the best for the Festive season
masha,allah
backsplice:
I use the phrase Bukrah Inshallah frequently Robert it seems to be habit another from memory (spelling ) was Kefhalic Sedik replying
Quoice Il hamdulalah !!..
all the best for the Festive season
masha,allah
And the season’s blessings be upon you also, fellow merchant adventurer! And you are certainly right about kafihalic (ya) sadik(i) = how are you my friend!
Take care old mate, and I’ll look forward to more of your evocative contributions in the new year. Cheers! Robert 
Hey Ron … is that a 6 riyal cassette that one of your 3 wise men is holding ■■?
Backsplice the tapes in Jedda ? Brilliant that’s what we did !! Just to give us the feeling of the good times back home , the songs of yesterday where great ! Gogie had a Geko blaster and had this on his bedside locker , he would to go to sleep with this full bore right next to his ear hole , mind you we where all the same trying to blast the sounds of the adjoining bedrooms ,I loved all the music Boney M, brown girl in the rain & the drum beat of night flight to Venus was my favourite , I remember driving to Damman from Jeddah , It was Ginger Taylor’s truck the tape deck was stuck and would only play Hot legs , by Rod Stuart?!! drove me barmy , that’s him holding the the negative from an instermatic in his hand that you have mistaken for a 5 rats tape, all great lads Ron
Blasted a few gekkos off the wall then! 
Less messy, I suppose! Robert
backsplice:
Hey Ron … is that a 6 riyal cassette that one of your 3 wise men is holding ■■?
Oh the joys of the 5 rat tape. They were my only indulgent fiddle. Once or twice a week when I went down to the corner shop near our villa in Dammam, to collect provisions, I would slip a tape or two onto the bill.
It was on one of those evening trips that I made the acquaintance(?) of a maid from the Philippines who lived and worked for some Saudi bloke round the corner.
I took her shopping in the car to the mall supermarket a couple of times prior to going to a friends empty villa for a coffee(?)
Thinking about it now, I must have been out of my tree. What with that and the Christmas bottle of J. Walker supplied by Jergan at Caravan Trucking which we shared one Christmas eve and which resulted in the balmy assistant accountant trying to dance with a dog out on the street. Talk about sailing close to the wind.
Anyway Ronaldo, I still have all my 5 ratters, including the hot legs tape you mention. Seeing as you love it so much, I will give it to you as a Christmas present . What do you mean…“No!..No!..NO!”
PS. And the rest of them if you want!! Ha! Ha!
From the Dads Army house of the big Sausage, ■■ We have got the picture of the Fallen Madonna with the Big boobbies, nothing like that Philo in Damman ?dont forget Mirlin !!! I was there ? And yes I did go into that corner knocking Shop just to see what your taste was in The opposite ■■■ ■■? If in fact it was one ■■? !!! Bloody hell Mirlin the memory is imprinted in my head ,She Was crossed between a bucket of slack ! And a scary scabby monkey , her none deplume was Whoneata and this was apt how did she rate ? on scale from One to One Thousand ■■? If ever any body got the chop for that ■■ You could have lost your fore skin ? I thought you had been circumcised ■■ Har Har thanks for the Memories Ron 
thinking on ? She must be rated numero uno . A prize indeed ,did that ointment I got you work ?or did you use the sauspan after Matt ?
Would you believe I only recently disposed of my collection of 5 Rat tapes …■■? hope they were,nt classed as collector items
OK, I’m a sad old b******. My wife is the best thrower out in the world. Apart from Christmas decorations, which she hoards, if it hasn’t been used for a month - it’s gone.
However! In the loft, I have a collection of hundreds of illegal Saudi Tapes. I packed them in plastic boxes and put them up there. The truth is I haven’t played them in 30 years, but I couldn’t throw them out! Rod Stewart’s ‘Atlantic Crossing’ is one.
I did find a full price English bought ‘Bread’ tape in there. David Gates was just a bit brilliant wasn’t he! The Eagles ‘Hotel California’ and Elton John, ‘Blue Moves’ - didn’t like it at first, but you did have endless hours to get into things - even classical music!
John.
Merlin, your mention of Jurgen (spelling?) Becker, reminds me that he had a friend called ‘Bach’ pronounced Back.
I still exchange Christmas cards with Peter Minnis, Scrabble and Chess player extraordinaire, he came back to England and carved a career in Truck magazine publishing by writing to ‘Truck’ and telling them he thought their Saudi articles were rubbish. He was soon writing for them and finished up Publishing Trucking International before retirement.
JD Longhorn returned to the villa and asked ‘Is Jurgen Back?’ Peter replied in a mystified voice ’ No, Back’s Back, Jurgen’s Jurgen!’
Ok, I think you may have had to be there to appreciate it…
John
Happy New Year to you Ron, and all other ‘Trans Arabians’ - whichever firm you worked for!
I’ve pinched this photo from the ‘Saviem’s Fan Club’ thread, with apologies and thanks to Sammyopisite.
It reminded me of a couple of incidents in the Magic Kingdom. Soon after we started for Caravan, I pulled a turbine generator off the port. This looked like a step frame 40’ van trailer - except that it was 12’ wide!
I hated over width loads, so wanted nothing to do with it. However, it was going several hundred miles up the Tapline to either Rafah or Arar, I can’t remember which - and it was my turn for the long journey. There was another trailer for the same place with spares, which Ted Thomas’s partner, Dave (can’t remember his second name) - business that is, not the modern sense, had coupled up to. We set off together and it was slow going. Whenever a vehicle was coming in the other direction I was half on the Tarmac and half in the desert. Plus the 3 axle trailer only had small wheels and it was Summer.
We eventually made it to the delivery point and there were a couple of Brits who were expecting us. They lived in a Winnebago and after the usual cup of tea, they showed us what was going on. This was before the Saudis put in an almost totally pointless grid system, so each town generated its own electricity. We were taken to a large shed. Inside were two Diesel engines similar to the one in the picture although possibly not quite as large. These generated the electricity for the area. IIRC one had thrown a rod through the side and the other sounded distinctly rough!
The lads explained that the trailer mounted turbine generator was to provide power while they stripped down and rebuilt the piston engines. Then they would move to another town and repeat the exercise at another power plant.
At that moment an Arab in immaculate thobe and ghutra stepped out of his Cadillac. We were introduced to the local Emir or whatever he was. He was about 30 and as excited as a school kid.
His first question was whether we could take off the wheels, so that it couldn’t be moved again. Seeing the look of horror on the Brits’ faces, we backed off and said that it was nothing to do with us.
The Brits must have done the job ok. About six months later I was asked to go up the Tapline, collect the generator and move it somewhere else. The huge Diesels looked like new again and one was thumping away like a Gardner.
Back to wide loads and my dislike for them. Around that time (1979) we got a load of oversized boxes to take to Riyadh. These weren’t as wide as the generator trailer - maybe 10’, so 1’ over each side. I still hated them. Obviously you couldn’t see a thing in your mirrors, and were constantly dodging oncoming traffic.
I set off with one of these loads and came up behind one of the usual long nosed Mercs with 40 tons of cement in the big bags they used to carry them in. They also hung over the sides of the trailers and were held on by gravity.
This one couldn’t get any faster than about 45mph, so I decided to overtake him on a long straight. Just as my cab was level with his, the idiosyncrasies of the Tarmac pulled us together slightly. My oversize box collided with his overhanging cement bag. As I was going faster than him, it ripped the bag and picked up several hundred kilos of cement powder - depositing it through the open window of his cab. In the mirror the cloud of dust looked as though an explosion had taken place.
I pulled off into the desert and he followed me. He climbed out of the cab like a grey flour grader. He was Indian and immediately started giving me a great deal of grief! I looked in his cab. It was full of cement.
I gave him 600 riyals (about £100) and that quietened him. I’m sure his boss didn’t see 1 Halalah of the money!
When I told the story back at base, Geoff Collins said in his Middlesbrough accent ‘Ow son, 600 riyals? - you know what he’d have got from me? The back end of my trailer disappearing to Riyadh through the cement haze!’
John.
Happy New Year Lads … Talking about wide loads you,ll likely recall frequently seeing in the Jeddah port area 6 wheeler tonkas with 2 x 20 ft boxes on across the platform… I suppose they were being paid by quantity moved ■■?
Happy new year! You’re already there by several hours! My wife has gone to bed and I’m watching Chas and Dave! Still, it could be worse - we could be watching ‘The White Heather Club’ or some such!
Yes, my idea of a ‘wide load’ wasn’t the same as the locals’. Don’t remember seeing any police escorts!
When I was 21 I loaded timber on Christmas Day in the borders, because the Scots weren’t interested in Christmas Day - yet at the time New Year’s Day wasn’t a bank holiday in England!
Sorry, you do still look a bit ‘pasty’ - newly arrived from UK, but at least they gave you that necessary time to acclimatise.
We all liked those American type wheels. They were lighter to handle - though I’ve seen a lot of people on here who didn’t.
Best wishes,
John.
Pasty … thats an understatement I,m almost invisible against the white of the cab better described as a bottle of milk ■■?
As for the wheels I found them easy to fix punctures !!
Looks as if Backsplice his pointing ■■!! " Is that a Mac burning out down there ? "This outfit that had special width trailers with the king pin in the centre for transporting accommodation units out to the desert sites!! these are the photos ,the loads in Saudi where extreme with no restrictions once you hit the desert roads ? no trees , no telegraph poles , no bridges , just blue sky ,nice and warm ?!!! Ron
Happy new year to you all ,what some fantastic photos of the accommodation units never seen anything like it ,were the trailers manufactured out there or in Europe .were they for 1 or 2 people. [not TEREPIN ] FROM Bletchley were they…
I would have thought Back splice would have kicked that brown paper bag a bit further under the unit, when needs must…no not a McDonalds…
Trans Arabia that viewing spot on the left was that windy I could not get the stove to light up ? The drive was fantastic , not Ideal for wide loads ? Ron
