In about 1981, we decided at Caravan to take on Philippino drivers. The Brits were leaving one by one and although we had quite a few Somali/Yemeni drivers. ( they were Somalis actually, but for some reason they had Yemeni passports, which gave them the right to work in Saudi) we were short of drivers.
I was Transport Manager at the time and was elected to go to the Philippines to recruit. In January '82 I took a flight to Manila. John Longhorn was still working for himself, but came with me at his own expense.
As I remember, we were looking for 15 drivers and one mechanic. The mechanics were interviewed - we asked questions about ■■■■■■■■ because we were running ERFs. One guy stood out. Renee Valdez had worked for several years at Clarke air base. He knew his stuff. We weren’t wrong either. Renee was brilliant at his job. He could fix anything. At first he worked under master mechanic Jurgen Becker, who as the name suggests, was German. Later when Jurgen left, Renee became the chief.
The drivers were a different story. John and I would take out several drivers in the morning and then more in the afternoon. When we would meet at lunchtime he would shake his head and complain about how many people had tried to kill him!
We must have test driven 60 or seventy drivers to get our 15, so how many Ron test drove to get over 200 in Thailand I can’t imagine!
The ones we chose did well for us, a great bunch of lads.
Oh and by the way Ron, in one of your pictures, there’s a green Ford Zephyr. I had a 1964 zodiac in that style and colour, which I used as a taxi. That would be 1968,when 20,000 miles on the clock looked a lot! Still it helped me to save up to buy my Comet in 1969.
To be fair the standard of English with the Philippinos was excellent. Most of them understood about 90% of what you said and if you spoke slowly and carefully, almost all of it. One or two stood out above all others. I’m ashamed to say I never learned or even tried to learn Tagalog.
They would all nod and look you in the face, so you thought they were understanding what you were saying. Then you would send them off into Al Khobar with a load - and they would return 5 hours later ‘I could not find it sir!’
We would learn to go with them at first, then the ones you had shown could teach the others.
Severino Bernado, who is the driver of the Scania shown before, was a clever man. We realised that we needed to send the brightest ones on the long runs first.
The best driver we recruited, whose name I think was Rudy - was enticed away by an Indian, Mohammed Shaji Dean, who had run our ocean department. Import of containers. ‘Shaji’ could only drive automatics, but when he was offered a better job and left (sheikh Ali allowed him to transfer, against my advice - as a foreigner you could only start at another company if your Saudi sponsor allowed it) he soon managed a manual box on his new BMW!
Rudy went home for his annual holiday and Shaji asked if he could transfer him. Ali asked me about it and I said - if we do this for him, Shaji will steal all our best men, one by one. Rudy didn’t come back. Harsh for him, but hey, John and I had risked death to recruit good men! As far as I was concerned, Shaji could go to the Philippines himself.
In the early eighties, BA, as well as the Paddy Zulu daily 747 flights, flew a couple of flights a week to Dhahran with the VC10. I can’t remember why, but this flight often suited me better. Thinking about it, I think it was back to front with the 747 flight, so you had all day to get to thief-row, then it landed at Dhahran early morning. It had the added advantage of not being crowded. You could often have dinner then sleep for 6 hours across 3 seats! The VC10 struggled to heat the cabin if it wasn’t full and the ‘Stews’ would give you 3 or 4 blankets to keep warm. As with Paddy Zulu, there were no films. It was eat, drink, and go to sleep!
We were easily pleased weren’t we! I paid something like £600 for a return flight when you could cross the Atlantic (same distance) with hot and cold running stewardesses for about £300!
I was delighted to get ‘free drinks’.
That would be a gin and tonic after take off, a 25ml bottle of white wine with the meal and a Drambuie after (would sir like a liqueur?) we really knew how to live!
Ah well, it was fun at the time and better than working in ‘Vickers!’
Recruiting the Thai drivers ?gangs of men bunching both sides of the roadGetting through about 40 or more a day ,with Vic and Thep , sitting at a table on the side of the road , with the paper work, I was in the cab and drove about 1 mile backing up the trailer and turned back , some where good ,some where scary some where not so bad ? ,We wanted drivers badly , I thought if they gave me the feeling that they where driving the truck ?And Not the truck driving them it was a pass, we can train them back at camp, this went on and on for days , it was exhausting in the heat with Venders selling there wares and police on motor bikes I’m sure they where being payed off ? Sometimes chaotic ,I got used to the shouting as the unit got ■■■■■■■ with the trailer ,as one can imagine ,until we got all good men, Ron.
Thinking back to S Jones , one of Wynns ? Or was it Pickfords Scammel new contractor came in for a flywheel change under warranty , powered by a Big ■■■■■■■ 400 I got the job ,removing the gearbox etc ,and fitting the new flywheel , it was now ready for road test ,this was at the time the biggest truck that I had the pleasure to drive ,going up to Muckly corner and back it was heavy and solid nothing rattled on this 6x4 I think it was red so it must have been Wynns , Ron
Back in the land of the sand, the drivers where put to work , learning on the job they did good, the 6x4 ERF,s where a good truck but no A/C it was red hot and we did have a problem of dehydration making sure the lads had water on board , loading oil pipes at our flat tarmac park near Al Jubayl and distributing the oil pipes all over the KSA every where we went, there where pipe trenches dug in the desert , trucks and cars all where caught in there Traps ? the Tap line North to Jordan , was above ground ,the tentacles of from Ras tannurah reached the Red Sea at Yambu And as far South to Oman, with lines internally South of Ryhad , this was and still is the main blood supply to Europe, I am proud to have been a part of this adventure in Saudi Arabia , and Claim to be the first man ever to have opened a training School and .taught the mechanics of ERF and ■■■■■■■ to the Thai mechanics in the KSA Ron
TMS Living out in our desert compound ? The workers where isolated from Dammam and Khobar our accommodation was good ,the food ? we catered for ourselves it was a hard life for all , the management all had a car each Pontiac Lee mans and with my job I was out and about still finding the trucks that had trouble with accidents and roll overs ,not that there where many ,the drivers where good, running day and night ,the ARAMCO Pass came in handy on a weekend there get togethers where excellent for a good for time behind there security walls , but we still had to drive back to our camp, which could be seen at night , for miles and miles with a double String of Pearls ? The two 50ft Ramps that I had made for truck maintenance where no longer needed , so I had them stand on end at the entrance to our compound in the dark desert down the Abqake rd with two strings of light bulbs reaching to the Guard house it was brilliant although I say it myself , to see these lights where a welcoming sight when coming back to our camp at night , Ron
Heres a few pictures of Trans Arabia on my visit in 2014 in there yard in Al Khumrah Jeddah. Its a great yard with good workshop and facilities. Mohamed Basher, Dante and Gill have been there since the late 70s.
Well thanks Jona , that’s a fantastic workshop in Jeddah what an improvement from those days gone by , its still feels good to have been a part of Trans Arabia , and have great memories of the all the lads that endured those early days, Ron
Jona:
0Heres a few pictures of Trans Arabia on my visit in 2014 in there yard in Al Khumrah Jeddah. Its a great yard with good workshop and facilities. Mohamed Basher, Dante and Gill have been there since the late 70s.
Thanks Jona
Nice to see some uptodate pictures on thread and that Dante and Gill who I recruited are still there although family life must be a bit thin after all this time, but I guess that’s what money brings, when I recruited all these guys the drivers were earning £25 per month in the Philipines !!
Recruiting was interesting, sorting cv’s out, taking up references!! And then trade testing.
The first lot we recruited thru the Goverment recruitment office but 2 that turned up in Jeddah were taxi drivers who had never driven a truck before and had back handed a a swap - home they went.
We then switch to a company that owned the trucking company that I had a hired a truck and trailers from initially, they were a big local family group - from there on it was much easier, always load for those with overseas experience with the American Army or in the Gulf states.
On one of my flights in a Super VC10 out of Doha the plane taxied to the end of the runway at enormous speed, turned, and without slowing took straight off and climbed flat out at an unbelievably steep angle. The Captain then informed us " Air Traffic Control advised us that a VIP flight was due to land soon and that there would be a minimum delay of 45 minutes,so would we hold off the taxiway till cleared. My apologies but I thought you would prefer a lively departure to sitting in this heat." Bet they heard the cheer in the Gulf Hotel. Jim.
