Trucks, tracks, tall tales and true from all over the world

[mushroomman]

That was a great story Dig, thanks for sharing it with us and that photo has reminded me of another tale that I might share with you at a later date.

As you have mentioned Broome in a couple of your posts, I often wonder if you ever walked along the beach and came across the grave of an old pearl diver from Manchester, called Edward Cokayne Chippindale R.N.
His once neglected grave is next to the Town Beach Jetty in Broome.

I suppose that there lots of drivers like me who, whenever they hear a classic song from way back, suddenly remember a place where they were many years ago when they first heard the song. Whenever I hear Je t’aime by Jane Birkin I always think of driving in Holland in 1969 listening to a Dutch radio station called Hilversham Two. They played loads of English and American songs and I can always remember their ‘jingle’ which sounded to me like, ‘Gunah Gunoo, Hilversham Twee’. I still have no idea what it meant, maybe Hutpik or Rob Roy could translate it.

So, it’s not surprising that when Spardo mentioned about his little convoy around the roundabout on the way to a funeral yesterday, that this song sprang to mind.

youtube.com/watch?v=80S8FuhHhUk

Another story from way back courtesy of dm46.

Re: Your Biggest Blunder
Postby dm46 » Fri Jan 15, 2010 1:10 am

2o Years ago I loaded weekly for Omnimeats, Ranst, Nr Antwerp with Hanging Meat. used to arrive around 4am Monday Morning Knackered
so I used to sleep in the drivers seat outside the gate till they turned up for Work.
Really good bunch of guys they were, I pulled in reversed and went to sleep while they tipped me. Usually they would knock me up
but on this day I woke up and couldnt get back to sleep, so jumped in drivers seat with a coffee and cig and watched the guys rushing around
all the banging and clattering had stopped and one of the Lads I used to see regular walked by the cab and gave me the thumbs up so I started
the truck up and pulled forward to Hysterical screams and a lot of noises from groaning metal as the unloading bay was still fastened to the meat rails on the fridge roof.
All hell broke lose and the boss said what the f… you doing pulling away, I answered he gave me the thumbs up I thought I was empty (in my half asleep state)
the boss said who gave You the thumbs up and I had to point Him out, The boss sacked him on the spot, The guy protested saying he was only asking if I was OK. I felt as Guilty as Hell and pleaded with the Boss to give the guy his job back and admitted it was all my fault eventually he saw sense and agreed to give him his job back.
Every Monday after that they parked the forklift truck in front of my truck till i was empty and ready to go, total damage bill in sterling was £8350.00 oops
Regards
DM46

[spardo]

When I hear Yakkety Sax I think of Benny Hill. Each to his own foible I suppose.
Brilliant musicianship though.

Regarding pulling off docks, when I was working for Gauthier many places took your keys off you and even, in some cases, made you sit in a grotty waiting room, I suppose it is better then handballing but not better than a powernap in the bunk to face the rest of the day.

If allowed to sit in the cab I used to have a spare key so that I could at least have some music while I waited.

[dig]

Thanks MRM re the grave at the Broome Jetty your mention of it is the first time I have heard of it regrettably I have loaded both live cattle and ones already in a box and at a low temperature and spent many hours waiting to unload both on the jetty and the approach road and it never came to my attention.
If i get back to Broome in the near future I shall definitely make enquires and as a back up I have an old truck mate from Derby days who is married to a Broome girl and lives about 2 hours to the north of me I shall definitely contact them and see what transpires.

As an excuse as to not wandering around while waiting to unload the frozen cargo which was brought down from the Derby meat works over night under insulated tarps [ 6iches thick and requiring multiple hands to fit correctly but when we got to Broome they [wharfies] would hook a fork on the back and skull drag the tarp off if you were lucky someone would help to roll it up plus lift it onto the empty trailer.Happy days.
Foot note the frozen meat was temperature tested prior to unloading from memory i think it had to be still at least minus 12 but F or C escapes me at present if the temp was to high it would be rejected we would tie the tarp up and head back to the Derby works where it would be unloaded and put back in the snaps freezer brought back down to temp again reloaded the following night and off we went again, it only happened once to me so I guess the massive tarps did a good job.

Dig

[spardo]

Good grief Dig,

put back in the snaps freezer brought back down to temp again reloaded the following night and off we went again

I am happy to say that I have had no experience of frozen, or even temp controlled, until I came here to live and work for Gauthier’s, but what little I do know makes me wonder how many people came down with e-coli or whatever in foreign parts from stunts like that.

[dig]

Spardo:
Good grief Dig,

put back in the snaps freezer brought back down to temp again reloaded the following night and off we went again

I am happy to say that I have had no experience of frozen, or even temp controlled, until I came here to live and work for Gauthier’s, but what little I do know makes me wonder how many people came down with e-coli or whatever in foreign parts from stunts like that.

David the meats from the Broome and Derby works was all cosigned to the American burger trade so I was informed at the time I believe the meat of the north was considered poor for the butcher trade even when you were hauling them into the Katherine works as you would remember the cattle we carted in those days bore little resemblance to the herds of the old dart, mostly half wild I reckon would be a fair description and its congratulations to the stations of today which have introduced the breeds that manage the heat of the northern states better and are more docile because fencing has meant the cattle are handled through the yards on a regular basis.

Dig

[spardo]

American burger trade so I was informed at the time

That might explain a lot Dig.

mostly half wild I reckon would be a fair description

Certainly were, terrifying some of them, I was told some had cross bred with buffalos in the wild. In the days before walkways, swinging down between the bars was a risky operation especially as I remember more than one with horns so large the pointy ends were very close to where I was.

[dig]

Spardo:

American burger trade so I was informed at the time

That might explain a lot Dig.

mostly half wild I reckon would be a fair description

Certainly were, terrifying some of them, I was told some had cross bred with buffalos in the wild. In the days before walkways, swinging down between the bars was a risky operation especially as I remember more than one with horns so large the pointy ends were very close to where I was.

I know what your saying David on one occasion I came off the top of the crate doing a double somersault with pike landing on my back in the table drain only to have a very angry bull land alongside of me as I lay there I have no idea how it managed to get over the crate wall but it did and fortunately for me he never noticed me laying there just yumped to his feet and took off for the wide blue yonder except it was in the middle of the night.

Dig

[mushroomman]

Hi Dig, I am sure that I mentioned this sometime ago but after doing a bit of Googling this morning, I am pleased to say that there is a bit more to add to the original post.

In 2003 I managed to get four months leave from work, three of them were unpaid so we set off in our motorhome from Brisbane, to go around Australia. A couple of months later we were in Fitzroy Crossing and we decided to go over and stay for a few days in Derby.
We phoned up the campsite in Derby to ask if they had a place for about three days and they told us that as there was a fishing competition on that weekend, then they might be full. We asked if there was another site close by and they said “come along anyway and we will try and find you a place.”

When we arrived in Derby there was a sign outside the reception telling everybody not to drive onto the site until they had reported into the reception so we parked in the street. After having a word with the person in the reception, we walked back out to the van and she said follow me. I drove slowly down the street for about fifty yards when she told me to stop.
The next thing I knew was that somebody threw an electrical extension cable over the fence and she told me to hook up for power. There was no way I was going to pay $20 a night for parking in the street so I told her to forget about it and we decided to head off to Broome that afternoon.
We arrived in Broome at a campsite in the evening and asked if they had a powered site for a week. We were told no but they said that we could have one for six days if we wanted it. We decided that we would take it, as it was already dark and decided to park up.

When we opened the curtains the next morning, we were very surprised to see that we had a fabulous beachfront sea view of Roebuck Bay. After breakfast, we walked along the beach for about 150 meters and came across a very small, neglected grave yard which contained about a dozen or so graves, situated on a small hill surrounded by trees, close to the beach.

It was the grave of Edward Cokayne Chippindall from Cheetham Hill, Manchester, England, who died at sea on the 22nd May 1886 that attracted our attention. Some of the rusty, wrought iron railings were missing, one of the gravestones had been broken into several pieces and the plot was overgrown with weeds. Somehow, I felt sorry for a 34 year old fellow Mancunian who had died thousands of miles away from home and so we spent about ten minutes tidying the plot up, mostly pulling up weeds.

Almost every day when we walked past the place, we would spend a couple of minutes to try and tidy up the plot just to make it look a bit more respectable. The grave did not look like it had been vandalized but the many Cyclones that Broome had endured over the years had certainly taken its toll on it.

Broome also had a small museum at the time which I found very interesting as it described the story of the pearl trade in the town and the attack by Japan, in World War Two.
I started to wonder if the strafing by the Japanese Air Force had reached that little cemetery on the beach, when they destroyed 15 Australian Air Force Flying Boats that were ferrying Dutch refugees to safety, in March 1942. We could still see the remains of the flying boats in the bay at low tide.

About ten years after we had arrived home from that trip, we were looking at all our photographs and the thought crossed my mind if Edward’s family back in Manchester, had ever seen a photo of his grave.

I contacted a Manchester Archives site and received a very helpful email from somebody who said that they would get one of their staff called Debbie Cameron, to try and do some research on Edward Cokayne Chippindall.
A few weeks went by and they sent me an e-mail saying that they had found some very interesting information and that they were going to put the article onto one of their web pages.
There was also a bit of info on Edward’s father, the Reverand John T. Chippindall.

It was a few years after this that I joined ancestry.com when I came across my mothers, grandfathers wedding certificate, who I suppose would be my great grandfather. The astonishing thing was that the vicar who married them was no other than the Reverand John T. Chippindall and they were married, ten months before Edward Chippindall was killed.

I had forgotten all about that website from The Manchester Archives in 2014 until this morning so I thought that I would have a look to see if I could find it and here it is.

manchesterarchiveplus.wordpress … iday-find/

The last time that I looked, no comments had been made about the article so now that there are ten comments, it was interesting to see that some of them were from Edward’s family and if you are still reading this, then you might also find them interesting.

I also had a look on Google Earth and it looks like the area around the graves has been landscaped and greatly improved over the last twenty years. It is now called the Pioneer Cemetery or the Seafarers Cemetery and if you look closely, you can see Edward’s grave. It’s good to see that the gravestones and the wrought iron fence have been professionally repaired.
I hardly recognized the place, as the area looked nothing like that when we were there twenty years ago but I did manage to find a photo of the grave where Edward was buried in 1886.

earth.google.com/web/@-17.97035 … Z0hNOHcQAg

Dig, I remember walking up to the port to where you would have tipped but I cannot remember seeing the ‘Croc Jetty’ or the name ‘Town Beach’. I remember the area as just being sand dunes with a few trees and a sandy beach.

anzacmemorial.nsw.gov.au/ou … march-1942

Not My Photos. Flicker photos from 2012.
flickr.com/photos/barkochre … otostream/

[spardo]

That is fascinating MRM, and although this site is so slow at the moment and I will have to read your links later, there are a couple of what we might think of as very modern revelations.

Without wishing to disrespect your great grandparents what do you think of the fact that they were living at the same address, a rooming house perhaps, or, Hmm.

Also, the grave, where Thomas Haynes’ ashes are laid alongside ‘his friend and partner’. Given that Chippindall had died at sea was he also a resident and therefore long enough an aquaintance to be in business together, or is there a more modern meaning there?

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

(the more things change the more they stay the same). Sometimes I think we are not always as modern as we like to think we are.

I’ll keep the page live to read later without the long waits.

[star_down_under]

Thanks MRM, an interesting read.
It’s no wonder that my father’s generation resented the Japanese, so intensely, for their entire life.
Young Japanese of my kids generation were never taught how cruel and barbaric their forebears had been. They are/were taught nothing of Japan’s involvement in WW ll or China.

[spardo]

Star down under.:
Thanks MRM, an interesting read.
It’s no wonder that my father’s generation resented the Japanese, so intensely, for their entire life.
Young Japanese of my kids generation were never taught how cruel and barbaric their forebears had been. They are/were taught nothing of Japan’s involvement in WW ll or China.

For much of my young life my otherwise gentle and easy going Mum hated the Japanese with a passion to the extent that she would not countenance buying anything associated with that country. I never saw a tin of mandarin oranges till well into my teens for that reason even though they may well have come from China.

But then my Father, who was an engineer working for the government, was posted to Tokyo and she decided to go with him. When she came back a couple of years later, she was full of the joys of how wonderful the place was, how kind the police, how there was no crime, how clean the streets were, how polite everyone was etc. etc. etc. Just could not shut her up and it caused a bit of bother between us for a while as I was experiencing, as a transport manager, the awful way their English employees were treated (compared to the Japanese ones) after Samuel Courtauld was sold to Toray.

Not only did I have to put up with it at work but I had to gently put one of the warehousemen right when he turned up for work one day wearing a white T-shirt with a great big Japanese sun on it dripping with blood all over barbed wire. Said it all really but sometimes you have to bite your lip.

[mushroomman]

Spardo:
That is fascinating MRM, and although this site is so slow at the moment and I will have to read your links later, there are a couple of what we might think of as very modern revelations.

Without wishing to disrespect your great grandparents what do you think of the fact that they were living at the same address, a rooming house perhaps, or, Hmm.

Also, the grave, where Thomas Haynes’ ashes are laid alongside ‘his friend and partner’. Given that Chippindall had died at sea was he also a resident and therefore long enough an aquaintance to be in business together, or is there a more modern meaning there?

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

(the more things change the more they stay the same). Sometimes I think we are not always as modern as we like to think we are.

I’ll keep the page live to read later without the long waits.

Wake up that boy at the back.

My great, grandfather William Walton married the girl next door Lily, it probably saved him a fortune on tram fares.

And Captain Haynes had a wife and fathered seven children.

The Reverand John T. Chippindall would probably turn in his urn if he read this thread.

I have no malice against the Japanese, world war two was over before I was born but my dad had a grudge mainly because he served in Burma. I can still remember him when I was a kid in the fifties, sweating profusely and having to lie down whenever he was having a malaria attack, it really scared me the first time that I saw that.

In 1973 I was working with a driver who was called Eddie, who went and bought a brand new mustard coloured Datsun. Two older drivers who were captured in Singapore during the war wouldn’t speak to him for years after that. Eddies nick name from all the younger drivers became Eddie Datsun.

In 2016 we went to visit The Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum in Japan, it was supposed to be a half hour guided tour but my wife walked out after twenty minutes. The guide only mentioned about how the many victims of the bomb had suffered over the years and all the damage and devastation that Nagasaki had suffered. I was very tempted to ask “so what caused the Americans drop the bomb” but I decided just to walk out.

I would have to agree with your mother David, the streets were so clean and the people were very polite but that tour guide was really getting on my nerves.

[spardo]

Wake up that boy at the back.

Not the first time I have heard that, but in my defence I assumed that was a copy of one marriage certificate rather then an entry which covered 2, nevertheless my comments about the circumstances of the first one remain.

I also was a bit confused about Chippindall dying at sea and thought he was brought ashore for burial by a passing ship, a strange circumstance in the days before refrigeration when sea burials were common, not that he might have been a resident of that community and brought home for burial.

I am also a Mancunian and will not be buried there but just down the hill from here (I thought the hearse could freewheel and make it a little cheaper but then I thought, what the hell I won’t be paying ) so perhaps in a hundred years time some kind traveller from Davyhulme will tidy the site.

[spardo]

I’ve read it all now MRM, including the links, and the whole story is fascinating isn’t it? Thanks for posting it.

[dig]

Thanks MRM you have really knocked the top off the history of your relations and followed up by Spardo too with you both having relatives who lived in Japan I can only back up your history of Broome where strangely the most people in the Cematory were of Japanese origin having been employed in the harvesting of `pearls and so many of the divers died of the bends or whole crews died after getting caught by cyclonic weather.

My recollections of the Broome jetty were perhaps involving some humour relating to when we were loading cattle onto a ship called the Centaur it was owned by the Blue Funnel line whose ownership was the Emanual family of London also who my old mate Peggy Deck Boy worked for a while on other ships of the Blue Funnel line who also owned several stations in the West Kimberly.
The cattle were supplied by the company stations around the Fitzroy area and it picked up a load of around seven hundred head 7 time each season these cattle were transported to Robbs jetty at Fremantle for processing this was done to keep the meat buyers honest with their prices in the Broome and Derby meat works.
WE the road transport side loaded usually at the yards on GoGo station 10 miles north of the river crossing at Fitzroy,
We loaded11 triples with single deck trailers 10 for the ship and the last one for the Broome works this was a backup in case one of the other trucks didn’t make it.Sometimes the first couple of trucks had too do a double due to a shortage of trucks ■■■■■■■ in work elsewhere . To do the double load really sorted out the men from the boys mainly flogging the bum off 8V71 series engines to get there and back twice in the 24 hours.
One year probably the last year we loaded the boat we had all arrived in Broome and were relaxing for a day while the cattle were dipped and the ship was made ready we were all in the workshop of the Broome company Three Ls when the customs department arrived and called us to attention that they suspected there had been some smuggling going on with previous loadings and they would be watching the operation and lookout if any of us if we got caught with illegal freight.
Now just to clarify it was in the days before the drug market had taken over the smuggling rackets around the world it was more like flash radios and tape decks or jewlry etc.
Now about my third load from the yards to the boat [we only used single trailer loads I had a bullock refuse to disembark my trailer the ship and local stockmen assisting tried their best but no go so they told me go back and put another load on with it and he would probably get off next time round, My delay at the race had woken up the Customs and as I turned around at the end of the jetty they pounced on me and one of their number climbed up and jumped into the crate unfortunately for him the beast that was still on board didnt want company and the poor old customs bloke took a severe beating and was very lucky to survive it I saw what was happening and i had to jump into the crate to draw off the rogue beast plus get back up to the safety of the top the distraction gave the customs guy time to do likewise only he wasn’t into good a shape .
It gave us all a laugh when we finished loading and retired to the ships bar for a few duty frees.

The Centaur

Dig

[spardo]

Your mention of Blue Funnel Line, Dig, reminds me of another British freight line, the similarly called, Blue Star. Not sure about Australia but they were certainly used, being fridge ships, in bringing back frozen beef from Argentina.

But the connection with Australia will be familar, because it was owned by the very rich Vestey family who owned thousands of square miles in the Territory and imported the Rotinoffs to transport their cattle.

My personal connection with Vestey was Weddle & Co. In the days around 1960, before I had a driving licence I got a job working for them as a trainee wholesale meat salesman, first in Nottingham and then in Bedford where I had some enlightening adventures. I used to hitch hike home on Friday nights up the old A6 and then, a very early start on Monday to Nottingham Midland Station for the very cold London train back to Bedford. Then, to my first digs, with our driver Ernie Wiseman (not the, but certainly a,comedian) and his wife Aurelie. Unfortunately they lived on an estate a couple of miles out of town and that long, dark walk on Monday mornings was very scary with dark trees looming over me. Tucked away in the woods was an electronics factory, Texas Instruments. No signs of life but it operated 24/7 and the eerie humming sound as I passed it in the gloom was further unsettling.

Much of the meat that was brought to us in Bedford came up from London with UCC, the Union Cartage Company. Yet another Vestey company.

[mushroomman]

I mentioned the ‘Log Cabin’ near Pilzen in Czechoslovakia a few posts back, which was another favourite watering hole for drivers heading east.

I bet that petecud still remembers it. With thanks to Pete for posting this.

Postby petecud » Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:31 am

Part 1
CUTTING IT FINE

1990, Got talked into working for a mate (let’s call him John), a proud owner operator of a Scania 142, he’d been doing some Greek work and decided to try Dornacs, (A freight forwarder), Turkish work, (he was a frustrated middle east wannabe really). He knew I’d done a few Baghdads about 10 years earlier, and he decided that I was going to drive for him.

The early eighties were probably the swansong of British trucks operating on a regular basis, carrying freight from the UK and Western Europe to the Arab States. The first Gulf war almost stopped this trade entirely. Quite a few of the men that had plied this route were almost forced to go to different destinations, Turkey, having been a through route for many years, became their cargoes destination!

That decade also saw the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, making transiting these countries that much easier, in most cases, although it took some time for their population to adapt to their new found liberty! Suffice to say, it wasn’t an overnight transition.
When John told me about his plan, I must say that it appealed to me, it had been a while since I’d been abroad in a wagon. I played devils advocate for a while, saying things like “Are you sure you’ve got enough money? Things can go wrong with trucks, and if it happens over the water it can cost an absolute fortune”, his answer was an emphatic “Money’s no problem, don’t worry about that”. I knew him well and he always seemed to have plenty so I accepted it, and also I stipulated that on no account did I intend to do servicing and repairs in between trips! In between trips, those few days were mine to spend with my family, John agreed and said he would do all the servicing of both wagons himself, as and when necessary.

Out of the blue one day John turns up at my house and says “Com’on Pete, I’ve bought another Scanny 142 with a tag axle, for you to drive, and we’re going to pick it up now!” And that was that for a few months, Ankara (Turkey) with steel pipes for a gas
pipeline contract, and reload furniture from Timisoara (Romania) for delivery in Southend, and all that goes with that kind of job (if you know what I mean!).

Meanwhile, John was doing all the servicing etc., of both wagons in between his trips. I’d managed to get him the use of a proper truck workshop facilities (he was doing it all in the street prior to this), with access to all the oils, anti-freeze and bits and bobs needed to service and maintain a truck.

About 6 months later came that fateful last trip in December, 3 weeks before Christmas. The pipe job had all but stopped and I was loaded for Yugoslavia and was shipping out on the Tuesday, John was to load and ship for Greece on the Wednesday. This was going to be the last trip before the Christmas break, shouldn’t take more than 8 - 10 days at the most.

Part 2.
Shipping out.

I was off, Dover- Zeebrugge ferry, crossed into Germany at Aachen, and finally stopped for the night at Geiselwind Truck Stop, an ever popular stop for weary truck drivers which would put British truck stops to shame! The obligatory Zygainer shnitzel and frites washed down with a gallon of German Bier,( I had been coached by Dave Chamberlain, an old hand well experienced in this type of work and lifestyle), this is the life, I thought!

Next morning, it had started snowing, giving the countryside that Xmas card look, by the time I’d cleared the Czech border it was dark and the snow was really getting thick. As I was climbing an incline the drive axle started to lose traction, eventually coming to a stop, lifted the tag axle, still not moving, no problem, I thought, just lock the diff and away we go, a bit of crunching and grinding…and skidding…and then traction…we’re off again!

Must have been midnight when I pulled into the ‘Logcabin’,(a popular rest stop to the west of Prague) it was all in darkness so I just pulled round the back, drew the curtains and went to sleep! Woke next morning about 8, the inside of the windscreen was iced over, I wound the
side window down and all I could see was snow, thermometer read 20 below !! I cranked the engine, started first time, soon get warmed up! Sure enough, the ice on the windows soon melted away, cab was nice and warm, time for some breakfast, but first I’ll move and park out of the way somewhere, I’d parked on the through road.

Put it in gear, tickled the accelerator, started tolet the clutch out and…BANG!! What the f**k’s that?..jumped out of cab to see what’s happened, looked underneath and there it was… the UJ on the prop had snapped, disaster!!

Will have to ring Johns house (no mobiles in them days) and hope he hasn’t left yet, he could pick up another UJ and fetch it to me, I know it’s out of his way, but what’s the alternative? Booked a call on the restaurant phone, finally got through, Johns wife answers, “John left yesterday on his way to Greece, there’s no way to get hold of him, till he rings home, I’m afraid you’re on your own!”

A couple of hours went by as I was thinking what to do next. I decided that the best thing to do would be to take the broken UJ off, ready.
The Log Cabin was a popular stop for the lads going to Turkey and beyond, and sure enough, a Brit in his Ford Transcon, on his way home, pulled in, can’t remember his name or who he was driving for, but he came from the Purfleet area.

I decided the best plan would be to try and get a lift back into Germany and find a scrap yard and see if I can buy a UJ.
The transcon driver agreed that this was the best plan of action and that he would take me…tomorrow morning!!
Oh well, I thought, I’ll just have to sample some of the super Budvar (locally brewed beer, copied by the yanks and sold as Budweiser, but not nearly as good) on offer at this establishment…Sheer Hell!!

Next morning, we’re in the Ford and off towards Germany with the broken UJ in a
couple of shopping bags (to make sure that I got the correct part!), didn’t take any
clothes or anything…wouldn’t need anything…be back here later today!

To be Continued…

petecud
SENIOR MEMBER

[mushroomman]

PART 3.

Home so soon?

We tried a several breakers yards, they didn’t have anything resembling my UJ, after some deliberation the Transcon driver suggested “Might as well come to Purfleet with me, I know quite a few breakers in the area, sure to get one there!”. I thought, what choice have I got, we will be there for Monday and at least communication would be easier. “But I’ve got nothing with me, no change of clothes
or anything!” I protested, “No worries” he said “ I’ve got lots of clean gear, I always come well prepared”…and so it was, we were going back to the UK!

We arrived in Purfleet as expected, on Monday morning, he parked his truck at his base, and we jumped in his car and went to one breakers after another, none of them had the same UJ as mine! Nothing for it, I thought, I’m going to have to ring the Scania repair guy in Stalybridge, John had used him in the past. I phoned him up and he said “Come up, I know the motor, I’ll have one ready for you” We agreed for him to pick me up at Knutsford services when I got there . I managed to get a ride with a wagon loading in Purfleet and heading for Glasgow, and sure enough, when I got to Knutsford, he was there to pick me up.

Time was getting on by then, probably around 7 pm, anyway, we rolled into his yard, walked into the workshop and he says “There it is!”pointing to a UJ,… “That ain’t the one for my motor” I said, “Here’s mine”… as I tipped my broken UJ out of the shopping bags I’d brought with me all the way from the Log Cabin. “Ah, it’s a Dutch spec one, I’ll get you one in the morning, take my van home and come back tomorrow about 10 and it will be waiting for you!” Great, I thought, at least I’ll be on my way back tomorrow, and I can sleep at home tonight.

Got home just after 8, wife was surprised…pleasantly…I hope! Had a quick shower and something to eat, then though I’d just pop round to Johns house ,and update his wife on the situation, so that she could tell John when he phoned. Gave her all the details, then she said something to me that nearly put me into a state of shock…she said “ John says have you checked the antifreeze?”… What!!!..
He’d serviced the wagon just before I loaded to ship out…surely he meant something else and she had misunderstood him!

Anyway, next morning I said my goodbyes once again,and set off for Stalybridge. Sure enough, the correct UJ was waiting for me. The Scania man managed to arrange a lift for me from Trafford Park all the way to Dover! I arrived there about 7 at night and settled myself down in P&O’s freight office, anybody shipping out who I knew had to come through here. Wasn’t long before a lad I knew off the pipe job (again, I forget the name, but he drove for a guy called Hoggy, or something like that) came through, on his way to Hungary., he was
going right past the Log Cabin…result!!

A day and a half later, we arrived back at the Log Cabin in the afternoon, bitter cold and a foot of snow, I just chucked all my gear into my motor, jumped into the drivers seat, put the key in the ignition…then remembered what Johns wife had said to me about the antifreeze, jumped out, lifted the grill,felt one of the water hoses…■■■■!..solid as a rock!!

Winter Break?

Decided to light a small fire under the engine, nothing too big, just enough to defrost the pipes. As the underneath warmed up, I put the new UJ on and tightened every thing up, ready to roll as soon as it was defrosted. Everything was thawing nicely, water was dripping off the engine and pipes, kept squeezing the hoses to see if the ice inside had thawed, patience was the key to this situation.

Around 7pm, Ritchie Thorne pulled in, (we’d had a cracking session at the Telex Motel (another regular stop for old Middle East drivers, just outside Ankara about a month previous, but that’s another story) he asked me what was going on so I told him the whole miserable tale. “Have you had a look at the block?” Ritchie asked,“No, I daren’t” I replied. No sooner said than done, Ritchie had got his torch and was lying on his back in the slush, looking up at the engine block. “You ain’t going nowhere, my boy, you could get your hand in the crack on this block!” Not what I’d wanted to hear, but I’d suspected as much, what with the amount of water that just kept dripping off the
engine. Less than 2 weeks to Christmas, miles from home, in a lorry with a cracked block…you couldn’t make it up!!

On the phone again to Johns wife, when John rings her, she’s going to have to tell him what’s happened and when he’s empty he will have to come back straight to the Log cabin, and we’ll just have to tow the motor back to the UK or something, the choice was going to have to be his, how we solved this. She managed to get the message to him and he agreed for me to just wait there till
he could get to me.

Meanwhile, that meant that I had 2 or 3 days to kill here. In the middle of winter you’re rather restricted as to what you can do to pass the time, I enjoyed a drink or two but even that attraction wears off pretty quickly when that’s all there is to do! Eventually, John arrived, understandably had a little moan about what had happened, then made his decision on what we would do. First, we will swap trailers and go to Yugoslavia double manned, and deliver the 3 drops on my load, reload at Timisoara in Rumania for Southend, then come back and decide what to do then. So that’s what we set out to do.

I gave John all my running money, I wouldn’t be needing it, but he would, he’d have a lot to pay out on this trip!
First drop Zagreb, Yugoslavia went smoothly, even managed to go to a restaurant and have steak and chips (although, thinking about it, it was probably horse).
Next morning we were heading to Novi Sad, we got tipped without any problems. As we were setting off for the last drop at Belgrade, and as John was getting into the cab, a violent gust of wind caught his drivers door, and as it came to a stop at the full extent of its hinges, the door window just shattered!!

There’s more…
petecud
SENIOR MEMBER

To be continued.

[spardo]

There’s more…
petecud

Can’t wait.

[mushroomman]

Postby petecud » Sat Mar 02, 2013 10:05 pm

Part 5.

Doesn’t get any better…

Managed to get a sheet of cardboard and temporarily covered the window area, leaving a gap of about 6” to see out of, and carried, uncomfortably, on. Empty in Belgrade, decided to spend the night at the National Hotel (another favourite stopping place in the Belgrade area). When we arrived, John was feeling a little under the weather and said that he didn’t feel much like a drink or anything, so he would get his head down, and if I wanted to go in it was fine by him.

In the National Hotel restaurant, a few Brits were enjoying ‘Georges’ (everybody was called George, even the women!) hospitality, so I joined them. Amongst them, was a driver I knew from the Dornac pipe job called Eric, We’d had a bit of food and a couple of drinks and Eric suggested that he would tow me back to the UK, he was loading in Hungary and it would save me going to Romania and maybe save me a day or two. Seemed like a plan to me!

Half way through the evening, John had decided to come in for a drink, after all. I told him about Erics offer and he seemed to think it was a good idea. End of the night came, and we were heading back to the wagons when John noticed his drivers door open, he knew that he couldn’t lock it properly with the window missing, but he was sure he’d closed it! You’ve guessed correctly, some scumbag had rifled his cab and made off with his briefcase!

Luckily, John had all his running money in his wallet and kept that on his person at all times, in his briefcase were all the CMR;s, lorry and trailer details, in fact all the paperwork needed on this kind of work and…his PASSPORT! A few of the lads got their torches out and helped search the wooded area which surrounds the National Hotel, hoping that whoever robbed his briefcase, finding no cash in it, just threw it into the bushes, and sure enough, someone shouted “Got it!”, That was exactly what had happened.

WHAT ELSE COULD GO WRONG ON THIS TRIP?

Early next morning, saw Eric and me heading off to Hungary and John on his way to
load at Timisoara, Rumania. We were soon loaded and heading up to Czechoslovakia, but would have to stop for
the night en route to keep Erics tacho legal for when we were in Germany, being back in the E.U. meant that driving hours law applied.

We arrived back at the Log cabin late afternoon, the plan was to bar the two wagons together in the morning and set off at daylight, Eric was enthusiastic for the idea all the way from the National, he was telling all drivers he met at the cabin of our plans! Slowly but surely, as the evening wore on, as other drivers were telling him about the problems and pitfalls he may encounter towing on the autobahn, he was less and less enthusiastic about the idea, and eventually, telling me that he didn’t want to do it any more. He was apologetic, and I understood his concerns, anyway, I couldn’t force him to do it.

Had a lie in the next morning, got up around 9 and went for breakfast, sat there for a couple of hours wondering what to do next, when about 11o’clock, who should pull in but John, he must have driven non stop after we parted at the National. A few coffees later, we decided to top my unit up with water and see how far that gets us before the engine got too hot, we stocked up with as many water containers as we could lay our hands on and set off for the German border.

It wasn’t long before all the water had escaped from the engine, no more than 10 or 15 k’s, we topped up and carried on like that right to and through the border, the plan was to leave the trailer at the West German border and tow the unit all the way to Zeebrugge behind Johns trailer. Which is exactly what we started to do, the snow was falling heavily as we carried on
towards Nurnburg.

By about 11pm visibility was so poor, we called it a day at a rest area. Next morning, the snow had stopped, things were looking a lot brighter, a couple of coffees and off we went again. We’d almost reached Geiselwind when the police pulled us over, “Towing not possible on autobahn, you must use other roads” luckily, they decided not to fine us or worse, after we gave them our sob story, but merely
escorted us off the autobahn and left us to it.

We found a lay by, and just sat there for a while contemplating just how long I would take us to reach home using the national roads, it didn’t bear thinking about. Then I had an idea “Look, we drove the wagon up to the border with a trailer and it didn’t seem to do any more damage to it than was already done, why not see how far we get before it stops altogether, it’s unit only, and it’s knackered anyway?” John agreed, he opened his passenger door to get a 5 gallon of water out, slammed the door behind him… and blow me…that door window shattered… there we were…one wagon with a knackered engine and another with no glass on either of the doors…what a shambles!!!

To be continued.