Back at the cab i had calmed down had had a brew and thought how do i find out what sweet corn is in AUSTRIAN i knew i did not have any in tins or any loose product on the trailer that had got on the bumber back bar it would have been long gone by now i needed someone to translate one word. I walked around the trucks and they were all kinds of reg no EUROPEAN
I decided to walk,not far ,to the Yugoslav side just to see if someone would translate sweet corn to Austrian. and there to my relief was a Swiss truck, not my favourite people, however at that time they were ,i just hope he spoke English. it was one of them low loaders yellow and grey paint job.a American truck a low loader.
I knocked the cab door and hope to god he was not asleep, luckily he was not and i said in good ENGLISH excuse me mate ,yes the mate bit, etc, etc any chance you could translate this word etc etc he looked at it ,and i told him in English it was sweet corn i drew a head of corn on paper for him ,and he got it straight away and said the word MAZE!!
you could have blown me over, MAZE yes that what it is i went back to the original agent and wrote down MAZE, they then got it and changed the wording on the papers and CMR ,i told my wife it is ■■■■ or bust ,and i went back to the queue in the hall ,the hall was full of smoke it never left ,as there was no ventilation atall only the door ,all different kinds of ■■■■ ■■■ smells, but you got used to it.
My time came to the window the curtain came back the window open, i put my papers in and i had wrote MAZE in big zboff of letters on the back of sheet of paper A4…next minute out comes a customs man big grey coat ,and the sealing pliers he jesters me to follow he has my papers as well we walk to the truck he puts another seal on gives me my papers and the yellow card, and gesture me to go ,with a verbal ZB OFF in Austrian, i say" cheers old pal" so next the border would be easy…I had no trouble going in to GERMANY to be honest I have no recollection of a tank shine, I remember they measured the tank and dipped it I needed fuel that was for sure a shell garage was needed or desperate I could use the DKV I was headed to Graz ,Suben Frankfurt Aachen, Zeebruge filled up who knows where
After a 2 shifts+ of driving ,it ended up I was chasing to catch the Zeebruge ferry, it was about 1.300 KS from MARRIBOR believe me it was good to get into Belgium get cleared and up to Frigoscania Kings Lynn, believe me it did not go as easy as that however the cold store knew I was coming , a hand ball load to unload, [not by the drivers] a lot of frozen imports go to Frigoscania depots for storage, and redistribution all over the uk
Once unloaded I had a good job sweeping all the loose maze from the floor in to some bins the put the bins up to the back of the trailer by fork lift and you just filled them up, I got a clear signature on the cmr that was the main thing the weight was wrong by about 2 tons they put 18,00ks on the cmr but when I weight on the weigh bridge I was well over nearly 40 tons my tare about 17,000 with meat hooks,no pallets diesel so they got a good load thank god I never got pulled coming out of Dover
Once I had left the in Bedford and took the car home truck ,and it is all forgotten , all the ■■■■ ,the Hassel ,short sleep ,no sleep, agro ,it all makes the job of a fridge driver ,well ■■■■ really, but we all do it again and again, why god knows, because we were drivers.
The best trucks ,eye catching to be correct, were mostly fridge companies and drivers trained to work like owner drivers , now after a time i look back and think , why did i not get out of the fridge game and drive a beat up old truck on dry freight around my local area.or European honestly i cannot answer that question I expect i liked what I did .
After enough time back home to get the washing done, the truck i was driving was somehow on market work, evening and nights when I got back to it, I was waiting for the phone to say go and load here or there for export but it did not seem to come ,maybe I had zb up and they are not telling me so after time i was getting fed up i asked to speak to the boss about why no European for me,i was told that he was in a company merger with Pulleyns transport reading and they were doing most of the meat and export loads…
I did know a few of the Pulleyn,s drivers you would meet up at different places and they always seemed to be a happier bunch they always spoke of the boss Adrian Pulleyn as a real nice man. to cut a long story short, a merger went ahead between Rokold and Pulleyn, not many of you new that, and it did not last that long ,i have no idea what so ever why ,and i did not care either way. not my business
Rokold at the time had built a good new fleet and they were having a depot built ,well units were there at Bicester and they used the premises’ as a office /depot a large /fuel tank was installed as the company had grown to maybe 10 +drivers and trucks also lot of room for parking however
Many trucks were there at the same time
A lot of the work was a lot of “short hop” bus route I used to call it work from Belguim Holland all cold store work, frozen vegetables ,chips, a lot of empty running back over to load ,it got as we would do 3 trips a week, tip and load ,start Sunday night ship over empty knock your nuts out to get the trips in ,i used to love it if when you got back on your 2nd trip to load and the product would not be ready, un till the next day it meant you got a proper nights sleep. you would not believe how your sleep was broken up if you have never done the job, of course some of the younger lads loved it.
Alot of the loads were hand ball ,not on pallets as it added nearly a extra ton however some of `the trailers we were now using were new light weight, no meat rails eventually also a dividing partion that flipped up in the roof for loading frozen and fresh goods they had like ventilator opening so as you could let the frozen air in to the back section to be for fresh products
Before that system there was a large air blow up part ion like a massive blow up bed that went from one side of the trailer to the other
It I had carted it around in a trailer box for another drive to be used I never used it my self however I have seen loads when they were split with the blow up partition that is where your new long daf air line was to be used from your air tanks or have someone get close to your rear doors and use their air or drop your own trailer pleased I never had to use it .
,There were about 5 of us on the short runs ,not as easy as you would think, you had delivers in England maybe more than 3 delivers [timed ] up to Leeds cold store in the fruit market it was non stop believe me, what i did not think about at the time but i had about 20 years age difference to the other drivers, a lot had not long passed the test, “first jobs” lucky to have a newish DAF ,good kit to work with so they loved the mad rush and tare and pace of the job some of the drivers you knew would not stick it as they had” home lives,” and could see the drawbacks of European haulage .