After having at least Sunday afternoon to service and wash the truck, I was out the yard by 4 am Monday, there were 3 deliveries of copper wire on 2 ton bobbins between Manchester and the Wirral. Usually the back load was empty bobbins on their stillages but as one of the other guys had already done them the week before I was told to head back south and phone from somewhere around Keele services on the M6. I was lucky enough to have the last stillage of by 11.30 so once the side was down and the paperwork signed I headed back south.
The back load was 9 meter lengths of oiled steel bar out of the black country. It was messy stuff, but I liked it as the agent wouldn’t load any groupage on top of it, so it was a 1 collection 1 drop load. The place was an old steel stock holders yard, but the name on the gate was different to the company the were operating from it, as they had just taken over the yard and hadn’t changed the signage yet. The first time I went there it took me a few goes to find it as none of the locals had even heard of the place.
At Keele I phoned the agent to confirm the job but was told to stop at Hilton Park service and collect an Italian driver that was having a bad day and had spat the dummy. It was his first time in the UK, he spoke very little English, he had been weekended, and had also had 2 attempts that morning to try and find the steel stockholder. By the time I got to him he’d had enough and was about to head of home empty, but I got him calmed down and we headed of down the M6 M5 to the Kidderminster junction.
There were a lot of low bridges in the area and coming in the obvious route from the M6 would land you in lot of trouble, which is what my Italian friend had found to his pearl. By 1 we were at the gates and so were about 6 other trucks, so it was waiting time and try to keep the Italian happy, but coffee out of a vending machine in a week plastic cup wasn’t helping at all. To Pass the time I drew an escape map for my friend, and let him load before me, and before he set of I made sure he was going to be all right.
It was a half strip out for me which wasn’t unusual, and by 3 in the afternoon I was ready to roll. The boss came out to meet me at Toddington and gave me my running money and also thanked me on behalf of the agent for getting the Italian to the loading point.
My plan was to get to Calais, so with the oiled steel siting on the lower deck of the step frame, I drove through the rain to Dover and signed of around 7 that evening ( Yeh I know but it was the 90’s and there was a bit of creative time keeping going on )
I was out of Calais for about 6 having had a good nights sleep and headed of to Lux for cheap fuel, and all was going fine. I was wondering what my Italian friend was doing and though that he had probable driven all night, and was by now tipping in Novara and about to sell his truck. At the fuel stop in Lux there was a message from the agent, could I go back to the New BP at Hayby and sort something out. The message was a bit garbled and I didn’t a clue what it could be about, but I turned round and drove back to Hayby.
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Here’s my Italian friend in his Magnum… He really wasn’t having a good trip…
By the time he got to Hayby he’d had enough and pulled in for the night. spying a spot near the gate he thought his luck had turned for the better so he reversed in. Not paying much attention to what was going on and as it was still dark because they still didn’t have all the flood lights installed he reversed his truck. Taking his bearing from the cabs of the other trucks parked either side he just kept going back and would stop when his cab was in line with the them.
The guys either side of him were hauling 20 foot skelly trailers with containers.
I hitched a wire rope round his towing pin and he was back on the road 20 minutes later with no damage, after buying me breakfast, which was really quite good. We ran the rest of the way back to Novara together I never saw him or the truck again after that…
Jeff…